The contribution of Connecticut to the common school system of Pennsylvania

Introduction

Of all the colonies in America, Pennsylvania was the most mixed in population, religion and language. Among the nationalities represented were Dutch, Swedes, English, Germans, Scotch-Irish, Welsh, Swiss and a few French. In religion there were Quakers, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Reformed and the various other German sects whose number it is difficult to estimate. With all these groups the working out of a common educational practice was far more difficult and a slower process than among the homogeneous settlers in the New England states. Religious and consequent political antagonisms appear as a prominent factor in the final educational adjustment which was wrought out in our Commonwealth by the adoption in 1834-5 of a state system of common schools.

The larger and dominant groups in this educational development were the English, including Quakers and Episcopalians, the Germans of the various sects and the Scotch-Irish. The part played by these has been studied and recorded more or less fully; and the debt of Pennsylvania to them and to their zeal for education in the beginning of our history has been acknowledged. A potent educational force, limited however to a small area, and exercised under conditions which were most unfavorable, appears in the group of New Englanders, largely people of Connecticut, in what is known as the Wyoming region in the northeastern part of the State about the middle of the eighteenth century. The steps by which in planning and finally carrying out their design of planting a colony in this region, they also attempted to introduce the educational ideals which they had brought from the home colony sixty years before the well-entrenched groups were ready to adopt a common school system, are worthy of a more systematic study than has as yet been made. Such a study should be a contribution to the educational history of our State not without interest, especially in the light which it can shed upon the better known activities of the previously mentioned groups.

The history of the Wyoming invasion, the resulting conflict and the tragedies which it entailed have been repeatedly recorded, both by the earlier historians, Chapman, Miner and others who drew from local sources and records, and from the personal narratives of actors in the occurrences described ; and more recently by Fisher, in "The Making of Pennsylvania," Chapter X, which contains a brief and spirited account of the New England enterprise from the time of the attempt at the establishment of the charter claim of Connecticut to the northern portion of Pennsylvania down to the final legal adjustment by acts of the legislature of our State early in the nineteenth century. Still more recently Mr. Harvey has issued two volumes of his "History of Wilkes-Barre " which is a scholarly and exhaustive study of the history of the city which "up to about the year 1800," as Mr. Harvey says, " is really in a wide sense the history of the Wyoming Valley." The second volume brings the narrative down to the year 1780; a third volume is promised later.

The educational ideals of the New Englanders and the first steps by which they planned to execute them in the pioneer community which they proposed to build up are set forth in the records of the Susquehanna Company, organized in Connecticut m r 753- The Wyoming settlers, on their arrival in Pennsylvania, immediately undertook the execution of the proposed plans. The records of the town meetings held by the people of that region from the time of their settlement there, and during the years in which the portion of the State claimed by Connecticut was a town and later a county of the latter State, were kept in the "Westmoreland Records." These manuscripts, or a portion of them, were consulted and quoted by Miner in his history. They have since in large part disappeared; only a fragment of them remains, now in the possession of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society at Wilkes-Barre. For forty years from the time of the coming of the New Englanders until the final adjustment of the difficulties and the land claims growing out of these, the region was involved in a series of tragedies, including "border" warfare, Indian massacres and civil disorders, leading to questions of ownership and conflicts of authority, all of which were unfavorable both to the making and the preservation of records. Beside the Westmoreland Records, which, as above mentioned, have almost entirely disappeared, the earliest town records of Wilkes-Barre and other public and private documents were lost or destroyed in the disasters of 1778 and during the later difficulties between the New England settlers and the people of Pennsylvania. 1 Therefore the attempt to study any educational developments which may have occurred in those times of confusion and tumult meets at the outset the discouragement of finding few records.

During the period intervening between the Trenton Decree and the adoption by the State of the common school system, there being no authority in education, such matters were dealt with at the option of local communities; and it is probable that in many cases records were not kept by the school committees representing the various townships. County and local historians have recovered and preserved some township data and personal reminiscences of school intentions and proceedings. The Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Pennsylvania for 1877 contains valuable historical chapters compiled by the co-operation of county and city superintendents, in response to the request of the State Superintendent. Within recent years an attempt has been made to collect all possible items of local record or reminiscence in all lines, and these have been published in the Wyoming Historical Record at Wilkes-Barre, under the editorship of the late Dr. F. C. Johnson, and in the " Proceedings and Collections of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society" in the same city. There is but a slender amount of material with which to make a historical study; yet in this case such details can be fortified by the test of inference, by reference to contemporary newspapers and by a comparison of the accounts which remain with like records of the Connecticut school authorities of the time. Wickersham in his "History of Education in Pennsylvania" says in reference to the system of free public schools brought by the Connecticut settlers into the Wyoming Valley: "Pennsylvania as a Province had nothing to do with establishing them, in principle they were an advance upon the schools then existing in Connecticut; and in most respects were similar in design and management to the public schools of the present day." 1 Fisher says: "One characteristic those heroes succeeded in impressing on the land. That was the New England school system. One of their first acts, amid their poverty and misfortunes, was to make provision for public schools. All through their ancient records we find entries to maintain this institution, without which the New Englander is not of New England. When in the second quarter of the present century, the State adopted that system, it was simply extending to the whole commonwealth what had been in force in the Valley for nearly a hundred years." 2

It is not without significance that in the great educational movements in our State many leaders have been men of New England birth. The debt of Pennsylvania to such New Engenders as Benjamin Franklin, Timothy Pickering, Thaddeus Stevens, Samuel Breck, Walter Johnson, John S. Hart and others has been acknowledged. It remains to gather up from all available sources the facts concerning the contribution which the sturdy group of Connecticut pioneers made to the educational life of our great State in the nearly three quarters of a century which intervened between their coming and the adoption by the State of the common school system in 1834-45.

The bibliography contains a classified list of the works and sources from which material has been drawn, or to which reference has been made. The arrangement in each case is alphabetical, except in the first and last classes, where it seemed desirable to follow the chronological order of publication. No marginal reference is used in the case of citations from newspapers where the date of publication is stated in the text. In legal citations the usual form of reference for such has been followed. The Appendix contains matter which, while not bearing directly on the argument, seemed of too great incidental interest to be omitted.

The writer desires to acknowledge obligation to those who have assisted in or contributed to the work: to the Reverend Dr. Horace E. Hayden, Secretary of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, for his many courtesies in affording opportunity for the use of the valuable collections in the possession of the Society, and for numerous helpful suggestions; to Mr. Oscar J. Harvey of Wilkes- Barre, not only for the light thrown on the study of the Wyoming region by his History of Wilkes-Barre, but also for the privilege of a personal interview which illuminated the subject and pointed out its limitations; to Miss Elizabeth B. Gendell, Librarian of the Philadelphia Normal School, for a thorough search through periodical literature for material bearing on the theme; and to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania for many privileges and courtesies afforded during the prosecution of the work.

Special and grateful acknowledgment is extended to Dean Frank P. Graves of the School of Education of the University of Pennsylvania, for his interest in the work and for suggestions and corrections in the manuscript; and finally, but by no means least of all to Dr. A. Duncan Yocum, Chairman of the Department of Education of the University of Pennsylvania, under whose sympathetic supervision, constant encouragement and numerous wise and practical suggestions the work was begun and has been carried to completion.

Pauline Wolcott Spencer.

University of Pennsylvania, May 20, 1915.

Chapter I The Educational Background

A Brief Survey of the Elementary Education Conducted by the Leading Nationalities and Religious Sects in Pennsylvania

The democracy of America is sustained by the public school supported by the State, and free to all. The public school providing a universal education had its origin in the Reformation. Its basis was the idea that each individual must be capable of reading the Scriptures, and of making a rational application of religious doctrine to his own eternal welfare. 1 The great educational leaders in the movement were Luther, Calvin and Knox. The influence of Luther was supreme in Germany, while that of Calvin was stronger in the Protestant parts of France and Switzerland, in Holland and England. 2 Knox's field of course was Scotland. The Puritans in England and in America were under Calvin's sway. Luther announced in the famous "Address to the Mayors and Councilmen of all the German Cities" in 1524 that "for the maintenance of civil order schools are necessary, and the civil authorities are under obligation to compel the people to send their children to school." 3 The doctrines of Calvin contained a similar implication. It was Protestantism, the desire for religious freedom, that brought the Pilgrims and Puritans to Massachusetts and the Quakers to Pennsylvania. It was inevitable, therefore, that in these and other states so colonized, this idea of universal popular education supported by the state should find early expression.

Since in Pennsylvania there were so many diverse factors and warring elements engaged in working out the political and educational policies of the future, the educational ideas and activities of the leading groups should be briefly summed up. The Dutch, although the first comers to Penn's future province,

1 Monroe: Text Book in the History of Education, p. 407.

2 Fiske: Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, Vol. I., p. 33.

3 Painter: Luther on Education, p. 65.

were numerically unimportant; nevertheless they represented the nation which earliest of all the European states is held to have made literacy common to all, even the peasants, and to have established a system of public schools. Guicciardini, the Florentine historian, is said to have stated that before 1540 the peasants in Holland could commonly read and write their own language, and that free schools, supported by public taxes, were the subject of legislation at various times during the sixteenth century. 1 From an earlier date the Dutch were interested in the public control and support of education, and a number of cities maintained schools. 2 Salaries of the schoolmasters were sometimes paid from the town treasury, sometimes from church funds sequestered from the church orders at the Reformation. 3 Owing to the many religious differences and to the attempt on the part of the Calvinists to dominate the state, religious and secular authorities worked against each other. 4 By the middle of the seventeenth century throughout the country, both cities and rural districts were provided with schools of various grades, controlled and often supported by the public secular authorities. 5 The children of the poor were taught gratuitously. 6 Girls appear to have been admitted to the elementary schools with the boys, although excluded from the privileges of higher education. 7

The view has been frequently advanced that Holland furnished to both Calvinistic New England and Quaker Pennsylvania the ideal of the public school. Wickersham says: "It was during their twelve years' sojourn in Holland that the Pilgrim Fathers obtained the germs of that system of education which has made New England so famous in our educational history; and it was in Holland, too, almost certainly, that William Penn learned those broad principles of educational policy that are embodied in the first Frame he constructed for the government of his Province,

1 Fiske: Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 18. See also Kilpatrick: The Dutch Schools of New Netherland and Colonial New York.

2 Kilpatrick: Op. cit., p. 20.

and that he endeavored to have incorporated in laws for the benefit of the people." 1 Eggleston traces the Dutch law of the Synod of Dort in 1618 to the scheme proposed fifty years earlier by John Knox in his "Book of Discipline." 2 But fifty years prior to that date (161 8) the reformers in Holland had begun to care for schools and schoolmasters. 3 Fiske holds that not the example of Holland, but fundamentally the principles of Calvinism furnished the motive power which led to the movement in behalf of universal and compulsory education in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Protestant portions of Europe. 4

The Swedes were the next comers to Pennsylvania. At home as in other Protestant countries, educational activities were carried on by the co-operation of Church and State authorities. The Swedish government was not neglectful of the educational interests of the colony on the Delaware. 5 Neither Dutch nor Swedes, however, were important factors in the educational development of Pennsylvania, since numerically they were not strong and were soon overshadowed by the more numerous and powerful groups.

With the grant of the territory to Penn and the establishment on Pennsylvania soil of the Quaker province, Penn gave immediate attention to the question of education. In the well-known Preface to the Frame of Government written in England in 1682 he says: "That therefore which makes a good constitution must keep it, namely, men of wisdom and virtue, qualities that because they descend not with worldly inheritance must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education of youth." 6 This Frame contained the following educational provision: "Twelfth, that the Governor and Provincial Council shall erect and order all public schools, and encourage and reward the authors of useful sciences and laudable inventions in the said Province." 7

1 Wickersham: History of Education in Pennsylvania, p. 4.

2 Eggleston: Transit of Civilization, p. 232. Cf. Kilpatrick: op. cit., p. 20.

4 Fiske: Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 33. 6 Wickersham: Op. cit., p. 7.

6 Charter to William Penn and Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania,

A Committee of Manners, Education and Arts was to be appointed, that improper conduct might be suppressed and the youth trained in virtue and useful knowledge and arts. 1 Puritan and Quaker alike looked upon the school as a vital element in the State. In the "Great Law" adopted by the first Assembly held at Chester after Penn's arrival the following provision was included: "That the laws of this Province from time to time shall be published and printed, that every person may have the knowledge thereof ; and they shall be one of the books taught in the schools of the Province and Territories thereof. 2 A subsequent addition was made in a later Frame adopted the following year, which made compulsory upon parents and guardians the instruction of children in letters and industrial skill, and such instruction was to be universal, alike for rich and poor. 3 Ten years later under Governor Fletcher this law was modified and practically nullified by requiring such instruction to be given only by those having sufficient estate and ability to do so. 4 In the Frame of Government drawn up in 1696 by Deputy Governor Markham and accepted by the Assembly, the educational provisions which had been contained in the charters of 1682 and 1683, but omitted from the Petition of Right of 1693, were renewed. 5

The founder of our Commonwealth had undoubtedly the idea of a universal and compulsory education. The religious belief of the Friends implied a democracy. All men stood on common ground; titles and rank had no significance; even the priestly order was abolished, and the time-honored distinction between clergyman and layman was swept aside. It may be possible that by the elimination of the clergyman who had during centuries of mediaeval development represented the educational ideal of the old world the Quaker was unwittingly taking the first steps toward the discouragement of popular education, and the lowering of popular intellectual standards. This may sound like a paradox, but when the development of Quaker

6 Clews: Educational Legislation and Administration, p. 283. (Cf. Charters and Laws, p. 251.)

io The Contribution of Connecticut to the

ideals in Pennsylvania is compared with that of the New England basic conception, and the logical and inevitable sequences of both are laid side by side, its truth will probably be admitted.

The first school in the province appears to have been one established in 1683 in which such children were taught as had parents who were able and willing to pay the specific sums which were agreed upon by the Governor and Council and the teacher, Enoch Flower, for instruction in the various branches. No provision was made for those who had not the means to pay. 1 But Penn had in mind the establishment of a school of higher grade, and also of giving educational opportunity to more than a favored few. Clarkson 2 says that in 1689 Penn instructed Thomas Lloyd "to set up a public grammar school." This was effected by the establishment of the "William Penn Charter School," first chartered in 1697. By the phrase "public grammar school" it is generally supposed that Penn had in mind a school similar to the type so designated in England. Much discussion has centered about the significance of the term, also of "free school" often used. The question is of interest in determining just what the colonial founders meant, not only Penn, but also the New England colonists when they spoke of a "grammar school," a "free school," or a "public school." By the phrase "public grammar school" Penn was probably thinking of an institution of the sort with which he was familiar at home. Towns in England established such schools and provided in various ways for their support, a mode which was effective in New England from the outset. Even in the Middle Ages a sense of municipal responsibility for the support of schools was found in England, Scotland and Germany. 3 The

2 Clarkson: Life of Penn, p. 209.

At a meeting of the Council in 1697, a petition was presented from a number of Quakers, who affirmed that many desired that a school should be set up in Philadelphia where poor children might be freely maintained, taught and educated in good literature, until they were fit to be put out as apprentices, or capable of being masters or ushers in the school. All children and servants, male and female, were to be admitted to this "public school," the rich at reasonable rates, and the poor for nothing (Clews, op. cit., pp. 284, 285). The school was probably already in existence and was probably chartered in response to this petition (Ibid., p. 286).

3 Brown: The Making of our Middle Schools, p. 43.

Common School System of Pennsylvania i i

idea of provision for education by local authorities developed in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the history of state aid in education dates from about this time. 1 Dr. Brown quotes Christopher Wase, an Oxford man, who writing in 1678, stated that "there are of late Grammar Schools founded and endowed in almost every Market Town of England in which the children of the town are to receive instruction free of charge. " 2 The term "public school," as is well known, applies in England today to similar schools founded and endowed either by a private individual, a corporation or a municipality. Eton and Rugby are famous "public schools." The term "grammar school" indicated the grade as secondary, not elementary, at least theoretically (practically the pupils often had still to master the elements of instruction) ; and the curriculum as including the classical languages, particularly Latin. 3 Such schools were often called "free schools," and the exact interpretation of this term is naturally the crux of the discussion. It has been held to mean not a school in which instruction was necessarily given to all without fee, for this was not the case; but a school "free" or open to the public, free also from the jurisdiction of any superior institution, for a "free," i. e., a liberal education, 4 tuition in the classics only being free. 5 Dr. Brown 6 quotes Leach as "giving the latest and perhaps the last word on the subject." Leach discusses at length some suggested interpretations, dismisses them and arrives at the following conclusion: " It is impossible if the phrase is regarded in its historical development . . . that it could have meant anything but what it was popularly supposed to mean, — a school free from payment of tuition fees. Entrance fees and all sorts of extras and luxuries, such as fires, light, candles, stationery, cleaning, whipping, might have to be paid for ; but a free school meant undoubtedly a school in which, because of endowment, all or some of the scholars, the poor or the inhabitants of the place, or a certain number,

1 Monroe: Cyclopaedia of Education, Vol. II, p. 431.

2 Brown: Op. cit., p. 25.

3 Brown: Op. cit., p. 20.

4 U. S. Bureau of Education, Report of Commissioner, 1896-97, p. 1168, Note 3.

5 Barnard: Journal of Education, Vol. XVI, p. 402, note.

were freed from fees for teaching." 1 Dr. Brown calls this "a clear and carefully guarded statement, and adds that in our early colonial period a 'free school' was generally one in which school fees were regularly paid by all but the poorest pupils; moreover it was a school of secondary grade, that is a Latin grammar school." 2

One further comment may be added concerning the use of the word "public" in England as describing such schools. In their origin, as the history of English education shows, they represent the popular development in education which attended the Renaissance. Renaissance and Reformation were closely allied movements in Northern and Protestant Europe. The revival of classical learning in England and Germany was associated with the new attitude in religion; and the people, or "public," as distinct from the clergy, were now to be provided with education in classical learning and religion. Municipal, corporate, private or royal endowment, including free tuition for the poor, following the example of the church schools of the mediaeval period, 3 now provided education generously for the people.

This question has been discussed at length at this point because it is of interest not only in determining the kind of school that Penn had in mind in his suggested plan for his Province, but also because it relates equally to the intentions of the New England colonists in the beginning of their educational foundations. It is to be especially noted, however, that the charter of Penn's school of 1 701, the first actually on record, placed the management in the hands of the Monthly Meeting, and the later one of 1708, took its direction from that body and appointed a Board of Overseers, "fifteen discreet and religious Friends," to assume control. 4 It thus became a private or denominational institution, and so continues at the present time. Branch charity schools of elementary grade were established in different parts of the city, and these continued to exist for more than a hundred and fifty years, and provided an education for the poor

1 Leach: English Schools at the Reformation, pp. 110-114.

3 U. S. Bureau of Education, Report of Commissioner, 1896-97, Chapter XXIV, p. 1 168, Note B. cf. Barnard, Journal of Education, Vol. I, pp. 298, 299 note.

when as yet there was no public school system in our modern sense, and even after there was. Some of them were free, some charged for tuition, and both boys and girls were taught. 1 It will thus be seen that in the practical working out of Penn's plans for a universal education the English ideal, with its aristocratic social tendencies, rather than that of Puritan New England appears from the first. With the development of popular education in England from the time of Elizabeth to the nineteenth century the principle prevailed that it was not the function of the State to provide or enforce education. The Church or individuals might make charitable provision for the poor. England had therefore not accepted, when Pennsylvania was founded, the ideal of the universal and compulsory education maintained by the State, as proclaimed by Luther and Calvin; but still adhered to the older religious and social ideal, which established under the Protestant dispensation schools for instruction in liberal knowledge and religion in which the poor were to be taught free. From the founding of the William Penn Charter School until after the close of the third decade of the nineteenth century Pennsylvania adhered to the plan of a free education for those who could not afford to pay for it, while the ideals of Penn, which might have worked out into something more like the democratic arrangements of Puritan New England, were suppressed by a reversion to those of the mother-country. Penn himself may have realized the impracticability of enforcing his ideal in the clash of sectarian and governmental policies which followed the rapid growth of the colony. Perhaps he saw that the logical application of the theory of popular education would endanger the foundations of the provincial structure which he had reared. 2 His Charter of Privileges of 1701 contains no educational provision. 3 "Little affecting the interests of education can be found on record emanating from the Proprietor, the Governor, the Provincial Council or the General Assembly from Penn's time to the breaking out of the Revolution." 4

1 Graves: History of Education in Modern Times, p. 99.

2 Report U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1893-4, Vol. I, p. 701.

3 Liberty Bell Leaflets, No. 3.

As the state relinquished the original design of the founder for providing and compelling education, the work was taken up by the various religious bodies. In 1712 an act was passed by the Assembly enabling Protestant religious societies to hold property for religious and educational purposes. This was repealed by the Queen's Council the following year. 1 A similar act was passed in 17 15 but again rejected by the English government, and repealed by the Lords Justices in Council in 1719. 2 In 1730 a law was again enacted similarly enabling Protestant religious societies to hold property for educational purposes. This was apparently never considered by the Crown but allowed to become a law by the lapse of time in accordance with the Proprietary Charter. 3 The reasons for this sequence to the original broad-minded plan of Penn for a democratic and universal education are to be found in the political and religious conflicts which attended the development of the Commonwealth, resulting from the great diversity of interests which it contained. Penn had offered a free asylum to men of all religious beliefs and had founded a democracy. As was inevitable at that date, the result was a struggle for supremacy on the part of the leading groups which disturbed the theoretical harmony which was the basis of the structure. From the middle of the eighteenth century the Quakers were unable to maintain a dominant position, and with the Revolution and its determined military resistance to English tyranny the Quaker supremacy was lost.

The various religious sects were devoted to their ecclesiastical views and most of them were active in education. The Friends conducted schools in meeting-houses or in schoolhouses connected with them. Money was raised by subscription, legacies and contributions; endowments were provided and the poor were liberally assisted. These schools were often open to all the children of a neighborhood, irrespective of creed. Institutions of higher than elementary grade were founded, and the training of teachers was encouraged. 4 The Episcopalian congregations also established schools in connection with their churches, show-

1 Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania, Vol. II, p. 424.

4 Wickersham: op. cit., pp. 80-94.

ing too, a liberal policy in admitting children of other creeds in the neighborhood and interesting themselves in higher, as well as in elementary and religious education. 1

The Germans who came to Pennsylvania, like the other sects, because they found here an opportunity to establish civil and religious liberty, were devout people and usually brought with them when they came in numbers, clergymen and schoolmasters. The first public building erected by these communities was ordinarily used both as church and schoolhouse. Where they had one for each purpose they generally stood side by side. By the middle of the eighteenth century the Germans formed more than one third of the population, but they were scattered and isolated and they lacked religious organization. In spite of the fact that many of their leaders were learned men, and that their ministers and schoolmasters made creditable attempts to maintain schools for their congregations, educational facilities were inadequate and the more thoughtful among them saw with dismay that illiteracy was increasing. Even churches were insufficient in number. 2 An appeal sent to the Lutheran and Reformed congregations in the mother-country brought a response in the sending of clergymen and money to aid the cause of religion and education in America. 3 An organization was formed in London in 1753 called "The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge among the Germans in Pennsylvania." 4 In addition to the original religious motives for the work among the Germans, political considerations were added, and the desirability of providing education in the English language for the German population, in order to make them more thoroughgoing English subjects appealed to the people of England who were interested in the plan. Through the endeavors of Dr. Smith, the first Provost of the College and Academy of the City of Philadelphia, afterward the University of Pennsylvania, contributions were secured from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, from royalty as well as from other individuals and a board of trustees in the colony was appointed. 5