ANTISLAVERY LEGISLATION desired.

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passed. The bill finally passed both houses in January, 1774, but Governor Hutchinson refused his assent, his "instructions," he said, forbidding." His successor, Governor Gage, refused for the same

reason.

The blacks had better success in the judicial courts. Slaves brought action against their masters for detaining them in bondage. Between 1770 and the Revolution several of these suits were brought, and the juries invariably gave their verdict in favor of liberty.

In the latter part of this period Anthony Benezet, of Huguenot parentage, a man of practical piety, appeared in the field toiling for the oppressed.

During the ten years preceding the Revolution a desire for emancipation and the extinction of the slave trade became very general, and found frequent utterance in pulpits and pamphlets. Nor were these efforts without apparent fruit. Many towns passed resolutions praying the colonial legislatures to take action at once in the interest of humanity; and many slave masters, who subsequently aided in inaugurating the Revolution and fighting its battles, became hostile to the slave trade, and even to the existence of slavery itself. The general agitation of questions relating to the rights of man, and particularly the colonial rights, aided this movement, and made the sinfulness and wrong of slavery more apparent.

Benezet, Rush, Hopkins, etc.

But this great work was not advanced chiefly by the efforts of statesmen and philanthropists. The prime impulse and support came from Christian laymen and divines, who furnished its pabulum and inspiration. In the six years from 1770 to 1776 the antislavery efforts of several Christian gentlemen attracted particular attention. In Pennsylvania that sterling Christian nobleman, Anthony Benezet, was still in the midst of his indefatigable labors-" few men," according to Dr. Benjamin Rush, "ever lived a more disinterested life;" the supreme objects of his enthusiastic philanthropy were the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation and instruction of the negroes. He conducted evening schools in Philadelphia for their benefit, and wrote, published and distributed throughout the colonies, at his own expense, tracts against slavery. In 1771 he published his Historical Account of Guinea, and an Inquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade, which enlightened and quickened the youthful mind of Hon. Thomas Clarkson, the great English antislavery reformer, and imparted the impulse to his great life-work.

In 1773 another eminent Philadelphian, Dr. Benjamin Rush, conspicuous as a Christian, a physician, a philanthropist and a statesman, in whose home Asbury and other early Wesleyan evangelists often received hospitality, published an address on the injustice and inhumanity of slavery. The following year, under his advocacy, the First Continental Congress determined that the United Colonies should "neither import nor purchase any slaves, and would wholly discontinue the slave trade." Soon after the North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia conventions pledged their "utmost endeavors for the manumission of the slaves in their colonies." April 6, 1776, Congress resolved, without opposition, that "no slaves be imported into the thirteen United Colonies." All these movements are largely credited to Dr. Rush.

One of the most decided and resolute champions of abolition in this period was Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D.D., of Newport, R. I., famous for the phase of theology which bore his name. A frequent witness of the landing of slaves from Africa, near his church and home, he became deeply stirred with the abominations of the system. As early as 1770 he boldly attacked the infamous trade in his own congregation (deeply involved in the guilt of slave trading and slave holding), sharply rebuked the sin, and pleaded the cause of its victims. Through his efforts in 1774 the further importation of negroes was prohibited in Rhode Island. In 1776 he published a famous pamphlet against slavery-the ablest document that had then appeared on the subject-dedicated to the Continental Congress, "urging the duty and interest of the American States to emancipate all the African slaves."

At their Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia, in 1774, the Friends enacted regulations against slavery more stringent than any that had preceded, and in 1776 they resolved that "owners of slaves who refused to enact proper instruments for giving them their freedom shall be disowned." In 1774 Rev. John Wesley's celebrated tract, Thoughts on Slavery, subsequently sown broadcast throughout England, Scotland and Ireland during the great English emancipation movement, was published and circulated among his societies in America. His first American itinerants were active disseminators of his antislavery views, suffering persecution in some quarters on account of them.

The Revolution, with its exciting events, was at hand. In another place consideration of the antislavery movement will be resumed.

HE schools of Judea and Egypt were ecclesiastical, convenience and gratitude confirming the monopoly of the clergy. The schools of the Nile gave character and direction to those of Greece and Rome. Education became secular only in countries. where the priesthood did not exist as a separate body. At Rome children were trained for the duties of life in the forum and the senate house. The literary education of the first Christians was obtained in pagan schools, which flourished down to the fourth century, in Southern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa. The first attempt to provide a special education for Christians was made at Alexandria, under Clement and Origen. The education of the Middle Ages was either that of the cloister or the castle, the one aiming to form a monk and the other a knight. Those illustrious monasteries, Monte Cassino, Fulda and Tours, kept the torch of learning ablaze during the Dark Ages, and should not be ungratefully forgotten, though the character and value of the teachings they imparted should not be exaggerated. Both of these forms. of education disappeared under the brighter illuminations of the Renaissance and the Reformation.

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the rise of universities and academies almost all over Europe. For one hundred years no part of Europe shone with brighter luster than the Northern Netherlands. But even in this advanced era education was not dissociated from ecclesiastical influence. The name of Erasmus best represents the education of the Renaissance, and Luther and Melanchthon that of the Reformation. Luther introduced the school-master to the cottage, and laid the foundations of the system which is the chief honor and strength of modern Germany. Melanchthon, with his numerous editions of school-books and

practical labors in education, earned the title of Preceptor Germaniæ. The purification and widening of education kept pace with the purification of religion. It would not be difficult to trace a picture of the education which the Reformation furnished to the middle classes of Europe, if the limits of this brief preliminary sketch allowed it. Suffice it to say that the Protestant schools became the best in Europe and the monkish institutions were left to decay, until the Jesuits arose and to some extent redeemed them for a season; but the Jesuits were liable to the charge of taking too rigid possession of the pupils in body and soul. The great universities of England and Scotland, in which the founders of the Anglo-American colonies received their education, had their origin and growth in close relations with the Christian Church.

Thus it appears that, in both ancient and modern times, education has been almost wholly an outgrowth from ecclesiastical life. Pre-eminently has this been true since the Christian era was inaugurated. The educational beginnings and growth in the American colonies, we shall soon see, conspicuously illustrate this rule.

Section 1.-The Common School System.

It has already been noticed that the Protestant colonists in America were actuated primarily by religious aims, and that the first companies of settlers represented church organizations.

Southern Colonies.

Almost at the beginning of the settlement at Jamestown the Bishop of London raised £1,000 toward a college, and it was resolved. that "each town, borough, and hundred, ought to procure by just means a certain number of children (natives) to be brought up; that the most towardly of these should be fitted for college." Ten thousand acres of land were laid off for the "University of Henrico," for the education of the English as well as the Indians. The minister of Henrico, Rev. Mr. Bargrave, gave his library. Preparatory to the college, an institution was about to be established at St. Charles City; but the whole project received its death-blow from the terrible Indian massacre in March, 1622. Long and disastrous Indian wars followed, and the project of founding a college was deferred until the establishment of William and Mary College, in 1692. We find no traces of common schools in the colony.

FREE SCHOOLS IN THE COLONIES.

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In the South, the sons of the great planters were liberally educated and polished in manners, while the scattered common people had no schools and were very rude and ignorant; but the masses in New England, with few exceptions, had some rough schooling, besides the advantages for intellectual culture afforded by the meeting-house and the debates of the town meeting. Such advantages were not appreciated in Virginia. One of the governors of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley, in 1670, replying to inquiries addressed to him by the Lords of Plantations, said, "I thank God there are no schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!" *

In Maryland the Legislature made provisions for high schools in all the counties as early as 1723, and lands and money were appropriated in their aid. A poll tax for the aid of education was laid on negroes and Irish Catholic servants coming into the province.

In the Carolinas no efficient system of education was provided for a long time, and meager results were therefore reached. The constitution of North Carolina in 1776 made it the duty of the Legislature "to establish schools for the convenient instruction of youth," and "one or more universities;" but no adequate pecuniary provision for the latter was furnished. South Carolina was somewhat more alive to this work, and as early as 1700 the Legislature provided for a free school at Charleston, and gave aid to the country schools. It is said that, during the first three fourths of the eighteenth century, a larger number of students from South Carolina than from any other colony went to Europe for a university education. In 1769 a bill for founding a college was introduced into the Legislature, but it failed. The Constitution of Georgia adopted in 1777 provided that every county should "establish and keep a school at the public expense." The first school in Pennsylvania, in 1683, was private-tuition, eight shillings per annum.

New York.

Those three Protestant peoples, the Dutch, the Huguenots, and the Puritans, all brought the Church, the Bible and the schoolmaster with them. In 1626 two school-masters arrived on Manhat

*Hening's Laws of Virginia. Appendix.