dies of Daniel, Samson, Jonah, Jesus, the saints, and Christian martyrs, from being studied in school-hours and talked about at home, became things as real as the daily lives of the colonists.
The struggle for freedom, the importation of secular books, the introduction of printing-press and newspapers, diverted the minds of the people into broader and deeper channels. The men of liberal thought and culture who founded the Republic of the West, such as Jefferson and Madison, agitated the subject of the higher education of the people. It was particularly the desire of Jefferson to have crusades preached against the evils of ignorance, and to have laws established for informing and educating the common people.
"Free schools" had always been, and justly too, a favorite scheme among reformers for elevating the race. American statesmen and philanthropists put this plan in operation at an early period; it met, however, with but ill success at first, owing to the dearth of skillful teachers. One of the early writers says: "The business of instruction in preparatory schools was with few exceptions under the control of inadequate principles; in many instances the commonest business of life was abandoned on the demand for a teacher; and the responsible duties of an intellectual guide undertaken by individuals whose chief recommendation was their dexterity with the awl and hammer."
It was not until over thirty years after the close of the war of 1776 that a regular system of schools at the public expense was established. New England boasted with pride of being the first in education, as she had been in war. Her example was closely followed by the other States. In New York, in 1805, many gentlemen of prominence associated for the purpose of establishing a free school in New York City for the education of the children of persons in indigent circumstances, and who did not belong to, or were not provided for by, any religious society.
These public-spirited gentlemen presented a memorial to the Legislature, setting forth the benefits that would result to society from educating such children, and that it would enable them more effectually to accomplish the objects of their institution if the schools were incorporated. The bill of incorporation was passed April 9, 1805.
This was the nucleus from which the present system of public schools started into existence. Later on, in the year 1808, we find from annual printed reports that two free schools were opened and were in working order.
One of these schools was situated on a large lot of ground in Chatham Street, on which was an arsenal. It was presented by the corporation to the Free School Society of New York, on condition of that organization gratuitously educating the almshouse children. In 1809 the building was ready for occupation; it was a brick edifice one hundred and twenty feet in length and forty feet in width, capable of accommodating in one room five hundred children. In the lower story
