His Education.

Governor Berkeley, that old stumbling-block-head who stopped the wheels of progress in Virginia for fifty years, wrote to the English Commissioners in 1670: “I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have, for learning hath brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing hath divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!”

The bigoted Sir William set forth but too accurately the condition of affairs not only in Virginia, but in Maryland as well. It is impossible to avoid noting the striking contrast between the South and New England, where, by this time, every colony except Rhode Island had made education compulsory, where the school-house and the church stood side by side in every village. An old New England statute commands that “every township, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty households, shall appoint one to teach all the children to write and read, and when any town shall increase to the number of a hundred families, they shall set up a grammar school.” All the energy of the Puritan which was not absorbed in religion vented itself on education. Ambition turned its current to learning as more desirable than wealth. “Child,” said a New England matron to her boy, “if God make thee a good Christian and a good scholar, thou hast all that thy mother ever asked for thee.”

Such a spirit bred a race of readers and students, trained to sift arguments and to weigh reasons. No such devotion to books or scholarship prevailed at the South. Yet when the Revolution came, the most thrilling eloquence, the highest statesmanship, the greatest military genius were found among these Southerners. Their education had been different from that of the Puritans, but it had been an education none the less. The Cavalier had been trained in the school of politics, in the responsibilities of power, and in the traditions of greatness.

The very absence of the reading habit tended to develop action, and the power of thinking out problems afresh, unhampered by the trammels of other men’s thoughts. The haughtiness begotten by slave-holding made it doubly hard for the master to bow the knee even to a sovereign. The habit of command and responsibility of power, which shone on the battlefield and in the council-chamber, were learned on the lonely estates, where each planter was a king. Behind all these elements of training were the ideals which moulded the mind and the character.

Berkeley’s taunting question to Bacon, “Have you forgot to be a gentleman?” owed its sting to this suggestion that he had been false to the traditions of his class. If we hold that tact and courtesy and gracious hospitality are results of education, we must admit that the Puritans of New England might have learned much from their neighbors in Maryland and Virginia. The education of politics, of power, of high traditions in virtue and in manners the Colonial Cavalier possessed. The education of books he lacked. Here and there, however, we find traces of some omnivorous reader even in the earliest times. Books were highly valued and treasured by generation after generation. We find among the old wills that “Richard Russell left Richard Yates ‘a booke called Lyons play,’ ‘John porter junr. six books’ ‘John porter (1) my exec’r, ten books,’ ‘Katherin Greene three bookes,’ ‘One book to Sarah Dyer,’ ‘unto Wm. Greene his wife two books & her mother a booke,’ ‘Anna[Pg 226 & 227] Godby two books,’ ‘Jno. Abell One booke in Quarto,’ ‘Richard Lawrence One booke.’”[1]

Master Ralph Wormeley’s library numbered several hundred volumes, and a man might have found enough among them to gratify any inclination. If his tastes were frivolous, here were “fifty comodys and tragedies,” and “The Genteel Siner.” Were he an epicure, he might regale himself with “the body of cookery,” and revel in its appetizing recipes for potpies and the proper method of roasting a sucking pig; and if his mind were piously inclined, the resources of the library were unlimited. Side by side on its shelves stood “No Cross, No Crowne,” “The ffamous Doct^r Usher’s Body of Divinity,” “Doct^r ffuller’s Holy State,” and last and longest, the ninety-six sermons of the good parson Andros.

Some of these old colonial sermons came to an unprofitable end. A bundle of them was laid away in a drawer, and, when sought for, it was learned that they had been torn up and used by the damsels of the household as curling-papers. The writer might have been at least half-satisfied in the reflection that his discourses had touched the head, if not the heart.

In spite of all the old inventories which are being brought to light to show the existence of books and book lovers in the South, the fact remains that the Cavalier was no bookworm. He felt that a boy who had learned to ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth, had received the rudiments at least of education. Whatever he learned more than this was acquired either in the old field-school or more often from a private tutor, usually a clergyman of the Church of England. Some attempts were made by private persons to found public-schools. In 1634, Benjamin Sym devised two hundred acres of land on the Pocosan River, together with the milk and increase of eight cows, for “the maintenance of a learned, honest man, to keep, upon the said ground, a Free-School for the education of the children of Elizabeth City and Kiquotan, from Mary’s Mount downward to the Pocosan River.”

“Richard Russell in his will made July 24th, 1667, and proved December 16th, the same year, now among the records of Lower Norfolk county, declared: ‘the other pte of my Estate I give & bequeath One pte of itt unto Six of the poorest mens Children in Eliz: Riv’r, to pay for their Teaching to read & after these six are entred then if Six more comes I give a pte allsoe to Enter them in like manner.’”

In spite of private gifts, and individual effort, and public Acts of Assembly, the school system of New England did not and could not thrive at the South, because it was out of harmony with the spirit and institutions of the people. The plantations were so separated that any assembling of the children was difficult, the spirit of caste was too strong to encourage the free mingling of rich and poor, and the traditions of the Cavalier were not traditions of scholarship. The sword, not the pen, had always been the weapon of the gentleman. Montrose, and not Milton, was his hero. When Captain Smith proudly boasted that he did not sit mewed up in a library writing of other men’s exploits, but that what his sword did, his pen writ, he expressed the ideal of the Colonial Cavalier.

“I observe,” quoth Spotswood ironically to the Virginia Burgesses, “that the grand ruling party in your House has not furnished chairmen of two of your standing committees who can spell English or write common-sense, as the grievances under their own hand-writing will manifest.”

Ebenezer Cook in his “Voyage to Maryland,” writes with acrimonious sarcasm of “A reverend judge who, to the shame of all the Bench, could write his name.” The jest of the Sot-Weed Factor scarcely outstripped the sober truth, and a century later the general ignorance was almost as dense. Several instances are on record where the servant signed his name and the master made his mark. The cross or other conventional sign was not uncommon, and in general the letters of the names are evolved slowly and painfully, as by men more apt with the gun than with the quill.

Hugh Jones, a Fellow of William and Mary College, writes of his countrymen that, for the most part, they are only desirous of learning what is absolutely necessary, in the shortest way. To meet this peculiarity Mr. Jones states that he has designed a royal road to learning, consisting of a series of text-books embracing an Accidence to Christianity, an Accidence to the Mathematicks, and an Accidence to the English Tongue. This last is “for the use of such boys and men as have never learned Latin, and for the Benefit of the Female Sex.”

The Bishop of London addressed a circular to the Virginia clergy inquiring as to the condition of their parishes. To the question, “Are there any schools in your parish?” the almost invariable answer was: “None.” To the question, “Is there any parish library?” but a single affirmative response was received. One minister replied, “We have the The Book of Homilies, The Whole Duty of Man, and The Singing Psalms.”

It may be to this very scarcity of books that we owe that originality and vigor of thought which distinguished the leaders of the Revolution. Governor Page reported Patrick Henry as saying to him, “Naiteral parts is better than all the larnin upon yearth,” and when to naiteral parts we add the mastery of a few English classics, we touch the secret of the dignity and virility which mark the utterances of these men who had known so little school-training.Randolph of Roanoke, the youngest son of his widowed mother, was taught by her as a little child. As he grew older he was left a good deal to his own devices, but his mind was not idle, and he had access to an unusually good library. Before he was ten, he had read Voltaire’s “History of Charles XII.,” “Reynard the Fox,” and odd volumes of The Spectator. The “Arabian Nights” and Shakespeare were his delight. “I had read them,” he writes, “with Don Quixote, Quintus Curtius, Plutarch, Pope’s Homer, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver, Tom Jones, Orlando Furioso, and Thomson’s Seasons, before I was eleven years old.”

Washington, unlike most of his compeers, was sent to school, first in the little cabin taught by the sexton of the church, a man named Hobby, and afterward to a more advanced school taught by a Mr. Williams. Here he decorated his writing and ciphering books, school-boy fashion, with nondescript birds done in pen-flourishes, and with amateur profile portraits. Here also he copied legal forms, bills of exchange, bonds, etc., till he acquired that methodical habit which afterward stood him in good stead. There were good and faithful teachers in those days, though they were not too common. The Scotch seem to have done most of the teaching in the colonies, and to have done it well. Jefferson recalls the “mouldy pies and good teaching” of the Scotch minister who taught him the languages; and many a Scotch name figures in the list of parish school-teachers.

In an old file of the Maryland Gazette we may read the advertisement of John and Sally Stott, who propose to open a school “where English, arithmetic, book-keeping, mensuration, knitting, sewing and sample-work on cat-gut and muslin are to be taught in an easy and intelligible manner.”

The charges for schooling were not extravagant. The Reverend Devereux Jarratt taught a “plain school” for the equivalent of about thirty-three dollars a year. A tutor from London received a salary of thirty pounds sterling, and Jonathan Boucher charged for tuition twenty-five pounds a year, “the boy to bring his own bed.”

Boucher was at one time tutor to Parke Custis, then a somewhat headstrong boy of sixteen. Young Custis wished to travel abroad with his tutor, but Washington wrote to Mr. Boucher: “I can not help giving it as my opinion that his education is by no means ripe enough for a travelling tour. Not that I think his becoming a mere scholar is a desirable education for a gentleman, but I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which all other knowledge is to be built, and in travelling he is to become acquainted with men and things rather than books.” Later in the letter he adds: “It is to be expected that every man who travels with a view of observing the laws and customs of other countries should be able to give some description of the situation and government of his own.”

Boucher took just the opposite ground from his patron. He argued that the best education consisted in mingling with men and seeing the culture of other lands. He lamented the provinciality of Virginia and its lack of intercourse with the great world. “Saving here and there a needy emigrant from Great Britain, an illiterate captain of a ship, or a subaltern merchant, to whom,” he asks, “can a Virginia youth apply for a specimen of the manners, etc., of any other people?”

The majority of the landed gentry were in sympathy with the views of Boucher rather than with those of Washington. Travel and education abroad, especially in England, were universally desired, and the influence on the colonies was marked, as the lad brought back with him from Oxford the views of the Cavaliers and their descendants, as the ship which bore him brought back the carved furniture, the massive plate, the leather-bound books, the coat of arms, and the panels for the hall fireplace.

The record of matriculations at Oxford contains many colonial names. Here is “Henry Fitzhugh, s. William, of Virginia, Gent.” (Christ Church) matriculated at the age of fifteen. Christopher and Peter Robinson, and Robert Yates, set down as from “Insula VirginiÆ,” register at Oriel, and Lewis Burwell at Balliol. The average age of matriculation among these colonial youth is eighteen; but boys were often sent to England, or “home,” as the colonists delighted to call it, long before they were old enough for University life.

Governor Spotswood’s grandsons were sent over seas to Eton by their guardian, Colonel Moore, their father being dead. They boarded with a Mrs. Young, who showed a wonderfully good and tender heart, for when their guardian ceased to send remittances and the poor boys were left without resources, this kind landlady not only remitted the price of their board, which with charges for candles, fire and mending amounted to over twenty-eight pounds sterling, but actually supplied them with pocket-money to the extent of three pounds, and paid the expenses of “salt money, cost of montem poles, and montem dinner.” When they left, Alexander wrote from London to their benefactress a manly if somewhat prim little letter, commencing: “Hon^d Madam, I write by this opportunity to thank you for all your past favors to me and my brother. I hope it will be in my power one day or another to make you amends for all you have done for us,” and signing himself, “Your humble servant, Alexander Spotswood.” It is gratifying to know that these protestations did not come to naught, but that the good lady was repaid, not only in money, but in the life-long gratitude of the boys, who became distinguished American citizens.

The inheritance of a high and quick spirit came fairly to the boys of their race. Some quarter of a century before this letter was written, the Virginia Gazette printed a communication from the father of these lads, then himself a boy. It is headed “An Hint for a Hint,” and runs:

No doubt young John and Alexander treasured this piece of youthful audacity as a precious tradition to be told and retold to admiring schoolmates at Montem dinner, under the shadow of Eton Towers.

In the Bland letters, there is an itemized account of the charges for a colonial boy at boarding school. Master Bland’s expenses, when under the tuition of Mr. Clark, amounted to twenty-four pounds, ten shillings and two pence, and include the bills sent in by the apothecary, hosier, linen-draper, music-master and “taylor,” and also the charges for “weekly allowance and lent, shugar and black-shoe.”

The charge for shugar is twelve shillings and ninepence, which seems exorbitant in our day of cheap sweets. Master Bland’s second half-year’s account charges for “milliner, board, coal and candles, pocket-money and stockener.”

There is no record of the profit Master Bland received from his schooling abroad, but it is to be feared that he shared the character of his young fellow-countrymen, of whom Jones reports that “they are noted to be more apt to spoil their school-fellows than improve themselves.” The wildness of the young colonial students this reverend apologist accounts for very ingeniously, by explaining that the trouble lies in their being “put to learn to persons that know little of their temper, who keep them drudging in pedantick methods, too tedious for their volatile genius.”

The young Colonial Cavaliers exercised their volatile genius at home as well as abroad, as any one may know who turns the yellow pages of the manuscript college records at William and Mary. Under Stith’s presidency we find “Y^e following orders unanimously agreed to”:

“1. Ordered y^t no scholar belonging to any school in the college, of what age, rank or quality so ever, do keep any race horse at y^e college in y^e town, or anywhere in the neighborhood, y^t they be not anyway concerned in making races or in backing or abetting those made by others, and y^t all race-horses kept in y^e neighborhood of y^e college and belonging to any of y^e scholars, be immediately dispatched and sent off and never again brought back, and all this under pain of y^e severest animadversion and punishment.”

A second ordinance forbids any scholar belonging to the college, “to appear playing or betting at y^e billiard or other gaming tables, or to be any way concerned in keeping or fighting cocks, under pain of y^e like severe animadversions or punishments.”

They were an unruly and turbulent set of school-boys, these collegians, and the college records are full of their misdoings. Thomas Byrd, being brought before the Faculty on a charge of breaking windows “in a rude and riotous mannor,” was sentenced to submit to a whipping in the Grammar-School, or be expelled the college. The blood of the Byrds rebelled against such ignominy, and the boy refused to submit. His father then appeared before the Faculty and offered to compel him to obey, but this vicarious submission was considered inadequate, and he was dropped from the college. Again, it appears, that “whereas John Hyde Saunders has lately behaved himself in a very impudent and unheard-of mannor to the master of the Grammar-School,” he is directed to quit the college. The ushers are ordered to visit the rooms of the young gentlemen at least three times a week, after nine o’clock at night, and report to the president any irregularities.

“No boy to presume to go into the kitchen.” “No victuals sent to private rooms.” “No boy to lounge upon the college steps.” So run the rules. They further provide “y^t a person be appointed to hear such boys as shall be recommended by their parents or guardians, a chapter in the Bible every school-day at 12 o’clock, and y^t he have y^e yearly salary of one pistole for each boy so recommended.” All these regulations, “animadversions,” and punishments make us realize that in spite of its high-sounding charter, William and Mary was, after all, only a big boarding-school.

When its charter was granted, a curious condition was attached, providing that the president and professors should yearly offer two copies of Latin verses to the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. The bargain seems to have been strictly kept, for The Gazette records:

“On this day sen-night, the president, masters and scholars of William and Mary College went, according to their annual custom, in a body to the Governor’s, to present His Honor with two copies of Latin verses in obedience to their charter, as a grateful acknowledgement for two valuable tracts of land given the said college by their late Majesties, King William and Queen Mary. Mr President delivered the verses to His Honor and two of the young gentlemen spoke them.”

In 1700, the college authorities ushered in the century with a grand celebration, including prize declamations and various exercises. The novel and exciting entertainment roused such an interest that visitors came from Annapolis and the Maryland shore, and even from the far-away colony of New York, while Indians thronged the streets to watch the gayety. The town then was at the height of its prosperity.

Not content with a palace, a capitol, and a college, Williamsburg actually aspired to own a bookstore, which was after all not altogether unreasonable, since there was no considerable one south of Boston. Accordingly the college authorities met to consider the matter, and finally resolved that—

“M^r W^m Parks intending to open a book-seller’s shop in this Town, and having proposed to furnish the students of this College with such books at a reasonable price as the Masters shall direct him to send for, and likewise to take all the schoolbooks now in the College and pay 35 p. cent on the sterling cost to make it currency, his proposals are unanimously agreed to.”

The first building of William and Mary College was planned, so they say, by Sir Christopher Wren, but it was burned down, one night only five years after the grand celebration, “the governor and all the gentlemen in town coming to the lamentable spectacle; many of them getting out of their beds.” Again and again the building has suffered from the flames. Yet as it stands there to-day—with its stiff, straight walls stained and weather-beaten, its bricks laid up in the good old English fashion of stretchers and headers, its steps worn with the tread of generations—it is full of a pensive charm. Its record is one for Virginians to be proud of, since as one of them boasts:

“It has sent out for their work in the world twenty-seven soldiers of the Revolution, two attorney-generals, nearly twenty members of Congress, fifteen senators, seventeen governors, thirty-seven judges, a lieutenant-general, two commodores, twelve professors, four signers of the Declaration, seven cabinet officers, a chief justice, and three presidents of the United States.”

If I was tempted at first, as I stood before the brick, barn-like building, to exclaim at its ugliness, my frivolous criticism was abashed, as this phantom procession filed through its doorway, for I too, who am not of their blood, claim a share in their greatness, and salute their names with reverent humility.