Metcalf sometimes did. In those old times school children did not expect as many comforts as the present generation require. Their own homes we should think intolerable; and of their school and meeting-houses, I do not dare to say what we should think. On the score of comfort it would be hardly safe to speculate as to the accommodations required by the school-boys of 1645.

The first school-house erected in Dedham stood near the meeting-house, on ground now occupied by the Unitarian vestry. Two, and probably three, successors held the same position, so as to be often designated in the records as "the school near the meeting-house."

But in 1651, the covenant in the school-keeping having expired at the end of seven years, the school again became the subject of Town action. The freemen assembled in the little meeting-house on the first day of January. Sergt. Daniel Fisher called the roll of eighty-four freemen, and their third vote is thus recorded:

It is resolued that a Schoole for ye education of youth in our Towne shall be continued & mayntayned for the whole tearme of Seauen yeares next. and that the settled mayntenance or wages of the School m' shall be 20£ p aññ at yo leaste

A Towne stocke shall be raysed. to ye sume of 20. at ye least So we see that the school is to be continued; and nothing less than twenty pounds must be raised and offered as pay to the schoolmaster. How much more he might be paid, the town did not seem to care. That was left to the judgment of those intrusted with the management of the school. The Town was solicitous chiefly that too little should not be invested in their thus far successful adventure.

To rightly appreciate the action of the Town during these years, we must bear in mind that it was entering upon a new method of supporting schools. When the inhabitants of Dedham, in January, 1644, marked out so definitely this scheme of supporting a school by general taxation, it seemed to be their own original plan, dictated in a great measure by ne

cessity, that mother of useful inventions. Everything in Dedham, except giving away land had to be done by Rates; and it was perfectly natural that taxation was the foundation on which they began to build their school system. It was clearly the controlling idea of those who shaped the action of that meeting; and it received the earnest approval and support of all who were present. And in 1651 this system was by vote continued for another seven years.

And so, to-day, we commemorate the beginning of Dedham's free public school, which has suffered no lapse from that time. to the present.

There is one matter relating to a change in the manner of raising the schoolmaster's salary which, as it has sometimes been misunderstood, we do not feel at liberty to omit. In 1651 some of the rate-payers evidently felt that they, whose children. or wards received all the direct benefits of the school, ought to contribute a larger share to the expense of its support. This subject was considered by the select men into whose hands the care of the school had come by a vote of the town; and also a committee had been appointed "to ripen the case" and propose their thoughts to the town. The result was that on the 17th of May 1652, the select men made this record of their conclusions :—

Concerning the Schoole. these ppositions ar to be tendered to the consideration of the Towne for the mayntayning therof for 7 years

1 that all such Inhabitants in our Towne as haue Male childeren or servants in thier families betwixt the age of 4 and 14 yeares. shall paye for each such to the Schoolem'. for the time being or to his vse at his assignment in Towne in Currant payement the sume of 5* yearely pvided that such children be then liueing and abideing in our Towne

2 And wt so euer these sume fall short of the sumes of Twentie £ shall be raised by waye of Rateing vpon estates. according to the vsuall manner

This was not a charge for tuition, but a direct tax on all male children of a certain age whether they attended school

or not. There is no record of the town's accepting this Rule of levying a tax on boys: yet she probably did so, and with reason; for her boys were some of her most valuable assets, and, by giving them an education, she proposed to make them still more valuable.

But supposing there were twenty of these boys,—this is certainly a generous estimate,-five pounds would be raised by this juvénile poll tax, and fifteen pounds would be levied on estates,

according to the usual manner." But in 1653, about a year after the rule was proposed, a School Rate was put on record in which over seventy persons were taxed in sums varying from twenty-one shillings seven pence to two pence ha-penny: and as the sum total of the rate fell short of what was due the school master by a little over nineteen shillings, the deficit was taken from the "overplusse overplusse" of the country Rate; so that the whole salary of that year appears to have been paid by general taxation.

But the records, and we must accept them as true,-show that for many years, in fact till near the close of the seventeenth century, the school rate was very often a mixed one; consisting of a poll tax of from three and a half to five shillings on the boys of the town, amounting to a quarter or a half of the teacher's pay, leaving the rest of the school expenses to be met by a tax on estates. The records, however, leave us no chance to doubt that since January 1, 1644, old style, not a year has passed in which the citizens of Dedham have not taxed their estates for the support of free public schools, one or more.

I venture to say here that the action of the Town of Dedham in 1644 had no small influence on the school legislation of the Massachusetts Colony. Within three years after Dedham's decisive action, the General Court made the free public school a part of her political system. Now it is an interesting fact that Eleazer Lusher, one of the original board of feoffees of the Dedham school and probably the chief projector of the same, was a deputy, or representative, from this town to the General Court almost continuously, that is sixteen years, from 1640 to 1662, Michael Powell and Francis Chickering, two other feoffees, were

also several times members of that honorable body. Who could give better advice on the subject of popular education than these men who were at the time administering the Dedham plan of a free public school? Who would be more zealous and hopeful than they who were witnesses to the success of an experiment conducted under their own hands? Public opinion, enlightened by this clear demonstration of what is possible in an intelligent community, soon shaped itself into wise legislation. It is not improbable that these Dedham delegates were at first regarded as extremists in the matter of schools-educational cranks in the parlance of the present day: they were, indeed, in advance of most, if not all, of their neighbors in solving the problem of free public school education; and for that reason we would do them appropriate honors to-day.

And while we contemplate the growth of the institution which they planted by their hard earned means, and nourished by their personal care and exertions, we are excited to still greater admiration of their enterprise, wisdom and forethought. It would be useless to attempt here an account of the growth of this institution in Dedham, keeping pace, as it did, with the increase of the population and the advance of educational ideas, -at first, one little school under the care of Ralph Wheelock, probably, and in the primitive thatched meeting house; a few years later, a somewhat larger number gathered in the new schoolhouse which was combined with a watch-house leaning against its chimney, and having "an aspect 4 several ways"; later still, after King Philip's war, and his tragic abdication, when the town expanded freely and rapidly without fear of savage foes, a period of migratory school-teaching, dividing the master's year among three precincts or parishes; after that, several schools in four or more sections of the broad township; still later, masters' schools in the winter, and mistresses' schools in the summer in the various neighborhoods as convenience or necessity determined; then again, the regular school districts defined by statute, those pure and enterprising democracies, each desiring to excel the others; after that, the

combination of a district and a town system, managed, sometimes harmoniously and sometimes not, by prudential and Town Committees; then, in response to an upward pressure in the district schools, the High School was added to the system in spite of much criticism and fierce opposition; a little later the total abolition of the School Districts, giving the whole system into the hands of the presumptively unerring Town Committee; and finally the appointment of a general superintendent to have expert supervision of all the educational interests of the town.

But you see that the subject is too large, spreading into too many branches, to be discussed on this occasion. We are assembled here this evening, chiefly, to commemorate the initiation of a free school established, controlled, and supported by the free. men of this town. We come here in fact to honor a band of pioneers in educational progress, who in 1644 made a bold and successful adventure. Hereafter, therefore, let the names of Lusher, Hunting, Powell, Chickering and Dwight be associated and identified with the part which Dedham acted in developing practically the idea of a free public school supported by general taxation. The ancient records of the town, carefully composed, neatly transcribed, faithfully preserved, and now being gradually put into print by a competent and painstaking editor, will constitute a permanent memorial and proof of what those earnest men designed, and of what they accomplished. And as we all now have easy access to these records, so no one of us will be excusable if we remain ignorant of their truth and their significance.

It is indeed fortunate for the members of that little assembly of 1644, fortunate also for us who would pay them deserved honors, that a faithful and veracious scribe not only made a clear and adequate record of the work which they executed, but he has also preserved for us their individual names; and in his honest zeal for learning has most fittingly portrayed the generous spirit by which they were actnated. We certainly make no mistake in celebrating the anniversary of their memorable achievement, and thus emphasizing our united praise of their far-reaching wisdom.