and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its Zoological Park (opened 1899) forms the southern part of Bronx Park, in which the animals (5528 individuals, 1146 species—246 mammals, 644 birds and 256 reptiles in 1910) are almost perfectly housed—in large houses, flying cages, pools, dens and ranges. The Botanical Gardens (incorporated in 1891 and 1894), occupying the N. part of Bronx Park, contains two large conservatories (the largest in America), the largest botanical museum in the world (1900), with lecture hall and museum of fossil botany in the basement, a collection of economic plants on the main floor, and a library, herbarium, laboratories, type exhibits of vegetation on the upper floors, and a natural hemlock grove and bog garden, pinetum, herbaceous grounds, flower garden, fruticetum and deciduous arboretum. The American Museum of Natural History was incorporated in 1869, and is governed by a board of trustees. On the ground floor of its building (77th–81st Streets; Eighth–Ninth Avenues) are a lecture hall, meteorites, the Jesup collections of the woods of North America and of building stones, and anthropological and ethnological collections, particularly rich in specimens from the North Pacific region, collected by an expedition sent out by Morris K. Jesup (q.v.). On the main floor are the mammals, insects and butterflies; on the second floor the palaeontological collections, the Cope collection of fossils and (presented by J. P. Morgan) the Bement collection of minerals and the Tiffany collection of gems; and on the top floor are a collection of shells and the library, including that of the New York Academy of Sciences, which was founded in 1817 and incorporated in 1818 as the Lyceum of Natural History, received its present name in 1876, and publishes Annals (1824 sqq.) and Transactions (1881 sqq.). Other learned societies are: the New York Historical Society (founded in 1804 and incorporated in 1809), which has a library rich in Americana, the Lenox collection of Assyrian marbles, and the Abbott collection of Egyptian antiquities; the American Geographical Society (founded in 1852; incorporated in 1854), which issues a Bulletin (1859 sqq.); the American Numismatic Society (1858), with an excellent numismatic library and collection; the American Society of Civil Engineers (1852; with a club house and library); the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1880), which occupies with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the American Institute of Mining Engineers (1871) a building given by Andrew Carnegie; and the New York Academy of Medicine (1847), with a technical library.
Literature.—In literature[1] New York’s position in America is largely due to the city’s being the home of the principal publishing houses and, as the American metropolis, the home of many authors. Charles Brockden Brown, the first American professional “man-of-letters,” although a Philadelphian by birth, was connected with New York City throughout his literary career; after him came the brilliant Knickerbocker school, including Irving, Cooper, Bryant, James Rodman Drake, Fitz Greene Halleck, Charles Fenno Hoffman (who in 1833 established the Knickerbocker Magazine), N. P. Willis, Edgar Allan Poe, J. K. Paulding, George P. Morris and Gulian C. Verplanck. In this early period New York literature centred largely about the Knickerbocker and the Mirror; and in the later period the monthlies Harper’s (1850), the Century (founded in 1870 as Scribner’s; present name 1881), and Scribner’s (1887) were great literary influences under the editorship of such men as George William Curtis, Josiah Gilbert Holland, William Dean Howells, Henry Mills Alden (b. 1836) and Richard Watson Gilder. Richard Henry Stoddard, Richard Grant White, Bayard Taylor, Edmund Clarence Stedman, H. C. Bunner and John Bigelow are other literary names connected with New York City and with its periodical press. The success of the older magazines has brought into the field lower-priced monthlies. The oldest religious weekly still published is the New York Observer (1823; Presbyterian); its great editors were Samuel Irenaeus Prime from 1840 to 1885 and afterwards his son-in-law Charles Augustus Stoddard. Others are the Churchman (1844; Protestant Episcopal), the Christian Advocate (1826; Methodist Episcopal), the Examiner (1823; Baptist), the Christian Herald (1878) famous for its various charities under the control (1892–1910) of Dr Louis Klopsch (1852–1910), the Outlook (founded in 1870 as the Christian Union by Henry Ward Beecher and carried on as a household magazine by Lyman Abbott), and the Independent (1846) after 1870 edited by William Hayes Ward.
The city’s cosmopolitan character is suggested by the great number of its newspapers published in other languages than English: in 1905 of all the periodical publications in New York City almost one-seventh (127 out of 893) were printed in languages other than English, 20 languages or dialects being represented. German, Yiddish and Italian newspapers have large circulations, and there are Bohemian, Greek, French, Croatian, Hungarian and Slavonic dailies. To a degree the New York press is metropolitan, also; but the American press is not dominated by the newspapers of New York as the English press is by that of London (see Newspapers: United States).
Education.[2]—The Dutch West India Company was bound by its charter to provide schoolmasters. Its first schoolmaster emigrated in 1633 and his school still exists in the Collegiate School, the property of the Collegiate (Dutch) Reformed Church. Down to the middle of the 17th century the support and control of the schools remained with the Dutch Church. Later the desire of the English to hasten the substitution of the English for the Dutch language in the colony led to an unsuccessful attempt by the colonial government to reserve to itself the appointment of the schoolmasters. An English public school was established in 1705 under an Act of 1702, and in 1710 was first opened in connexion with the Anglican Church. It still exists as the Trinity School. In 1754 King’s College, now Columbia University (q.v.), was established; the Dutch Reformed Church made a vain effort to secure control of it, but it became Anglican in its sympathies and its teachers were mostly Loyalists. Before the War of Independence the English language had practically carried the day, and taken possession of the schools and churches.
In 1787 the Manumission Society established a free school for negroes, which was incorporated in 1794. A Quaker society (1798), the “Association of Female Friends for the Relief of the Poor,” opened a school in 1801, which soon became a school for white girls only; until 1824 it shared in the school fund and it carried on an infant school only from 1824 to 1846. An association known in 1805–1808 as the Society for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York (afterwards the “Free School Society,” and after 1826 the “Public School Society”) opened its first school in May 1806; got an appropriation from the state legislature in 1807; in 1819 brought from England a Lancasterian teacher—for the sake of economy the society’s schools had always been conducted under the Lancasterian system with student “monitors” or assistant teachers; until 1826 was largely under the control of the Friends, giving religious instruction; and was supported in part by voluntary contributions, in part by subscriptions from those who desired to share in its management, and in a small degree after 1815 by a contribution from the school fund of the state. For fifty years it did virtually all that was done for popular education in New York City, and for nearly thirty years caused the exemption of the city from the operation of the common-school system of the state; and about 600,000 children passed through its schools.
The Roman Catholic parochial schools opposed the Protestant character of the text-books used in these public schools, and in 1840, followed by Hebrew and Presbyterian schools, attempted in vain to secure a part of the common-school fund. In 1842, as a result of this controversy, the city was brought under the general state system, but the Public School Society retained control of its own schools. The Board of Education opened its first schools in 1843. The right of the Public School Society to put up new buildings was definitely withdrawn in 1848; and in 1853 the Society was voluntarily dissolved, and its seventeen schools and property (valued at $454,422) were handed over to the city authorities; from its trustees fifteen commissioners were appointed to hold office through 1854, and in each ward where there had been a school of the Society three trustees were chosen. After 1856 the control of the schools was entirely in the hands of the Board of Education. A compulsory education law came into effect in 1875. Since 1874 the Board has controlled a Nautical School, a training ship being lent to the city by the Federal Navy Department. The separate schools for negroes were abolished in 1884; free lecture courses were established in 1888; in 1893 seven kindergarten classes were established, and after 1896 a supervisor of kindergartens was appointed by the Board; and in 1894 a teachers’ retirement fund was established, the first in any American city.
In Brooklyn also the early Dutch schools were under the clergy. In 1815 the schools first received a part of the state common-school fund. There were separate district schools until 1843 when a Board of Education was organized.
By the consolidation of 1898 the Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx became a unit for school purposes, the former city Board of Education becoming the School Board for these two boroughs; the former Brooklyn Board remained in control in that borough; and there was a Central Board of Education for the entire city consisting of eleven delegates from the Manhattan and Bronx Board, six delegates from the Brooklyn Board, and one each (the president) from the Richmond Board and the Queens Board. The revised charter of 1901: abolished the borough school boards and established a single board with 46 members (22 from Manhattan, 14 from Brooklyn, 4 from the Bronx, 4 from Queens and 2 from Richmond), and 46 local school boards (distributed as above) of seven members each, who took the place of the former inspectors in Manhattan and the Bronx. In the City Board there is an executive committee of 15 members. The borough superintendents were done away with in 1901; the powers of the city superintendent were increased, and a board of superintendents (the city superintendent and eight associate superintendents) was created. A board of examiners, nominated by the city superintendent and appointed by the Board of Education, supervises examinations taken by candidates for teaching positions, appointments to which are governed by rigid civil service rules. The development of public high schools has been rapid since the consolidation. In 1909–1910 trade schools and schools for the anaemic were established. There is an excellent system of evening and vacation schools.
A Free Academy founded in 1848 for advanced pupils who had left the common schools was empowered to grant degrees in 1854,
