■^\ '\'^- t, "^JS .v^h""" , '%^^, A^^'^ "i^^M^. ^v-"'^ " -•^^/ ■^/r' -'^- -"^•v.uifij UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES ■'^^'^$^ ^ ™ -J I i\ u /' '^^T i^ L ^w, <^^ GIFT OF Dr . ERKEST C , MOORE ^r -■' '^''v Msk^^^i&I^-*^ -~<^.rf #4^tf,...'fm# ^ C, }tod-f the Trustees of the School, jiresided at the banquet, and brief addresses were made bv Rev. James 3Iorris AVhiton, Ph.D., of XeAv York City, Rector of the School from 1854 to 1804, Rev. Edward Octavus Flagg, of Xew York City, D.D., LL.D. (H. G. S. 1840), ex-President Timothy Dwight, of Xew Haven, D.I)., LL.D. (H. G. S. 1845), Ziegler Sargent, of Xew Haven (H. G. S. 1900), George Douglas Miller, of Albany (H. G. S. 18()5), Arthur P. Woodford, Ph.D., the present Rector, and Walter Camp, of Xew Haven (H. G. S. 1876), Secretary and Treasurer of the Trustees. Dr. Elagg also read an original poem in memory of the Rector under whom he studied when at the School, Hon. Hawley Olmstead, LL.D. The two addresses and the poem follow this note. Copies of this ])ublication may be obtained by addressing the Rector, Dr. Arthur B. Woodford, Xew Haven, for $1.00 per copy, bound in full cloth, postage prepaid. THE EARLY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAND Address to the graduating class ot the Hopkins Grammar School, delivered June 17, 1910, by Henry Parks Wright, Ph.D., LL.D., Dunham Professor of the Latin Language and Literature in Yale University and Dean of Yale College, Emeritus. I tirst heard of the Hopkins Grammar School when I entered Yale College as a Freshman. ]S'ine members of my Class of one hnndred and thii-ty-fonr, or one in fifteen, had received their preparation in this school. I had felt no small degree of pride at having my name in the catalogue of Phillips Academy at Andover, which was fonnded dnring the time of the Revolu- tionary War, and had been ]n-eparing boys for college for eighty- six years ; but at my first recitation in A^ale, I met a classmate who had received his ]n-eparation in Hopkins, a school that was one hnndred and eighteen years old when my school was fonnded. The Hopkins Grammar School was widely knowni, and had received pupils from all sections of the country. Of my nine Yale classmates who were Hopkins men, four came from out- side Xew England, two of whom were from the South. The Civil War had not closed when these southern students entered college. During the twenty years immediately preceding the Civil War, boys had come to Hopkins from every southern state except Arkansas. Of these nine classmates, two went into business, one becoming the head of a large manufactiiving com- pany ; four became lawyers of high standing, one of whom is a judge ; two studied medicine, of whom one became Professor in the Yale Medical School ; one studied theology, and he is now the Bishop of (NunuH'ticut. In accordance with the custom of England, from which the early settlers of ]\rassachusetts and C(mnecticut came, the iiisti- lutioiis in these colonies at which boys wow ])rc])ar('d tor college were at first called scIidoIs. These New Eiiglaiul schools * THE HOPKIiVS GKAMMAE SCHOOL OF Is^EW HAVEX were modeled after the Grammar Schools of England with which the settlers were familiar. After the beginning of the Revolutionary War, when a feeling of hostility existed in the colonies toward the mother countrj-, and ever;)'thing English M-as discarded, the name school was no longer given to the newly established institutions of this grade, but they were called academies; during the next one hundred years more than seventy academies were incoi*porated in Massachusetts alone, A\'ith authority to hold trust funds for the purpose of education.^ Some of these existed for a short time only, and some have become high schools. The term academy had been used in England for institutions of learning founded by ISTon-conform- ists, to distinguish them from the schools of the Church of England.^ This may have suggested the name for secondary schools established in America at this epoch in our histoiy. The use of the name in this country for a preparatory school continued beyond the middle of the nineteenth century. To the early part of this period belong Phillips-Exeter Academy in l!^ew Hampshire, Phillips Academy, Andover, and Leicester Academy in Massachusetts, and the Episcopal Academy of Connecticut at Cheshire.^ The Dummer Academy in South Byfield, Massachusetts, is sometimes called the oldest academy in the United States; it was founded in 1Y63, thirteen years before the Declaration of Independence, but it was called the Dummer School for the first twenty years.* Toward the close of the last century, with the return of our old affection for the mother country and our respect for its institutions, especially its educational institutions, the title ^ Report of Massachusetts Board of Education, Vol. XL. Appendix, pp. 180-345. - Tlie same, p. 191. ^ Besides the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire, several other academies were established in Connecticut between 1780 and 1860. The one at Green- field Hill, foiuided and maintained by the first President Dwight. attained high reputation throughout the country. It was attended by persons of both sexes. ^ The school at Lebanon, Conn., of which Nathan Tisdale was master, was established in 1743. Pupils came to it from Georgia and the Carolinas, as well as from the northern colonies. EAELY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAND 5 school again came into common use, and it has become exceed- ing popular. ]Sr early every newly established institution of the second grade is now called a school. There are approximately four hundred and fifty fitting schools in the United States that l^repare boys for the eastern universities. About two hundred and sixty of these are high schools ; of the remaining one hundred and ninety, sixty are called academies and one hundred and thirty schools. It is difficult for us to appreciate the condition of Xew Eng- land when the Hopkins Grammar School was established. 1660 was very near the beginning of j^ew England history. It was only forty years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and Manhattan Island was still in the possession of the Dutch. The greater part of the territory now included in the Atlantic States was then occupied by Indians. The entire population of J^ew England hardly reached forty thousand, and was of the purest English stock. One of the earliest names in the Hopkins Catalogue is that of Abraham Pierson, first President of Yale. When he entered Haiward College in 1664-, his home was in Branford, Connecti- cut. How do you suppose he traveled back and forth between Cambridge and his father's house ? There was not only no public conveyance, but there was not even anything that could properly be called a road between 'New ^aven and Boston — nothing better than a foot and bridle path, which went through regions occupied by Indians and infested by wild beasts. If he dared risk the journey, he might set out for Cambridge on foot, and carry a pack. We know that Stephen Holmes, a Yale student, nearly one hundred years later walked from beyond Wallingford, and probably also from his home in Woodstock, to Isew Haven, with a pack, since he was fined twenty pence by the faculty for carrying the pack on Sunday. If Pierson had much baggage and wished to take it with him, he might go from Xew Haven to Boston by boat — when a boat happened to be going that way, which would not be often — or he could cariw his baggage on horseback. This was a common way of ti-aiis- l^orting merchandise from the coast and river to\ms to the b THE HOPKIIirS GEAMMAPv SCHOOL OF ISTEW HAVEN interior settlements until near the close of the eighteenth cen- tury. How often do you think he received a letter from home while a student at HarA-ard I There were then no mail facili- ties. The first general post between ]^ew York and Boston was established in 1672, twelve years after Hopkins was founded, and went on horseback once a month each way. There was as yet not even a private post rider, who carried letters and distributed newspapers. There was no need of a post rider for newspapers, as there were no newspapers to dis- tribute. The first copy of the Boston News Letter, the earliest newspaper published in this country, appeared nearly forty years after the founding of the Hopkins Grammar School. The only way in which young Pierson could send a letter to his father was by courtesy of some private indi\'i(lual who might be coming from Boston to ]*^ew Haven. Hopkins belongs to a class of schools established earlv in the history of l^ew England, of which there are two other survivors : the Boston Latin School and the Roxbury Latin School, both several years older than Hopkins. The leading settlers of Massachusetts and Connecticut were well-educated. Several were university men and had been trained in the English schools. Grovenior Hopkins had been a scholar in the Grram- mar School of Shrewsbury ; Eaton and Daven]i<:)rt had been schoolmates in the Grammar School at Coventry. After ]3rovision had been made by the early settlers of iSTew England for public worship, attention was at once given to the education of the young. It would seem from a court record that an elementary school existed in ISTew Haven within one year after its first settlement.''' Harvard College was founded in 1630, and within the next decade there were grammar schools in Boston, Charleston, Salem, Dorchester, Boxbury, !N^ew Haven, and ilartford, at which the youth of these to%\ms could be pre- ]iare(l for the university. " "And the said Thomas Fiigill is to finde him what is convenient for him as a servant, and to Iceepe him att school one yeare, or else to advantage liini as nnich in his education, as a year's learning comes to." New Haven Colony Records, February 25, 1639. EARLY GKAMM.V^ SCHOOLS OF NEW EXGLAXD i Early efforts were made to sustain a grammar school in Xew IIa\-en. Within three years after the tirst house was built, the famous Ezekiel Cheever began in this citv his long service as a grammar school master. He was an accomplished scholar, and could write finished Latin poems and Latin dissertations. He published a Latin Accidence, '"A short introduction to the Latin Tongue," which reached its twenty-fifth edition and was the Ix'ginners' Latin book in Xew England grammar schools for more than one hundred years.'' After teaching in Xew Haven, Ipswich, and Charleston, he became the Master of the Boston Latin School, which position he held for thirty-eight years. As a teacher of youth, he had no equal in America before 1763, when Samuel ]\[oody became Master of the Dum- mer School at B^^eld. Cotton M'ather, one of his pupils, said in his funeral sennon that "when scholars came to be admitted into the college, they who came with the Cheeverian education were generally the most unexceptionable." He was a severe disciplinarian, even for those times. Rev. Samuel Maxwell, when eighty-four years of age, told President Stiles that Mr. Cheever "'used to wear a long white Beard terminating in a point ; that when he stroked his beard to the point it was a sign to the Boys to stand clear." '^ Rev. John Barnard, who entered Mr. Cheever's school before he was eight years old, and who was often beaten by him for his "little roguish tricks," gives the following instance, which shows both the severity and the gentleness of this great teacher: "I remember once in mak- ing a piece of Latin my master found fault with the s^mtax of one word, which was not so used by me heedlessly, but designedly, and therefore I told him there was a ])lain granunar rule for it. He angrily r('])lied, 'There is no such rule.' I took the grammar and showed the rule to him. Then he smilingly said: 'Thou art a l)rave boy. I had forgot it.' And no wonder, for he was then above eighty years old." ^ '■■ Cheever's Latin Accidence was written in New Haven. The last edition was printed in 1838. American .Journal of Education. Vol. 1, p. 311. ' Dexter, Diary of Ezra .Stiles, Vol. 1, p. 228. * Autobiography of Rev. John Barnard, Collections of Massachusetts His- torical Society, Vol. V, p. 180. O THE HOPKINS GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN Mr. Cheever was one of the founders of 'New Haven, and rig'htlj belonged to ISTew Haven. His removal to Massachu- setts, after twelve years' service here, was an irreparable loss to our city. If he had not become involved in an unfortunate aifair with the First Church,^ which resulted in his departure from JSTew Haven, he would very likely have been the first rector of the Hopkins Grammar School. Under his rectorship, the school would have started with a reputation for scholarship and discipline that it could not get under George Pardee, who was "willing to do what he was able," but admitted that he "had lost much of what learning he had foniierly attained." Mr. Cheever left ISTew Haven in 1650, the year after his dismission from the church, and sen'ed as master of grammar schools in Massachusetts for fifty-seven years. He began by teaching the children of the first settlers, and lived to teach the descendants of the first settlers to the third and fourth genera- tion. He had a continuous career as grammar school master extending over sixty-nine years, and died while still Master of the Boston Latin School, at the age of ninety-three. A study of existing records of the Roxbury, Dorchester, and Hopkins Schools will give us some idea of these early grammar schools. They were established by gifts or by small voluntary contributions of private individuals, or by action of the towns, and were open to the sons of the poor and unlearned as well as to those of the better classes. In them all, the requirements for admission, the course of study, and the rules and regulations were essentially the same. For admission, little was demanded except the ability to read and spell. Pupils in the schools who (lid not take Latin gave their attention mainly to reading, spell- ing, writing, and arithmetic, or cyphering, as it was then called.-^*' But the main purpose of these grammar schools was ° Collections of Connecticut Historical Society, Vol. I, pp. 22-51. ^° II. That noe Boyes be admitted into ye s all i>r any of his scholars, without respect of persons." ^- New Haven Town Records, October, 10.51. 12 THE HOPKI^^S GEAMMAE SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEIST A section, however, follows for the direction of any parent who thinks he has just cause of complaint against the master. In the earliest knowii rules of the Hopkins Grammar School, it is required of the master that "all correction be with Modera- tion" ; but it is certain that at Hopkins, as in all other schools of the time, the master made good use of the rod; and his jurisdiction was not limited to the school grounds. A hundred years or so ago, during the brief rectorship of Randolph St<:)ne, a Hopkins boy, who was called up for punishment, turned and dashed out of the schoolhouse and steered for home. The rec- tor seized his rod, chased after the boy, caught him on the home stretch, and triumphantly flogged him in his father's yard. This method of discipline had already sensed to harden the hearts as well as toughen the hides of the pupils. Hopkins became noted as a school difficult to manage. In 1799 the iirst President Dwight warned James L. Kingsley, afterward Pro- fessor Kingsley of Yale College, against taking the school, "for it was so bad that it would probably injure his reputation." ^^ Some of the schoolhouses were poorly built and badly neg- lected. They were one-story structures, generally about twenty feet square. They were the best the towns could afford, and when new, were j)robably better than most of the dwelling houses ; but, like countiy schoolhouses of a later date, they sometimes received hard usage. In 1681, Thomas Bernard, the Eoxbury schoolmaster, wrote to the trustees that in his schoolhouse "the glass was broken, and thereupon very raw and cold, the iloor very much broken and torn up to kindle fires, the hearth spoiled, the seats, some burnt and others out of kilter." One of the rules of the Roxbury trustees provided that the father of any boy in the school should send with him to the schoolmaster eight shillings, or two feet of good wood, and if he failed to do either, the master was ordered not to allow his boy to have the benefit of the fire.^* '^ Letter of Hawley Olmstead. '* I have been much interested to learn from Professor Henry R. Lang that at the school which he attended when a boy, in the eastern part of Switzerland, each pupil was required to ^ring from home his share of the wood, and that the schoolmaster, when his farm required his attention, used to dismiss his scholars and start out with his hoe or his scythe over his shoulder, for a day in the fields. EARLY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF ISTEW EXGLAXD 13 The salary of a master varied from £20 to £50 per year. Generally the town paid the master a fixed sum (sometimes £20), and allowed him to charge a reasonable fee for tuition (sometimes 20 shillings) for children whose parents were able to pay. During the century and a quarter after the founding of the Hopkins Grammar School, money in any form was often difficult to obtain. The contributions for poor students in Harvard College from Connecticut towns were often made in corn; this was known as "college corn." In 1668 the Roxbury trustees made an agreement with John Prudden that his salary of £25 should* be paid "three quarters in Indian Come or Peas and ye other fourth-part in Barley." In 1684 the to^\^l of Boston paid John Cole to keep a school £10 a year in money and £20 in country pay. Three shillings in country pay were con- sidered equal to two shillings in hard money. Without doubt the grammar school masters were often glad to take country pay, or wampum, or even paper money of uncertain value. When payment was made in "hard money," it was not always in the most acceptable kind of coin. There is on file a receipt showing that in 17T3 John Eliot, Master of the Eoxbury School, received from the trustees, as part of his year's salary, a bag of coppers weighing thirty-four pounds. We can easily believe that before he reached home with this installment, he had no desire to ask for an increase of salary. As has been already said, before 1701 Hopkins sent its stu- dents to Harvard. Of the graduates of Harvard between 1660 and 1700, at least one in thirty were from ISTew Haven, a town which did not have at the end of this period more than five hun- dred inhabitants.^^ Since the founding of Yale, students from Hopkins have gone mainly to that institution, and it has in its catalogue some of the most prominent of the Yale graduates. It is safe to say that no other prc]iaratory scho(jl in America can show such a disting-uished list of trustees, rectors, and alumni. Hopkins is the only preparatory school whose students have ever been admitted to Yale without examination. Thirty-three " Professor Kingsley's Historical Discourse on the 200th Anniversary of the Founding of New Haven, p. 93. l^t TPIE IIOPKI^^S GRAMIMAR SCHOOL OF i^fEW HAVEN years ago this summer, an arrangement was made between the Yale Faculty and the rector of the school, by which any Hop- kins student recommended by the rector might be admitted to Yale (N)Jlege if his marks in the school, both in recitation and on examination, were satisfactory to the Yale Entrance Com- mittee. On basis of this agreement, thirteen applicants from Hopkins were admitted in full without taking Yale examina- tions, and four others were admitted, by passing satisfactory examinations in the subjects in which their marks were defi- cient. This plan could not be continuccl without extending its l)rivileges to other schools, which did not seem wise, and it was in force only one year. The early New England gramnuir schools' were established in ''the day of small things,'' but they trained up boys who became strong men, fitted "for publick sen^ices in church and common- wealth." Some of thein were prominent leaders in the move- ment that made us an inde])endent nation. These schools were part of a plan of education which was entirely new to the world ; a system of public schools open to all the youths of the towns without regard to property or social condition; a vsystem which included the university and the schools which offered prepara- tion for the uni\'ersity, as well as the elementary schools. Here was the foundation of the public school system of Xew England and of the Ignited States. The endowed academies that were established after the beginning of the Revolution, and the more modem fitting schools, as well as the public high schools, have all descended in direct line from these early grammar schools. The academies taught the same subjects and used the same text- books and the same methods. Some of their founders, and many of the teachers, had been trained in the grammar schools. With increased endowments, new subjects of study and better ('(|iii])ment, the quality of the instruction in all the schools has in general improved from generation to generation. But it shoubl not be forgotten that if the founders of the colonies of ^Massachusetts and Connecticut had not insisted at the beginning on the establishment of the grammar schools, it is not likely that any such general system of higher education and EARLY GEAMMAR SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAND 15 of common school education would now exist in this country. What a difference it would have made in our nation'.s history if these early colonists had lived for themselves alone, if they had given their attention chiefly to acquiring property, as settlers in a new country do now, and had oared little about founding a state or establishing institutions of religion and education ! Our fathers made sacrifices for those who were to live after them, far greater than men would be willing to make now, and we are reaping the benefits without thinking much of the cost. This ancient school, that has done so much for education in this country, and that has served the church and the common- wealth by training up for them so many able men, deserves the loyal interest of its xMumni and of the people of ISTew Haven, and their generous support in placing it where it rightfully belongs — among the foremost fitting schools of the country. The little band that crossed the seas in the Hector and founded the colony of ^N'ew Haven came not primarily for their ovm. advantage. We are all vastly indebted to these men for their unselfish efforts in behalf of those who should live after them. The gift of Governor Hopkins has enabled jSTew Haven to main- tain for two hundred and fifty years a school at which boys could be fitted for the university, and that with little cost at any time to the city. You, young men of Hopkins, can never repay your obliga- tions to those to whom they are rightfully due, but you can live for others as they did. You have your life before you. The great privileges of school and college, which are yours through the generosity and sacrifice of others, are given you not to be used for selfish purposes ; they were designed to prepare you for some public seiwice. Make all your plans in college and in the professional school with this end in view. Be true to your best selves, remembering that without character the highest mental attainments will not fit you to do the work in the world which will be expected of you. Do not avoid hard tasks, either by selecting easy courses or by doing your work dishonestly. You will not gain strength by doing easy things. If you shirk your responsibilities and have no moral standard, you will come out 16 THE HOPKIISTS GEAMMAE SCHOOL OF NEAV HAVEN of the university with less mental and moral fiber than when you enter it. By and by, when you come to select your profes- sion, do not ask, ''Where can I get the most for myself?", but ''AVhere can I do the most for my country ?". The only satis- factory life is one devoted to the service of others. The trustees expect every Hopkins man to remember the "true intent and jDui-pose" of Governor Hopkins, as stated in his will : "to give some encouragement in those foreigTi plantations for the breed- ing up of hopeful youths, both at the grammar school and college, for the public service of the country in future times." 1660-1910 THE HOPKINS GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN Historical Discourse, delivered at the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Hopkins Grammar School, June 18, 1910, by Hon. Simeon E. Baldwin, M.A., LL.D., President of the Trustees.^ The ancient colony of N^ew Haven was fonnded in 1638, by a company of idealists. The unwritten common law of Eng- land they determined to replace by the written word of God, as they read it in the Bible. They sought to set up in the wilder- ness a city of God. They laid it out after the fashion of the "new Jerusalem." It was not, like the ordinary ISTew England town, to consist of one broad a^'enue, to be intersected by cross streets, as occasion might serve. There must be perfection of form, from the outset. They must be able to say of it from the day when the first surveyors' stakes were set, "And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth." ^ There must be a central marketplace, foursquare also. There must be, from the first, a church upon it, to dominate the space, as they had seen cathedrals dominate marketplaces in European cities. There must be next a school of learning, to give their children such education as might fit them best to serve both Church and civil State. There must be a public library for the benefit of the com- munity at large. The school came first. One of the original company of settlers was Ezekiel Cheever, a schoolmaster by profession, who, after a dozen years spent here, removed to Boston and became the head of the Boston Latin School. He opened a school in ^ It need hardly be said that on account of its length much of this dis- course was npcessarily omitted in its delivery. ' Revelations, XXI, 16. IS THE HOPKINS GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN liis own house in iS'ew Haven, in 1638 or 1639.^ While teach- ing here, Cheever wrote a Latin grammar and reader, which for two hundred years was the standard text-book in ISTew England for those beginning the study of that language. The vote passed in 1641 of the town of JSTew Haven, by which this school was made free to all the inhabitants, was among the earliest public declarations in the United States of the reasons for such a provision. The school was to be free, '"for the better training up of youth in this town, that, through God's blessing, they may be fitted for public service hereafter in church or commonwealth." •* In 1610 the first church, built foursquare, fifty feet on each side, in the center of the foursquare marketplace, was opened for public worshi}).'^ In 1644 or 1645, a schoolhouse was also placed on the market- place, north of the church, and not far from where the United Church now stands.*^ Cheever moved his school into it, and his salary was now made thirty pounds a year.'^ The library came last. Rev. Samuel Eaton had come to ISTew Haven with Governor Theophilus Eaton, who was his brother, bringing quite a collection of books. These he left behind on his return to England in 1640. A legacy of a hundred pounds had been left to the Governor, under an English will, which, though absolute in terms, the testator intended him to use "for the good of some part of ISTew England." With twenty pounds of this he j3urchased his brother's books, and placed them in the hands of his pastor, Rev. John Davenport, "for the use of a college." The other eighty pounds were left by Governor Eaton's will, dated August 12, 1656, to "be improved for the good of ISTew Haven, by the advice of the magistrates and elders there." When the plan for a college at ITew Haven was finally abandoned, Mr. Davenport, who had kept the books, numbering over a hundred volumes, at his own house, turned them over to ^ Atwater, History of the Colony of New Haven, 262. * Barnard, Am. Journal of Education, IV, 662. ^ Blake, Chronicles of New Haven Green, 15. ^Ibid., 182. U N. H. Colony Records, 62, 210. EARLY GRAilMAR SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGT-AND 19 the town.^ Thus was constituted what was probably the first municipal library in the United States. The books were mainly theological, but among them were More's Utopia, and several of the Latin classics, including Ovid. They were kept in the schoolhouse on the marketplace (now the Green) until 1689, when the town sold them, with some others which had been added to them in 1658, to the minister, Kev. James Pier- l^ont. He probably made the purchase with a view of present- ing them to the projected Connecticut College, which he helped to found, a few years later, now become Yale University. Certain it is that many of them were among its earliest posses- sions, and are still in its library.^ Governor Eaton died on January 11, 1658.^^ In the pre- ceding March, Edward Hopkins, the husband of his step- daughter, and the founder of the Hopkins Grammar School, had died in London. The two men were but ten years apart in age, and had been on teimis of special intimacy. One had been Governor of the Colony of ISTew Haven, and the other Governor of the Colony of Connecticut. Eaton's fortune had been largely diminished in his later life. Hopkins' had increased. Returning to England in 1652, he received in 1654 a consider- able estate under the will of a brother, including the lucrative and sinecure offices of Warden of the Fleet Prison in London and Keeper of the Palace at Westminster. His own will, executed shortly before his death,^^ left most of his estate in ISTew England, amounting to over £1,400.^^ to his "father, Theophilus Eaton, Esq., Mr. John Davenport, Mr. John Cullock and Mr. William Goodwin in full assurance of their trust and faithfulness in disposing of it according to the true intent and purpose of me the said Edward Hopkins which is to give some encouragement in those forrayne Plantations for * Bacon, Historical Discourses, 354. ° Blake, Chronicles, 198; Dexter, The First Public Library in New Haven, X. H. Colony Hist. Soc'y Papers, VI, 301. "Baldwin, Theophilus Eaton, N. H. Colony Hist. Society Papers, VII, 31, 38. "N. E. Hist, and Gen. Register, XVI, 167, XXXVIII, 313; Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, I, 62; Col. Rec. of Conn., I, 374. '-Barnard, Journal of Education, 1828, p. 276. 20 THE HOPKI^'S GEAMMAR SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN the breeding up of liopefiill youths both at the Grammar Schoole and Colledg'e for the pul)lique service of the Country in future tjmes." ^^ Out of his English estate he left also the reversion, of £500 after the decease of his wife, to be made over to New England according to the advice of his "loving friends, Major Robert Thomson and Mr. Francis Willoughby" in further prose- cution of ''the aforesaid public ends . . . for the upholding and promoting the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ in those parts of the earth." There are two ways in which a man can immortalize his name. One is by doing some great work. The other is less difficult. It is by founding some institution of learning that shall bear his name, and so founding it as to assure its attaining an enduring place. Happy are they who can do lioth. To that small company John Harvard, Elihu Yale, the Earl of Dartmouth, ISTicholas Brown, who gave their names to four of our oldest colleges, did not belong. Edward Hopkins did. It was given to him to be one of those who, in 1639, on the banks of the Connecticut, were to lay the cornerstone of constitutional government for the world, and of those also who, four years later, organized the Confederation of the United Colonies of jSTew England, which was the prototype of the United States. After receiving a good gramuiar school education at Shrews- bury, he went into business in London and became a prosperous merchant in the trade with Turkey. His selection as the first secretary of Connecticut,^'* under her new constitution, indi- cates that he was a man of some literary acquirements, and this is amply confirmed by many letters and papers from his hand which are still extant. From 1644 to 1654 (his last election being after his return to England) he was Governor of this colony every other year, alternating with John Hapies. Such a position in those days called for ability of a high order. A colonial governor of the seventeenth century had not only to direct the course of local affairs. He was often called upon to " A copy of the will is in the record of our bicentennial celebration, p. 43. " Col. Rec. of Conn., I, 27. EAELY GEAMMAE SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAND 21 conduct foreign negotiations in matters of considerable impor- tance. One day he might have to write a report to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, or a letter to the Lord Protector ;^^ and the next a communication to the Governor-General of ISTew ISTetherlands. The commissioners of the United Colonies of ^ew England, of whom Hopkins was one continuously from 104:3 to 1652, were also frequently dealing with large questions. In the autumn of 1650, while he was President of the Con- federation, a long-standing boundary dispute with the Dutch was amicably adjusted, by what is believed to have been the first instance, in what is now the United States, of settling an inter- national controversy by arbitration. Governor Stuyvesant went to Hartford, where the Congress of the LTnited Colonies was sitting, to negotiate some arrangement, and at his sugges- tion it was agreed between the two governments of iSTew Eng- land and N'ew ^Netherlands to submit the difference between them to the decision of four men, of whom each should name two. He appointed his English secretaiw. Ensign George Baxter of Long Island,^ *^ and Captain Thomas Willet, who had lived for years first in Holland and then in 'New Amsterdam. The Commissioners appointed Simon Bradstreet of Massachu- setts and Thomas Prince of Plymouth. The four arbitrators proceeded promptly to a hearing, and made an award, establish- ing the boundary on a line four leagues west of Greenwich, sub- ject to ratification by "the two States of England and Holland." Holland gave her ratification in 1656, but the award was, when made, ill received by many of the ISTew l^etherlanders. One of them wrote that the English had entertained Director Stuy^^e- sant with great pomp, receiving and treating him like a prince, wherever he passed, and pulled the wool over his eyes.-^"^ No doubt Governor Hopkins, as President of the Confederation, fully appreciated the value in diplomacy of appropriate hospi- '' See II N. H. Col. Rec., 112. ^«Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc, 2d Series, VI, note; O'Callaghan, Hist, of New Netheiland, II, 151, 312; Hazard, Am. State Papers, II, 161, 169, 170, 549. "Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York, I, 458-461; Trumbull, Hist, of Conn., I, 194-201. 22 THE HOPKINS GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN talities. His corresi^ondence shows that while in Hartford he kept open house. He received from Cromwell the appointment of JSTavy Com- missioner in 1652, which seems to have carried the duties of purchasing naval supplies, and that of an Admiralty Commis- sioner in 1655. At the time of his death he was a member of Parliament, representing Clifton in Devonshire.^ ^ We have a vivid sketch of Hopkins from the pen of Cotton Mather. "In his government," says Mather, "he acquitted himself as the Solomon of his colony" and "as he was the head, so he was the heart of the people." He thought, however, that there was too little, among them, of reverence for authority. "For the generality," he said, soon after his return to his native country, the people of 'New England "have not considered how they were to honour the rules of God, in honouring of those whom God made rulers over them, and I fear they will come to smart by having them set over them, that it will be an hard work to honour, and that will hardly be capable to manage their affairs." He maintained daily family prayers in his household, always reading, and explaining as he read, some passage from the Bible ; and, continues Mather, "he had one particular way to cause attention in the people of his family, which was to ask any person that seemed careless in the midst of his discourse, What was it that I read, or spoke, last ? whereby he habituated them unto such an attention, that they were still usually able to give a ready account." ^^ He was a man careful in speech. Governor Edward Wins- low of the Plymouth colony, one of his associates in the Congress of the United Colonies, wrote of him to Governor Winthrop as one "whom we all know to be a man that makes conscience of his words as well as his accoiis." "^ He was a man to be trusted, without misgivings. The holders of the Saybrook Patent felt so, when they put all the ^«Dict. of National Biography; N. E. Hist, and Gen. Reg., XXVII, 33, XXX, 73. '^Magnalia, Hartford Ed., I, 132-4. =» N. E. Hist, and Gen. Reg., XXIX, 238. EARLY GRA:MMAR SCHOOLS OF ^'EW EXGLAXD 23 arrangements for settling the plantation in his hands.^^ Colonel Fenwick felt so, when in a codicil to his will, made March 9, 1657 (K S.), he gave £500 to the public use of ITew England, if his "^'loving friend" Edward Hopkins, late Warden of the Fleet, "think fit." -- Happy is the institution which has a. founder with such titles to the regard of posterity as Edward Hopkins. He knew the all-importance of education in a free commonwealth. He looked foi-ward to what we can now look back upon. The history of Europe has repeated itself, in general outline, in the United States. There were the early days of colonies of civilized nations on the seacoast, hemmed in by savage neighbors. There were the dark ages of the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, when the first generations of colonists, who brought learning and literature with them, had died out, and for the most part what they had thus brought had died with them. There was closely following the Benaissance, when American scholarship and American letters took shape, and there were again those who found their inspiration in classical literature and art. Then came the middle ages, — the last half of the eighteenth centurj^ and the first half of the nineteenth, — an era of solid growth, of splendid invention, of strong activities in all direc- tions. The Civil War and the destruction of slavery followed. Dar- win's new philosophy of creation appeared, to work another Reformation of the Church, Modem government, world- congresses and world-conventions, modern life, became estab- lished, and we hail the wider and wiser knowledge of the j)resent day,- — and the approach of a still wider and wiser knowledge which the future must hold in store. It was in the very first of these successive eras that the Hop- kins Grammar School came into being; — in the first, and to guard against the evils threatened in the next, and foreseen already by him who was its founder. «76i(Z., XLII, 280. "^ lUd., XXXVIII, 199. 24 THE nOPKIXS GEAM:yrAR SCHOOL OF XEW HxiVEN The leaders in the "Jurisdiction" of jSTew Haven had, from the first, hoped that a college would be established there. In Ihe original layout of the suburbs around the palisade of the half-mile square, which was to constitute the to^\T.i proper, a considerable tract, known as the Ovster Shell Field, was reserved ''for the use and benefit of a college," "^ and into some- thing of that nature it was doubtless hoped that Cheever's school would grow. A few years later (1647), when a committee was appointed to dispose of such of the town lands as had not already been allotted, they were directed ''allso to consider and reserve what lott, they shall see meete and most commodious for a colledg, w^'h they dissire maye bee sett vp, so soone as their abilitie will reach thenmto." -* This, it will be noted, was not a provision for setting apart lands as a foundation for the support of a college, Avhich had been done (though infonually) already. It was a provision for a proper site for the college buildings. That chosen was the lot originally reserved for a Mrs. Eld red, fronting the Green, on the eastern part of which the Public Library now stands. ]^o doubt Governor Hopkins was from the first aware of the plans of Xew Haven in respect to a college, and not long before the date of his will his attention had been especially called to the subject by a letter from ^Mr. Davenport. His bequest, it will be remembered, is to support education ''both at the Grammar Schoole and Colledge." The term "Grammar School" in the seventeenth century signified a school for instniction in such higher learning as might be necessary in preparation for entering coUege.^^ As used with reference to the Hopkins foundation at Hadley, the President and Council of ^Massachusetts Bay and ISTew Hamp- shire resolved, in 1086, that it could "be no otherwise inter- preted but to be a Schoole holden by a Master capiable to instruct children and fit them for the University." -"^ !N"ot long after the provision for a college in Governor Hop- '^ Atwater, History of the Colony of New Haven, 272. "I N. H. Col. Rec., 376. " I Col. Rec. of Conn., 555. =" Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedinos, XIII, 282. EAKLY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAND 25 kins' will became known, a clergyman in Bennnda-''' wrote (on March 5, 1658, IT. S.) to Governor Winthrop of Connecticut, offering- his services as a professor or instructor in the college when set up, and describing himself as familiar with ten languages.-^ The times were not yet ripe for a college in the l^ew Haven Colony. A colony grammar school was, however, established in 1059, by vote of the General Court. Guilford offered the handsome stone house, built by Kev. Henry Whitfield, and still standing, as a schoolhouse, if it were set up there ; but after the intentions of the trustees under the Hopkins will became known, Xew Haven was given the preference, "as being a place most probable to advantage the well carrying on of the schoole for y*^ ends sought after and endeavoured after thereby." ^^ The Grammar School of ISTew Haven was heir to the college of Xew Haven. In 1660, while the hope of setting up a col- lege here had not been wholly abandoned, it had grown dim, and in prescribing the terms of the trust under the Hopkins bequest, Davenport provided that if no place can be found more convenient, Mrs. Eldred's lot should be given by the town "for the vse of the colledg & of y® colony grammar schole if it be in this toune ; else onely for the colledge." ^^ It was this colony grammar school which virtually became the Hopkins Grammar School, and by such almost imper- ceptible progression, that their fortunes have been not unfairly identified.^^ The first master, Jeremiah Peck of Guilford, was engaged on June 28, 1660, by a committee of all the magistrates and settled ministers of the colony, "to teach the scholars Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and fit them for the college." He asked, the next -^ Rev. Thomas BrowTie. ='Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, VIII, 282. =" 2 N. H. Col. Rec, 301, 374, 377. ^"2 N. H. Col. Rec, 1. '^]Sr. H. Col. Rec., II, 375, 376; Atwater, Hist, of N. H. Colony, 275, 281: Cf. L. W. Bacon, Historical Discourse on the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Hopkins Grammar School, 46. 26 THE HOPKINS GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN spring, that "Bectores Scliolae," that is, as he used this term, directors of the school, ''be now aj^pointed and established," and the general Court of the colony named for that purpose Mr. Davenport, his associate, Mr. Street, and Abraham Pierson, the minister at Branford.^- But the existence of the colony itself was now in jeopardy. Its good friend, the Lord Protector, had passed away and the Stuarts were again upon the throne. Connecticut had obtained a charter which covered everything in the jurisdiction of ISTew Haven. A fruitless struggle for independence followed, and there was no full submission to the government at Hartford until 1665. The colony grammar school did not long survive the grant of the Winthrop charter. A towai school for ISTew Haven suc- ceeded it, kept by George Pardee, who was engaged by vote of a town meeting held June 18, 1663, to give the children instruc- tion in English, "and to carry them on in Lattine soe far as he could; alsoe to leame them to write. Something was spoken about teaching arithmetic as very nessary in these parts." . . . "He was alsoe advised to be carefull to instruct the youth in point of manners, there being a great fault in that respect, as some expresst." ^^ Two months later Mr. Davenport heard of a suitable person in Massachusetts who could be had to teach a grammar school, and urged his immediate engagement, but as Mr. Pardee had been appointed for a year, no change could be made. Toward the close of the school year, the surviving trustees under Governor Hopkins' will made a final division of the funds bequeathed. By this it was agreed that £412 and half of the reversion to the £500 left for the benefit of Mrs. Hopkins during her life, should be applied to such uses of the nature indicated in the will as Mr. Davenport should prescribe. On the next day (April 28, 1664), Davenport appeared in town meeting and renewed his request that a proper teacher for a grammar school should be at once procured. He was now " N. H. Col. Rec, II, 407, 408. '^ N. H. Town Rec, MSS. III. EARLY GRAMMAE SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAND 27 ready, he said, by reason of "the failing of the Colony School" to disjDOse of the Hopkins bequest by giving the fund to the town, ''to be improved to that End for which it was given by Mr. Hojjkins, viz — to fit youth (by learning) for the service of God in church and commonwealth." He asked that immediate application be made to the President of Harvard "for an able man for the work to teach the Languages," and a committee appointed to receive the fund, send for the schoolmaster, and "also, there being many books belonging to the town, that they might consider about building a library upon" the Eldred lot.^'* This last suggestion remained under consideration for two hundred and forty-four years, and was then adopted. The town accepted the trust, made the "Magistrates, Elders, Deacons, and Deputies of the Court, as they shall arise" the committee to take it in charge, and appropriated £30 a yesir toward the maintenance of a Grammar School. ^^ Such a school was maintained for the next three years. The tradition is that it was under the charge of one of the sons of President Chauncey of Harvard. This was probably Rev. ]SJ"athaniel Chauncey, who was graduated at Harvard in 1661, and became pastor of the church at Windsor in 1667.^^ In that year the school passed into the hands of Samuel Street, a son of Rev. ISTicholas Street, one of the Hopkins com- mittee, — the town paying him £30, to which £10 was added from the Hopkins Fund. During his incumbency, Mr. Daven- port made the final and formal transfer of his title to the fund, under date of April 18, 1668. In this he conveyed it to seven trustees to the end that "the grammar school or college at ISTew Haven, already founded and begun may be provided for, main- tained and continued," but on condition that "the rent, profit and improvement of the Oyster shell field . . . formerly separated and reserved for the use and benefit of a college at jSTew Haven and also one other field commonly called Mrs. Eldred's lot" of about three acres, "be to the use of the said " Ihid. L. W. Bacon, Hist. Discourse, 52. ^Ubid., 53. ^' Stiles, Hist, of Ancient Windsor, I, 198. Cf. Orcutt, Hist, of Stratford and Bridgeport, 175. 28 THE HOPKINS GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN school at Xew Haven forever settled, ratified, and confirmed hj tlie said town accordingly.'' ^" Mr. Street resigned his place as Rector of the School in 1673, and George Pardee was reappointed. He seems to have been a sensible and modest man, who did not claim to be and was not competent to teach a grammar school, and a few years later he relinquished his charge to Samuel Munson, who had had better advantages of classical education.^^ The 23resent Hector is the one hundredth of those who have filled that place. It was occupied during most of the earlier history of the School by few for any length of time. As the women of Rome under the empire were said to date time, not from the annual consuls, but their annual husbands, so the Hopkins Grammar School had its annual or at best its biennial Rector. Its connection with Yale has always been of the closest, and what the Germans have called the pedagogical year, which follows the close of a university course, was often the occasion for one Rector's going out and another Rector's coming in. The enthusiasm of youth; the eagerness to share with others fresh acquirements, which characterizes all generous minds ; the compelling power of new-gained knowledge ; — these, no doubt, were the inspiration of many of these men, as they began the real duties of life by stepping from the commencement stage to the teacher's desk. And on the other hand, the lack of all experience, and the absence of any established perspective of vision, must often have led to a range of teaching above the heads of the classes that were subject to it, and but ill-adapted to their real necessities. It has given the School, however, an illustrious roll of Rectors, and for like reasons, of sub-masters. Among those who have been attached to it, as such, or are among its trustees or Alumni, are seven Presidents of Yale (Pierson, the two Dwights, Day, Woolsey, Porter, and Hadley) ; ten Presidents of other colleges or universities ; one hundred and ^ Atwater, Hist., 555. "8 Atwater, Hist, of N". H. Col., 280; L. W. Bacon, Hist. Discourse, 54, 55. EAKLY GEAMMAR SCHOOLS OF XEW EXGLA^'D 29 eleven Professors in such institutions ; six Governors of Colo- nies or States ; one Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States ; four Chief Justices of States ; twenty-five other Judges of high courts ; three cabinet officers of the United States ; three foreign ministers ; eight United States Senators ; twenty members of Congress ; three Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal church ; two Major Generals of the United States Army ; two Brigadier Generals of volunteers in the Civil War, and one Brigadier General in the Confederate army ; six mem- bers of the jSTational Academy of Science; three members of the ISTational Institute of Arts and Letters ; and a very large number who have been Presidents of banks, insurance com- j)anies, and other large business concerns, or of such national societies as the American Philosophical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Bar Association, the American Historical Association, the American Social Science Association, the American Society for the Pro- motion of Labor Legislation, and the International Law Asso- ciation. A change of policy in respect to the choice of teachers began in 1839, with the appointment of Hawley Olmstead as Rector. Since then the aim has been to secure, so far as might be practi- cable, a teaching force which should be permanent, of men who had taken up that profession as their life work. And what life work is there which offers more ? The main duty of every generation of mankind must always be to rear the next. AVhat a man does in life is largely measurable by the way he has impressed himself on the minds of others when they are in the most impressionable stage. They will live after him and he will live in them. jSTo English scholar of his generation did the work of Arnold ; and none to-day is as well remembered by the English-speaking race. The impulses of good that went out from one strong man at Rugby, perpetuated by grateful boys trained up by Arnold's fostering care to become leaders of men, by Stanley and Hughes in literature, and by thousands in the life of English homes, — these have outrun the sea, and helped also to build up here, on another continent, that sturdy uianli- 30 THE HOPKINS GEAMMAR SCHOOL OF IVEW HAVEN ness and faith in God without which all education is feeble and incomplete. Eight years ago a catalogue was prepared and published of the trustees, teachers, and Alumni of the School from its origi- nal foundation to that time. A copy of this will be presented to each of those attending the dinner this evening, by way of a lasting souvenir of the occasion. It shows that since the retirement of Hawley Olmstead, terms of equal or greater length have been served by four of his suc- cessors, the Rev. Dr. Whiton, now of ISTew York City, the late Henry IST. Johnson of Meriden, William L. Gushing, now Head- master of the Westminster School at Simsbury, and George L. Fox, now of the University School in this city. The first of this series of what we may call permanent Rectors, Hawley Olmstead, had been for many years teacher of a school at Wilton before he became Rector of the Hopkins Grammar School. He was a staunch believer in the value of a thorough classical education. Dr. Leonard Bacon once said of him that he seemed to think that a man ought to spend half his life in preparing for college and the other half in going through college. President Dwight, in his "Memories of Yale Life and Men," has given a chapter to the "Old Dominie," as his boys called him, and speaks of him, as do all who studied under his eye, with affection and respect. He was an apt teacher and, while no martinet, a successful disciplinarian. Of those who have sensed long terms since 1819, all survive save one. I do not speak here in praise of the living, but pause to say of the Rector who has passed away, Mr. Henry IST. Johnson, that under his superintendence the number of students was greater than ever before during the long history of the School. In 1873 there were two hundred and eight in attendance, requiring the services of seven assistant teachers. The present Rector became one of the School Faculty in 1897 and succeeded to the headship in 1906. I may add that one of the sub-masters, Mr. James B. Ryder, who entered the Faculty in 1868, continued in active and EARLY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAND 31 effective sei-^dce until, much to the regret of the trustees, he retired in 1907. Until 1849, the number of students was never very great, and all instruction was given by the Rector. One additional instructor was added that year, a son of Hawley Olmstead. He was always spoken of by the students as the "Young Dominie," to distinguish him from his father, the "Old Dominie." A second and third instructor were soon added, and at present the number of the School Faculty is eleven. Most of the sub-masters, however, are also instructors in Yale University, and devote but a part of their time to the School. The Hopkins Grammar School Association was organized by the Alumni of the School in 1858. Its especial purpose was to see to it that the bicentennial anniversary of the School was properly celebrated, and in this it was entirely successful. The Historical Discourse of the late Rev. Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon, delivered on that occasion, is a classic in American school literature. In 1892 another association was organized, under the name of the Hopkins Grammar School Alumni Association, and in 1893 its annual meeting took the shape of a reception tendered to Mr. Ryder in honor of his completing twenty-five years of service in the School.^^ It is not always easy to fix the precise date of the original foundation of an ancient institution. That for the Hopkins Grammar School of J^ew Haven was determined for us by a vote of the Hopkins Grammar School Association*" passed in 1858. It is June 4, 1G60, O. S., or June 14, 1660, K S. From that time on there has been, as we have seen, a history, substantially continuous, of a grammar school in ISTew Haven, established in reliance upon aid expected from the trustees under Governor Hopkins' will. This week, therefore, by our present calendar, ends the two hundred and fiftieth year in the long history of the institution. "•The Hopkinsonian for 1896, 26. *'L. W. Bacon, Hist. Discourse on the Celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Founding of the Hopkins Grammar School, 8, 67. 32 THE HOPKINS GKAMMAR SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN More than two hundred and forty years ago the Colony of ITew Haven passed away, by the common fate of nations, absorbed by a neighboring colony that was stronger and more aggressive. But the dead colony left here a living church and a living school. Religion and education survive empire. They are the forces out of which all governments emerge; all, that is, that are worthy of the name. Before 1683, whatever had been recorded respecting the grammar school was to be found scattered through the Colony or town records or those of the proprietors of common and undivided lands. From that date on, the School has main- tained its own records. One of the votes of the tiiistees, — passed in 1691, — in regard to the adjustment of the first treasurer's accounts, is recorded both in the first volume of the town land records and in the first volume of the School records. The latter, both by the vote of the trustees (or, as they styled themselves, ''the Committee for the College and School estate,") and in the record of it by the town, is styled "the College Book of Records." It is worth remark that in the MSS. Archives of the State, the earliest papers preserved in the volume entitled ''Colleges and Schools" are some of those relating to the Hopkins Gram- mar School. The first is a power of attorney from "Henry Dalley of London, Gent. Heir and Executor of the last Will and Testament of Edward Hopkins, Esquire, deceased," empower- ing the three surviving trustees under the will to take possession of all the property left by the testator in JSTew England and apply it to the purposes which the will declared. This paper bears date March 9, 1660. On May 30, 1660 (O. S.), which was Election Day, John Davenport left with the General Court of the Colony of jSTew Haven a copy of Governor Hopkins' will, the inventory of his estate in 'New England, its appraisal, and certain writings in regard to the disposition of the bequest, "signed by y^ surviveing trustees for their attorneyes, &, some letters" between the other EAELY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF NEW EXGLAXD 33 trustees and himself. A few days later, on June 1-4, 1660 (N. S.), in the formal instrument bj which he dedicated the funds distributed by the trustees to be used at New Haven, "for promoueing the colledg-worke in a graduall way, for the educa- tion of youth in good literature," he required the appointment by the General Court of a ''Steward or Receiver for the Schoole & coUedg" to act as treasurer, and added ''because it is requisite that the writeings w*^^ concerne M''. Hopkins his estate be safely kept, in order therevnto, the said John Davenport desireth that a convenient chest be made with 2 locks & 2 keies, & be placed in y*^ house of y® gouemo'' or of the steward, in some safe roome, til a more j)ublic jDlace (as a library or the like) may be p^'pared, & that one keye be in the hand of the gouemo'', the other in y^ stewards hand ; that in this chest all the writeings now delivered by him to the magistrates may be kept, & all other bills, bonds, acquitances, orders, or whatsoeuer writeings that may concerne this business be put & kept there." ^^ The present trustees of the School have in the hands of their treasurer a "convenient chest" in the form of a brass-nailed trunk, apparently of eighteenth century make, with one lock and no key, which has descended to them as the successor of that which, no doubt, was procured in the seventeenth. The original writings are not in it, but at the beginning of the earliest volume of school records are copies attested as true by "William Jones, jSJ'otary Public." This ancient book is bound in vellum,'*- and on the first page is thus entitled : "Records of ye last Will & testament of Edward Hopkins Esq. And of a Deed of Guift made by the Reverend M"". John Davenport (of a Legacy given by ye s^ Ed: Hopkins) unto Trustees in ye s Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th Series, VIII, 610. "Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4tli Series, VII, 501, 518: VIII, 611, a, 123. Savage Gen. Diet. 'early grammar schools of new ENGLAND 35 tember 30, 1658; the agreement of the trustees as to the apportionment of the funds between Hartford, Hadley, and Harv^ard College, dated June 13, 1664; a deed dated ISTovem- ber 8, 1671, from the heirs of John Evance, of the lands in ITew Haven belonging to his estate, to Thomas Lake, of Boston, for £70 ; and a statement that the sum actually received by the trustees of the Hopkins Grammar School was £412. These copies are all attested by Mr. Jones as a ^N'otary Public. I find no record of his appointment to such an office by the Colony of ISTew Haven'*^ or of Connecticut. Probably he held it at London, under the Commonwealth, or by appointment from the Court of Faculties of the x\rchbishop of Canterbury, and considered that it adhered to him wherever he might live within the realm.'*'^ Governor Jones served as one of the trustees until 1695 and probably resigned his office March 1, 1695 (IT. S.), for he attended no further meetings. He was then over seventy and in declining health.'*^ He lived, however, until 1706, his wife dying a few months later. An inscription to their memory was cut on her father's tombstone, and reads thus : "T' attend you. Sir, under these framed stones Are come your honored son & daughter Jones On each hand to repose their weary bones." ^ John Davenport took every care that the full number of the seven trustees who were to take charge of the School should be always kept up. In this final deed of gift, executed in 1668, he provided thus : "And that that there may be a certain and. orderly succession of able and fit persons to manage the several trusts herein before mentioned in the room or place of any of the said committee, or trustees before named, that shall die or remove his or their dwelling from New Haven aforesaid, the *" New Haven appointed one notary public, Thomas Fugill, as early as 1639. *" Such a claim was made in Massachusetts in 1720 by Joseph Marion, who held a commission issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The General Court, however, forbade him to act in the capacity. It had, itself, appointed notaries public as early as 1698. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLIII, 436, 7; see Opinion of the Justices, 150 Massachusetts Reports, 586. ^^Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc, 4th Series, VIII, 311. «N. H. Col. Hist. Soc. Papers, III, 516. 36 THE HOPKISrS GEAMMAE SCHOOL OF ISTEW HAVEN said committee, or the major part of them surviving, shall immediately, or at furthest within three months after, choose such other person or per- sons of known integrity and faithfulness, to succeed in the room and place of any such person or persons so dying or removing as aforesaid, that the work may be carried on (in the said grammar or collegiate school) hereby committed to them, that so learning may be duly encouraged and furthered therein, in the training up of such hopeful youth as in time, by the blessing of God upon good endeavors, may be fitted for public service in church and commonwealth, for the upholding and promoting of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ in these parts of the earth, according to the true and sincere desire and ends of the aforesaid Worthy Donor in his said last will and testament mentioned and expressed. And because I stand under an engagement to attend the will of the said donor deceased, that his ends may be attained in the dispose of his said legacy, if the said committee or their successors shall find the said ends by this grant not attained at New Haven, and that the said grammar or collegiate school hereby endowed and provided for, should be dissolved and wholly cease, I do obtest them by the will of the dead, which no man may alter, and by the trust committed to me and them, whereof we must give our account to the great Jvidge of all, that this gift of the said Edward Hopkins, Esquire, deceased, be by them the said committee wholly transferred and disposed of elsewhere, where the said ends may be attained.*^ On January 4, 1683, •when the records of the proceedings of the trustees begin, of the originally appointed seven there only survived. Governor Jones, Governor James Bishop, and Deacon William Peck, and they chose to fill two of the vacancies Gov- ernor Robert Treat and Thomas Trowbridge. During the next few years Deacon John Punderson and Deacon Chidsey appear on the records as acting trustees, but there is no record of the election, of Deacon Chidsey. Deacon Punderson was finally elected in January, 1689, but at a meeting at which only three of the original trustees were present. ^"^ In 1695, attention seems to have been called to these infor- malities, and a deed was executed, in presence of Deacon Pun- derson as a witness, by Governor Jones and Thomas Trow- bridge, as trustees, appointing Captain Moses Mansfield, Lieu- tenant Abram Dickerman, Thomas Trowbridge, Jr., Sergeant Samuell Allin, Sergeant John Allin and Joseph Moss, as trustees, and granting the trust estate to them and their suc- cessors in the trust "by them or the majority of them dewly ^Atwater, Hist, of New Haven, I, 558, =0 1 MSS. School Records, 24. EAKLY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAND 37 chosen & appointed from tjme to tyme forever," to maintain a Grammar School at 'Nev? Haven where a sufficient preparation could be given "for y^ Colledge either at Cambridge or else- where in ISTew England, if such Academy of Learning shall or may be hereafter erected for publique vses." ^^ It is probable that Governor Jones, in preparing this instru- ment, had in mind the practice of the benchers in the Inns of Court of his native city. They are not incorporated. The title to their valuable lands is vested in a certain number of them, to whom it has been conveyed as joint trustees. When this num- ber is reduced by death beyond a certain limit, the survivors join in a conveyance to some dummy, generally their steward or butler, who thereupon conveys to all the benchers then living, on the same trusts.^^ In subsequent times, the trustees, though many of them have been able lawyers, have not thought such a course necessary. As a vacancy has occurred, by death or resignation, the sur- vivors have filled it, agreeably to the statutes framed by Mr. Davenport. In like manner, and by like authority, in 1839 they filled the place of Bishop Brownell when, on the transfer of the Episcopal Divinity School from ISTew Haven to ISTew York, he had removed to Hartford, and remained there for years without sending in a resignation. The trustees voted that his place was vacant under their statutes, and appointed another to it. The title to their real estate has been deemed to be in them as an incorporated body. They have for a long period, if not from the first, acted as a corporatioUj commonly known as the Hopkins Committee of Trustees, or popularly as the Trustees of the Hopkins Grammar School. They have and use a corporate seal. "Whether their corporate capacity came by grant or recognition from the Colony of ISTew Haven, or the government of the Commonwealth before the Restoration, or from the crown or the Colony of Con- necticut later, their historian is unable to state. They have " Ibid., 28. °- Kyd on Corporations, I, 7. 215207 88 THE HOPKIXS GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF XEW HAVEN acted for time immemorial as only a corporation could legiti- mately act, and that is said to be the legal requisite for estab- lishing a corporation by prescription.^^ The minutes of the meetings of the trustees begin with one held January 4, 1683, when the "Hopkins Committee" met and "Agreed y'' Ensigne Munson goe on w"' y" Grammar Schoole at 'New Haven to make up his yeare Currant, & his allowance be 40^ pr ann as formerly." "Alsoe y* tryall be made of y® Sufficiency of y^ s"^ Ensigne Munson, and if he be found sufficient to institute and fit hope- full youth for y^ Colledge, according to y® Trust Committed to us, that then he goe on w*^ y*^ Schoole and have ffifty pounds pr ann and for y*^ next ensuing yeare, viz. 20^ out of y® found, 15^ of y® County Court out of y® Customs and 15^ out of y^ Colledge Estates, Oyster-Shell ffields and Eldred's lot." ^^ One of our alumni, Roger Sherman White, Esq. (H. G. S. 1854), of this city, has kindly prepared and presented to the School a complete statement, from the town records, of the real estate transactions of the Trustees from the beginning of the foundation. The first dates back to April 12, 1682 (recorded February 27, 1683 (K S.), Vol. I, 136). William Jones, William Peck, and Thomas Trowbridge as "Trustees for the Grammar School of ISTew Haven . . . for themselves and successors in the said trust, with consent of the Townsmen of ISTew Haven," grant to a number of persons, owming home lots adjacent to "the Oyster Shell Eield now lieing in Common with the Quarter commonly called Mr. Davenport's Quarter" ... a strip five rods wide behind the rear fences of the several grantees extend- ing "to the bank towards the Sea or Harbour," The considera- tion was that the grantees should fence in this strip, each with his own home lot, and maintain such fences forever, "the said Oyster Shell Field to be in that respect hereafter forever fence free." The use of the Oyster Shell Field had been made over by the town, in compliance with Mr. Davenport's requirements, "Kent's Commentaries, II, 277. " MSS. Records, H. G. S. Trustees, I, 14. EARLY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLA]N"D 39 but the title was not formally transferred to the Trustees until 1Y28. It lay southeast of the town plot, bordering on the north upon "Mr. Davenport's Quarter," and bounded on the west by what is now Olive street, and on the north by the extension of Chapel street. The Eldred lot, which had been promised by the town under the same circumstances, was partly devoted to other purposes. The western half, on September 25, 1685, was conveyed by the town to Rev. James Pierpont as part of his "settlement" as pastor of the town church.^^ He married a daughter of John Davenport, and in 1693 became the owner, through her, of a lot of two acres and a quarter facing the Green on Church street, and running from what is now Court street to a point probably about on the north line of the Law Chambers.^*" Soon after- wards. Deacon William Peck, by "order of the Trustees or com- mittee for the College and School estate at ISTew Haven," and the townsmen, under a vote of the town passed I^Tovember 4, 1689, made an exchange of lands with Mr. Pierpont,^''^ by which he acquired their interests in the remaining half of the Eldred lot, and the School and town received title to an acre and a half, comprising the southern part of the Church street lot already described, bounded west on the Green.^^ On ITovember 20, 1680, the town had granted to the grammar school a "school lot" of a hundred acres in the third division, and at a meeting of the proprietors of common and undivided lands, in 1746, it was voted that the "Committee of the Gram- mar School" make sale of it at public auction. They did so, but the purchaser, Isaac Brockett, claimed that they could not convey him a good title without getting authority from the General Court. In order "'fully to put that matter out of dispute and to Remove all scruples," they applied to the Gen- eral Court at the October Session in 1746, for a law empowering "said Committee or the major part of them" to "make and exe- " New Haven Land. Records, I, a, 317. "« lUd., 1, h, 22. " New Haven Land Records, I, 557. °'See Map of New Haven in 1G41, in Atwater's Hist, of New Haven Colony. 40 THE HOPKIJNTS GEAMMAR SCHOOL OF JSTEW HAVEN cute an ample and authentick Deed or Deeds of Conveyance of the premises to any person or persons who have or may purchase the same." All the seven trustees signed this petition. The lower house voted to grant it, but the upper house refused to concur, probably on the ground that they had the authority already, by virtue of the tovm grant to their predecessors in office.^^ At all events, the trustees, a few months later^^ (Brockett having meanwhile died), received the stipulated price from his heirs, and another party who was interested with him in the purchase, and gave them deeds in the usual form with full covenants of warranty. Toward the close of the eighteenth century, the southeast corner of this Church street lot was let for 999 years to John Mix. It is described as lying "on the East side of the Green or square . . . part of the school lot, so called ..." bounded southerly on Court street 46 feet, easterly on Orange street 90 feet, northerly on said school lot, and westerly on land of Hichard Cutler and Joseph Bradley, reserving an annual rent of £6, IS/.*^^ After the country had adopted a decimal standard, this was estimated as equivalent to $23, and that amount was paid until May 15, 1861, when the Trustees, for the gross sum of $525, released and quitclaimed to Enos Eoot, assignee of John j\Iix, all the rents thereafter to accrue during the rest of the term, It will be obser\'ed that the trustees did not convey or release the reversion. This lot is the site of the Hotel Davenport, appropriately so named after the chief trustee under Governor Hopkins' will. Consequently, on May 10, A. D. 2784, after the lapse of only eight hundred and seventy-four years more, the School will come into possession of a very handsome piece of business property. In 1800, leases for 999 years, for gross sums, from Decem- ber 1 of that year, were made by the trustees, of twenty-five acres of meadow, belonging to the School, in what had then =' State MSS. Archives, I Colleges and Schools, 118, 119. ""In January, 1747 (N. S.), New Haven Land Records, XIII, 136, 137. °i N. H. Land Records, Vol. 46, p. 136. EABI.Y GRAM]\rAE SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAISTD 41 become the town of JSTorth Haven, but until 1786 had been part of ISTew Haven. £232 in all was realized from this source.^^ On March 31, 1801, they (I^. H. Land Eecords, Vol. 52, 407) let most of their Church street lot to l^ew Haven County for 999 years. The lease provides that "said lot is estimated at two hundred and sixty six pounds, two shillings, the interest whereof being fifteen pound, nineteen shillings, and four pence per annum is to be annually paid to the Treasurer of said Hop- kins Committee by the treasurer of said County, the payment of which annual interest or rent is to be secured by a bond to be given by the treasurer of said County to the Treasurer of sd Hopkins Committee, and such interest or rent is to be due and payable annually until sd County shall pay to said Hopkins Committee the full sum of two hundred and sixty six pounds and two shillings, which the contracting parties have agreed may be done whenever the County shall choose to do the same." Receipt of such a bond is acknowledged to their full satisfac- tion, and "in consideration thereof" and to carry their before recited "agreement into effect," the Committee let the land to the County "for the full term of nine hundred and ninety nine years from" March 31, 1801, with covenants for quiet enjoy- ment during the whole term aforesaid, and that they would "resign and deliver up to the treasurer of said County of ISTew Haven the bond which we have this day received for security of the annual rent, whenever said County shall pay to us or our successors the sum of two hundred and sixty pounds and two shillings." The County proceeded to put up a jail on this lot. It has since been replaced by the City Hall. On March 22, 1802, the rest of the Church street lot, north of the jail, was let for 999 years (Vol. 52, 419), for the gross sum of $140.58, no rent being reserved. This is the lot now occupied by the Court House. Our successors, therefore, who will gather to celebrate the eleven hundred and fortieth anniversary of the School in June, "= The lessees were Gideon Todd, Joshua Barnes, John Barnet, Nathaniel Dayton and Harman Robinson; see Thorpe, North Haven Annals, 181. 42 THE HOPKINS GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN A. D. 2800, may find it installed in the present City Hall ; but it cannot use the County Court House as a dormitory or Rector's residence before March 22 in the following year. Toward the close of the last century a crown lease made in England by Alfred the Great for 999 years came to an end, and the crown took quiet possession. Let us hope that the Hopkins Grammar School, which has already outlived one English dynasty, may round out her millennium in the year 2660, and after a century or two more of useful activity, enter on her inheritance of the ISTorth Haven meadows, and of well-improved central property in a city that may then itself, not improbably, contain a million inhabitants. Meanwhile her ownership in real estate in possession extends only to her school building and grounds, and to the Pratt Field for athletic sports. The title to the Hopkins House, the dormitory in Chapel street, is in an auxiliary corporation in which the trustees have only a small stock interest, presented to them by some of the friends of the School, who subscribed for it to increase her facilities for receiving boys from out of town. The school was at first kept in the town schoolhouse, on the Green. This was situated nearly opposite the Pierpont house.*^^ In 1723 another schoolhouse was put up on the Green, for the exclusive use of the grammar school. This was placed near College street, and between that and the church, which stood in the center of the square.'''* It is shown on the Wads- worth map of ISTew Haven in 1748, as standing next to the jail, opposite what is now Famam Hall. It is certain that in 1756 a brick schoolhouse was built by the trustees, in which the grammar school was kept until 1801, but where it was placed is not wholly clear. The late John W. Barber, who was born in 1798, states in his ''History and Anti- quities of ISTew Haven" (p. 51), that the first house built for the school "was on the East side of Church street, fronting the •=^ Blake, Chronicles of New Haven Green, 17, 182. ^*Ibid., 20; Stiles, Literary Diary, III, 16, 17. EARLY ORAMMAK SCHOOLS OF ]N'EW ENGLAND 43 public square, a little South of the County House." This is corroborated by deeds and leases on record, which show that as early as 1753 a small lot on Church street was kept by the trustees with the purpose of putting a schoolhouse there.^^ On the other hand, Mr. Henry T. Blake, in his "Chronicles of ISTew Haven Green" (pp. 20, 213), is of opinion that the grammar school was kept until 1801 in a brick schoolhouse on the Green, nearly opposite the Pierpont lot, while Dr. Franklin B. Dexter, in his "j^ew Haven in 1784" (p. 58), says that it was probably housed in the County building on the other (southerly) side of the Green, or in a small building near it. The MSS. records of the School, while not explicit, seem to me to confirm Mr. Barber's statement. The schoolhouse was probably a very indifferent one, for two of the Rectors toward the close of the century kept the school either in their own houses, or in build- ings under their private control. In 1801, the school was transferred to the wooden schoolhouse built at a cost of £300, on a lot purchased for the purpose, by the trustees, on the southwest corner of Temple and Crown streets, which is now the site of the club house of the Young Men's Eepublican Club. This was a modest two-story build- ing, twenty^wo feet wide by. thirty-two feet deep, with an ample playground in the rear.*^^ It was removed in 1840 to a lot then owned by the School on Grove street, where it still stands. In that year possession was taken of the present schoolhouse at the comer of High and Wall streets. This site was pur- chased and the original building erected, forming the center of the present edifice, by the aid of funds advanced temporarily by several of the trustees. It was enlarged by a rear addition, at a cost of about $4,000, in 1867, and by a new front, in 1873, at a cost of nearly $14,000. The CroAvn street lot, which had cost less than $500, brought $2,500. In 1790, Abraham Bishop (H. G. S. 1774), an enterprising young lawyer of ISTew Haven, who had not long since returned from an extensive tour in Europe, full of the ideas which led «« See Stiles, Map of New Haven in 1775, Literary Diary, II, 275. ""L. W. Fitch, The Hopkinsonian for IS'IO, 84. 44 THE HOPKINS GKAMMAK SCHOOL OF KEW HAVEN to the overtlirow there of the ancient foundations of society, launched a scheme for a graded school in the city, in which the Hopkins Grammar School was to be substantially merged. He was to be its director. His father, Judge Samuel Bishop, had recently become one of the Hopkins Grammar School Trustees, and while the records of their proceedings contain no mention of any vote on the subject, the names of all of them, as "mem- bers of the Hopkins Committee," were signed, presumably with their consent, to the announcements of the new institution. It was to be styled the Orleans Academy. There were to be three separate departments, each in a room of its own, of which one was for instniction in Greek and Latin, but on Saturday fore- noon the Greek and Latin students were to go into the depart- ment of writing and arithmetic for instruction in those branches. The ministers of the four churches in the city and four laymen from each of the ecclesiastical societies were to be the visitors of the school. Among those appointed to this office were 'four of the trustees of the Hopkins Grammar School, and it was part of the announced plan that "the school for instruction in the Greek and Latin languages will in future be kept under the particular influence and appointment of" the entire Hopkins Committee. Boys and girls were not to be instructed together. A room in the Sandeman meeting-house was opened "for the reception of young misses and of boys under six years of age to be instructed by the Masters" of the Academy, and the "misses" were also to be taught "needle work of every kind" by a com- petent mistress- There is a painful precision of detail in the prescribed scheme, which testified to its French origin. It is probable that it was not put in serious operation. The city newspaper was full of it in the spring of 1790 and silent ever after. An advertisement in the fall by a Mr. Russ, of a school for young misses and boys in the Sandeman meeting-house, indicates that if the Orleans Academy ever secured a foothold there, it had been very soon abandoned.^'^ Abraham Bishop's name appears "Atwater's Hist, of New Haven, 158; Dexter, Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc, XIX, 191. EARLY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF ^^EW EjN'GLAXD 45 on the list of the Eectors of the Hopkins Grammar School for 1790, and he received from the Trustees, during the year nm- ning from March, 1789, to March, 1790, the sum of £21, 8s, 5d, while the preceding Kector, Jared Mansfield, received £30, 14s, SVsd. In the years next follovring, Mr. Mansfield resumed sole charge, and received the full salary, which in the year ending in March, 1791, was £65, 5s and 8d, and in that ending in March, 1792, was £72, 5i/od. Probably Mr. Mansfield stepped aside entirely for a few months in favor of Mr. Bishop, and the latter, on finding that the Orleans Academy was taking no root, was glad to retire. We know that he was living in Boston the next year, and beginning the series of ephemeral publications which made him conspicuous among the 'New England pam- phleteers of a centuiy ago. Mr. Bishop kept the School in a building belonging to his father, and Mr. Mansfield kept it in his o^vn house. Mr. Bishop's father had allowed him to turn a building which he owned into a theatre, and it is probable that he made use of this to teach in, for his announcements of the Orleans Academy mention a gallery from which visitors could view the scholars in the reading apartment, every Saturday morning, when they would be receiving instruction in reading and ethics.^^ It is some evidence of his ability as a teacher that President Stiles in May, 1790, placed in the School while it was in his hands, two young South Carolinians who had been sent here to enter Yale, and were found in need of further preparation.^^ The school hours, in old times, were long and vacations short. The Trustees' records show that on ISTovember 13, 1729, Daniel Munson was employed "to keep the grammer school for on year to begin 22""^ ]N"ovember, and to keep about 7 hours in the day in the winter season, and about 8 hours in the summer season, in each day and not to exceed twelve j^lay days in the year; and for his reward he is to have the mony raysed on the schollers heads, and the Kents of the mony and of the land & "Atwater, Hist, of New Haven, 159; Stiles, Literary Diary, III, 336; Bacon, Hist. Discourse, 1860, 61. «» Stiles, Literary Diary, III, 395. 46 THE HOPKINS GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN Medow of this present year." The next year fourteen play days were allowed. In 1776 provision was made for two vacations of a week each, one at the Yale Commencement, and the other on the annual Election Day, and it was ordered that the "master is not to indulge the Schollars with Liberty of playing on Wednesdays in the afternoon." '''^ By 1812, the vacation had become four weeks long, and school might be dismissed "on general trainings." The next year an age rule for admission was adopted. N^o boy was thereafter to be allowed to enter who was less than nine years old, and none "except Latin and Greek scholars." In 1822, the year was first divided into three terms, each to conclude with an examination on the studies pursued. The earliest publication of the School, official or unofficial, was the Boys' Saturday Journal, composed and set up by two of the students, Samuel J. M. Merwin, and Lucius W. Fitch, in 1831-32. It ran to its twelfth number. The first printed catalogue, also prepared by the students, was published in 1846. Since 1851, the catalogues have been official. Of student periodicals there have been The Critic, started in 1871, and ever since maintained; The Annual, in 1873; The Tablet, in 1875; The Triangle, in 1886; The Lumen Literarum, in 1887 ; The Fence, in 1892, and The Hopkinsonian, in 1896. In 1849, a debating club, known as Hopkins Grammar School Debating Society, was organized by some of the students and held its meetings in the schoolhouse. In 1851 its name was changed to "The Polymnian Society," which published its Constitution, and a poem delivered before it in January of that year by George Blagden Bacon (afterwards, the Rev. Dr. Bacon of Orange, N". J.), one of its members, making in all a twelve- page pamphlet. A School Glee Club has been maintained for many years, under instruction furnished by the trustees. A baseball nine was organized in 1860, and a football team in 1873. ^»MSS. School Records, III, 13. EARLY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF NEW ENGLAND 4T The financial history of this foundation illustrates how much can be done with a little money, if carefully husbanded and well applied. The original sum received from the trustees under the Hop- kins will was £412. Of this, £140 was invested, in 1672, in purchasing from Thomas Lake the lands in ISTew Haven formerly owned by John Evance, deceased. Among these was a house lot of about three acres, on the comer of Elm and College streets, comprising what is now the northern third of the old College Campus. It was a good purchase, and sales of parts brought in £134 by 1700. The balance of the fund was at first lent on personal notes or bonds, sometimes secured by mortgage, and sometimes not. On March 1, 1684, the total assets had risen in value to £486. It was not always easy to invest it thus in 'New Haven, and some of the money was put out in Salem and Boston. Governor Stoughton of Boston received, in 1693, a remittance of £70 to lend in this manner at five or six per cent.'^^ The Oyster Shell Field and the Eldred lot, under the votes of the town already mentioned, were also sources of income. A part of the field, containing between thirty and forty acres, brought in 1684 a rent of £3 a year.'''- In 1690, the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut, "considering the necessity and great advantage of good litera- ture," ordered that there should be "two free schooles kept and mayntayned in this Colony, for the teaching of all such children as shall com there, after they can first read the psalter, to teach such reading, writeing, arithmetic, the Lattin and Greek tongues, the one at Hartford, the other at I^ew Hauen, the mas- ters whereof shall be chosen by the magistrates aud ministers of the sayd county, and shall be inspected and agayn displaced by them if they see cause, and that each of the sayd masters shall haue annually for the same the sum of sixty powuds in country pay, thirty powuds of it to be payd 'out (of the) cnuutry treas- ury, the other thirty to be payd in the schoole revenue giuen by. " MSS. School Records, I, 27. "MSS. School Records, I, 22. ■48 THE HOPKINS GRAMMxVK SCHOOL OF NEW HAVEN perticular persons, or to be giueii to that use, so far as it will extend, and the rest to be payd by the respectiue townes of Hart- ford and New Hauen," '^^ Mrs. Hopkins died December 10, 1699/^ Two suits were brought in the CJourt of Chancery at London to compel the pay- ment of the £500, of which she had had the life use, to the pur- poses provided in her husband's will. One suit was by the Attorney-General and the other by Harvard College. They dragged along in true "Bleak House" fashion until 1713. In October, 1711, the Hopkins Grammar School Trustees executed a power of attorney authorizing Jeremiah Dummer, then the agent of the Colony at London, to endeavor to enforce their rights, by inten'ening in the litigation, but he wrote them in 1712 that he had been unsuccessful. The final decree appointed twenty-one persons as trustees of the fund ; directing them to invest it in land and pay one-fourth of the income to the Grammar School at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the balance in aid of students of divinity at Harvard College. The total sum coming to Massachusetts under this trust was received in 1715 and amounted, including interest from 1700, to over £1,250. At this period the income of the Hopkins Grammar School at New Haven exceeded its expenses so far that, in 1713, the trustees voted to give the town £15 for use in its common or primary schools. "^^ This surplus was due to receipts from the Colony, which required not only the maintenance of a grammar school where boys could be "^fitted for the Vniversity" in every town of a hundred families,"*^ but by its Act of 1690 made annual appro- priations for that purpose for the benefit of Hartford and New "Col. Rec. of Conn., 1689-1706, 31 ; State MSS. Archives, I Colleges and Schools, 7. ~* Barnard, Am. Journal of Education, IV, 684. But cf. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., VI, 336. "MSS. School Rec, II, 11. Cf. Blake, Chronicles of New Haven Green, 194. '^ Col. Records of Conn., Code of 1650, 555. Massachusetts had taken similar action in 1647. EAKI.Y GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF KEW ENGLAND 49 Haven, The Hopkins Grammar School Trustees were receiv- ing in this way between £40 and £50 a year. ISTew Haven had also in 1672 been granted by the Colony 600 acres of land "to be taken np where it may not prejudice any former grant, which sayd land shall be and belong to it . . . for euer, to be improued in the best manner that may be for the benefit of a grammer schoule in . , . the to^vn . . . and to no other use or end whatsoever." '^'^ This action had been taken in consequence of a petition preferred early in 1672 to the Governor and Council by "y® Trustees for y^ Collegiatt or Grammar Schoole att l!^ew Haven," asking their favorable influence in the General Court for such public grants in aid of Governor Hopkins' bequest to them as would "help for better maintenance of an able and fit man to instruct youth in y^ 3 Learned Languages," by which means learning, now languishing there, might be revived."^^ "Col. Rec. of Conn., II, 176; Steiner, Hist, of Education in Conn., 28. '*This petition is on file in the MSS. Archives of the State (1 Colleges and Schools, 5) and reads as follows: "To the honoWe John Winthrop Esqr Govr And to the worp^i the Assistants of his Majties Colony of Connecticut "The humble petition of ye Trustees for ye Collegiatt or Grammar Sehoele att New Haven Showeth "That may yeares since the worpU Edw