USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume II > Part 50
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This school through the abilities and extraordinary assiduity of the
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HISTORY OF TALBOT COUNTY
present master has for many years, even under great disadvantages, been looked upon as perhaps the best and most frequented in the Province; and should this scheme succeed, and the buildings rendered more commodious by having the school well fitted for the reception of boarders it might become yet more extensively useful than it has hitherto been.
Instruction or right education is universally confessed to be one of the greatest advantages in life. It is the best and truest improvement of our rational faculties; and those useful arts and sciences by which the condition of man has been rendered more happy and commodious are in a great measure owing to it. It purges off the dross of slavery and superstition and bears a friendly aspect on liberty and the social interests of mankind.
Solicitous to secure this noble advantage, and actuated entirely by sentiments of tenderness and regard for the rising generation, the Visi- tors flatter themselves that every lover of his country and friend of mankind will warmly promote a lottery so laudable in its intention and countenance with his favour and indulgence this nursery of school learning.
[Here follows the scheme, which had 706 prizes and 894 blanks, making 1600 tickets, which at $4 each, was expected to realize $6,400; all of which were divided among the prize holders. The profit to the school was derived from a deduction of 15 per centum from the prizes, before being paid, which would be $960 or £360 Maryland currency.]
This scheme is apparently more promising to the adventurer than any hitherto offered, there being not many more blanks than prizes, and the deduction of only 15 per cent., and as the visitors have been much encouraged to propose this lottery, they have reason to hope it will speedily be drawn.
THE REV. JOHN GORDON MESSIEURS JACOB HINDMAN MATTHEW TILGHMAN Visitors
JONATHAN NICOLS HENRY HOLLYDAY and MR. WILLIAM NICOLS,
who are appointed managers, will give bond and be on oath for the faithful execution of the trust.
The drawing to begin as soon as the tickets are sold, at Talbot Court House, in the presence of a majority of the managers and such of the adventurers as choose to attend, of which the public shall have timely notice, in the Maryland Gazette, and a list of the prizes shall also be published, immediately after the drawing.
All prizes not demanded within six months after publication will be deemed a generous benevolence to the school and applied accordingly.
Tickets may be had of any of the members. All money now in cir- culation will be received for tickets and paid in discharge of the prizes.
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THE SCHOOLS OF TALBOT
A subsequent announcement states that the lottery would soon be drawn, as the tickets were nearly all sold, and that Mr. Thomas Golds- borough's name had been added to the list of Managers. But the files of the old paper from which the above advertisement has been taken, give no information whether the lottery was actually drawn, though it is reasonable to presume it was. This case of the adoption of a method of raising money which would receive, at the present day, the condemnation of moralists, indeed of statesmen, and of its sanction by so excellent a man as the rector of St. Michaels parish, Mr. John Gordon, one of whose functions it was to determine for his flock the moral quality of actions, in as much as it indicates that the standards of right and wrong are not immutable, but vary from age to age, may serve to settle, in some appreciable degree, a fundamental question in ethical philosophy.
From this time onward, until its extinction, no record whatever, however slight, of this school has been discovered. How long it flour- ished and when it ceased to exist is unknown. It is believed, upon tradition merely, that it continued in successful operation up to the time of outbreak of the American revolution, when its revenues having been withdrawn to supply the exigencies of the state during the war, and private patronage during the troubles not being sufficient for its maintenance, its doors were closed. One fact is known, that before public affairs had become thoroughly settled and new provisions could be made for its support, the buildings upon the farm were destroyed by fire, and they never were replaced. There was less solicitude for its reestablishment from the fact that the Rev. Dr. Bowie, a clergyman who had settled in Talbot during the Revolution, having been deprived of his parish in Somerset county on account of his tory principles, had set up an excellent school near Easton, which in a measure supplied the loss of the Talbot Free School. Besides, it is proper to note, that after the war of the revolution, which produced not only a change in political relations and methods, but in habits of thought and courses of action, a subject which has not been sufficiently dwelt upon by historians, popular interest in public education was directed towards the establishment of schools of a higher order than had existed under the provinced régime. Academies and colleges absorbed the attention of our legislators, who doubtless reflected the sentiments of those they represented. Elementary education received no assistance from the public treasury but was left to be maintained by private patronage. It should be said, also, that the free schools in many of the counties
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had not been as successful as that established in Talbot. Accordingly it is found that after the Revolution in a number of cases adjoining counties united their funds and established union schools, or academies, and these for years were among the best in the State. In other cases the free school property was handed over to boards of trustees who had no relation to the State or county governments, and they founded excellent schools. In yet other cases, the school property passed into the hands of the trustees of the poor, and thus was diverted entirely from its original use and purpose. The school property of Talbot had a different destiny.
In the year 1782 by an Act of Assembly the visitors of Kent county school which was then exceedingly prosperous, having one hundred and forty pupils, were authorized and empowered "to erect the said school into a college or seminary of universal learning." One of the pro- visions of this act was that "if the visitors of any county school on the Eastern shore, for the more effectual advancement of useful knowledge and the better promoting the good purposes for which such county schools were originally founded shall be desirous to engraft and consoli- date the funds and estate of such county school, or any parts of the same, with the funds and estate of the said intended college" they should be allowed to do so, and be entitled to appoint one member of the board of visitors of the college "for every five hundred pounds which any such county schools shall contribute towards founding and supporting the said college;" or they might have "any other privileges and advantages in respect to the education of the youth of such county in the college" as might be fixed and agreed upon, in consideration of this sum of five hundred pounds "or any sum or estate of greater or less value which they might contribute." The college then and thus organized was what became and is known as Washington college, at Chestertown. For the support of this school, beside State endow- ments and donations, the fines and forfeitures which formerly went to the county schools, were set apart. In the year 1784 a similar Act of Assembly authorized the conversion of King William's school in Annapolis into a college, which was and is known as St. John's College, and these two institutions, the one for the Eastern and the other for the Western Shore, constituted the University of Maryland. Of these schools it is unnecessary to say more in this connection.
In the year of the organization of Washington college, namely 1782, an Act entitled "an Act to enable the Visitors of Talbot county school" was passed, of which the following is the preamble:
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THE SCHOOLS OF TALBOT
Whereas, it has been represented to this General Assembly by the Visi- tors of Talbot county school, that the school house belonging thereto hath, by unavoidable accident, been burnt down and consumed by fire, whereby the said county is deprived of any public school or seminary of learning; and the said Visitors being desirous of promoting useful knowledge and fulfilling the good purposes for which the county schools were originally founded, are willing to engraft and consolidate the es- tate of Talbot county school aforesaid with the funds and estate of Washington College, after paying the debts that are justly bona fide due and owing from the said school, therefore be it enacted, &c.
This law authorizes the visitors to sell the property at public sale to the highest bidder, and to pay off all debts against the school, accord- ing to the tenor of the petition presented: but there is no provision made for the disposition of the remainder of the money received from the sale. This seems to have been left to the discretion of the board of Visitors. This board was composed of these gentlemen, all of whom were residents of St. Michaels parish:
The REV. MR. JOHN GORDON, MR. JOHN BRACCO, MR. WILLIAM HAYWARD, MR. WILLIAM HINDMAN, MR. WILLIAM PERRY, MR. ROB'T GOLDSBOROUGH.
Having on the 12th of February, 1783, made due advertisement of the intended sale of the property it was, on the 1st of April of that year offered at public vendue, and the hundred acres of land were purchased by Mr. John Stevens for the sum of four hundred and eighty-five pounds "current real money." On the first of October a deed was executed by the Visitors to him, he having paid or secured the payment, of the sum mentioned. A few days after Mr. Stevens resold the property to Mr. James Lloyd Chamberlaine for the same that he had given. Among the records of this county there is note of the disposition of the money received from the sale of the school property; but a report was pre- sented to the General Assembly of the State by the Rev. Dr. William Smith, the first President of Washington College of the subscriptions and donations that had been made for its endowment. In this report the names of several citizens of Talbot are given as benefactors of the school, and the amounts bestowed. In addition to these it is noted that the Visitors and Governors had received from the Visitors of Talbot County Free School the sum of four hundred pounds. The subscriptions thus made entitled Talbot, according to the act of incor-
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HISTORY OF TALBOT COUNTY
poration, to a representation in the board of Visitors and Governors of the college, and accordingly Mr. Robt. Goldsborough and Mr. Wil- liam Perry were appointed as members from this county. From that time to the present, the visitors and governors have continued to elect some gentleman known for his friendliness to public education from Talbot to a seat whenever a vacancy has occurred in their body. It is to be regretted that the honor of representing the county in the oldest college of the State, and the only one upon the Eastern Shore, has not been sufficiently appreciated-so little so, indeed, that few in the county know that it enjoys the privilege of such representation. This respectable position is now held by Hon. Samuel Hambleton. The rights which the county enjoys of sending two pupils to Washington college free of all charge are not founded upon the benefactions of private citizens and of the Visitors of the Talbot Free School, above noticed, but upon endowments and appropriations by the State.
The Board of Visitors having therefore conformed in all particulars to the law-sold the property, paid off all debts binding upon it, and transferred the remainder of the proceeds of the sale to the institution designated as the residuary recipient-became functus officio, and thus the Talbot Free School closed forever its organic, as it had years before ended its functional existence.
The people of this county have long cherished their public schools as their most valued privilege and right. They have shown themselves, from time to time, ready to adopt any system of administering them which promised to promote their greater efficiency, however and by whomsoever framed. They have ever been jealous of any attempt to impair or restrict their usefulness. No public burden have they so cheerfully borne as that imposed for the maintenance of public instruc- tion; and there is no private sacrifice they so willingly make as that by which an education, for the common uses of life at least, is secured to their children. How far the growth of these most creditable senti- ments is attributable to that school which for more than half a century flourished in their midst, and of which an account has just been given, it would be impossible to determine: but that it had much to do with preparing the popular mind for the adoption of those systems of edu- cation which forty or fifty years later were received by Talbot with so much glad earnestness, when other counties which had no such prep- aration rejected them, and for the reception of that wiser and more comprehensive system which at the epoch of universal freedom inau- gurated the era of general education in every portion and among all classes of the people, no one can doubt.
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THE CHARITY WORKING SCHOOL OF PARSON BACON.
In a paper published in the Easton Star of December last, on the "Poor House," it was stated that a portion of the building now used for this public charity was erected for a manual labor school for poor boys. It is now proposed to give as full an account of this school as the imperfect records now extant will permit. A proper intro- duction to this account would be a survey of the life of the very able and useful man who was the founder and chief patron of the school, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Bacon. But this pleasant task will be for the time deferred, it being sufficient for the present purposes to say that this pious and learned man came to this county, from the Isle of Man, in or about the year 1745, and settling at Oxford, first became curate to the Rev. Daniel Manadier, then far advanced in years, and after the death of that worthy clergyman in 1746, the rector of St. Peter's parish, within whose bounds the school of which an account is now about to be given was, by his labors, erected.
The schools which Mr. Bacon found in Talbot, with one exception presently to be noticed, were of the most primitive character, being but little above the Hedge schools of Ireland, or the Dame schools of England in the slenderness of the instruction they imparted, and below these simple institutions in the character of the teachers, who were, in too many cases, indentured servants, or even transported convicts. But these schools, such as they were, were closed to the poor, for they were supported by subscription among the planters, who, if they admit- ted the children of their less fortunate neighbors to share in their meagre and perhaps doubtful benefits, it was done as an act of grace which the pride of poverty was not always ready to accept. There were no parochial schools in the county, and if any of the clergy consented to teach, it was an extra duty, for which he had to be compensated by tuition fees. But there was at the time of his settlement here, one school in the county which was technically a free school, though there is ground for the belief that it was free only in name, a small number of poor chil- dren being admitted without charge, but the greatest part of the pupils being required to pay a tuition fee. This school had been founded under the law of 1723 providing for the establishment of a free school in each of the counties in the province. Under a previous law, which, however, never became operative, Oxford had been designated as a suitable place for one of the two schools to be established, the other to be at Annapolis. But the law of 1723 providing for the establishment of free schools in all the counties required them to be placed as near the
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HISTORY OF TALBOT COUNTY
centre of the several counties as possible; so the one for Talbot was placed on a tract of one hundred acres of land, part of what was called in the original patent "Tilghman's Fortune," taken up before the organization of the county by Capt. Samuel Tilghman, of the "Golden Fortune." This hundred acres lay about three miles from Easton, on or near the Bay Side road, at a place where the waters of Third Haven and St. Michaels rivers approximate, and upon Betty's Cove. This school house lot makes a part of the farm now owned by Mr. Joseph R. Price. Occasion will be taken, hereafter, to give an account of this school. When Mr. Bacon came into Talbot this Talbot charity school was in operation, but it was so remote from his section of the county as to be practically useless to the poor of the greater part of his parish. To provide means of instructing the poor, he soon after his induction formed a plan for a school, which should be supported by the private bounty of his parishioners, and others whom he hoped to interest in his project. Any assistance from the public funds was out of the question, for all moneys that might be appropriated by the province were expected to go to the support of the county free school, above mentioned.
In the year 1750 having sufficiently matured his plans, he set himself earnestly at work for their accomplishment. He caused to be circulated throughout the province, indeed beyond its limits, the following papers asking the assistance of the charitable in the furtherance of his humane scheme. They were also published in the only newspaper of the Pro- vince, from the files of which in the State library at Annapolis they have been obtained:
THE SUBSCRIPTION ROLL MARYLAND, 14th JULY, 1750
Whereas, profaneness and debauchery, idleness and immorality, are greatly owing to a gross ignorance of the Christian religion, espe- cially among the poorer sort, in this Province; and whereas nothing is more likely to promote the practice of Christianity and virtue than an early and pious education of youth; and whereas many poor peo- ple are very desirous of having their children taught, but are not able to afford them a Christian and useful education: We whose names are underwritten do hereby promise and agree to pay yearly (during pleasure) the several sums of money or tobacco, over against our names respectively subscribed, for the setting up a Charity School in the parish of Saint Peter, in Talbot county, for maintaining and teaching poor children to read write and account, and instructing them in the knowledge and practice of the Christian religion, as professed and
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THE SCHOOLS OF TALBOT
taught in the Church of England, and such other things as are suitable to their condition and capacity, according to the general plan and rules hereunto annexed.
To this subscription roll was appended the following:
A general plan or scheme for setting up and supporting a Charity School in the Parish of St. Peter's in Talbot county, for the mainte- nance and education of Orphans and other poor children.
I. That a Master duly qualified shall be procured from England, to be recommended and approved of by one of the religious societies, who shall be obliged to teach so many poor children as shall be deter- mined by the Trustees; and shall also instruct a certain number of ne- gro children, if thereunto required by the Trustees.
II. That besides the annual subscriptions and casual benefactions, application be made to the vestry to appropriate the money collected at the offertory on Sacrament Sundays to the use of the said school: and also that one or more charity sermons be preached every year, and collections made thereat, for the better support of the said school.
III. That the number of poor children whether boys or girls shall be determined by the Trustees, according to the produce of the bene- factions: a smaller number at first, which may be increased, as it shall please God to increase the abilities or fund of the Trustees.
IV. That the poor children shall be taught to read, write and ac- count, and be instructed in the knowledge and practice of the Christian religion as professed and taught in the Church of England; together with such other things as are suitable to their condition and capacity; and be supplied, during their continuance in the school, with all neces- saries of life proper to their state.
V. That to their learning shall be added such labor as they are capable of, that they may be inured to industry, as well as trained up in the principles of Piety and Virtue, at a time when their tender minds may be supposed the most susceptible of good impressions, and least tinctured with the prevailing indolence and vices of the country in general.
VI. That after such a course of exercise and instruction as may be necessary they shall be put out to services or apprenticeships, as may seem best to the Trustees, for the credit of the establishment, and good of the children, as well as that of the country in general.
VII. That if it shall please God so to bless the endeavors of the Trustees as to enable them to set up some useful manufacture, they shall lay themselves out in that way, and strive to make the produce of the children's labor contribute towards their support or better en- couragement, as circumstances may require.
VIII. That such negro children as shall be sent by order of the Trustees to the said school, shall be taught to read and write, and introduced to the knowledge and fear of the Lord, gratis; but main- tained at the expense of their respective owners.
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HISTORY OF TALBOT COUNTY
Rules referred to in the Subscription Roll, relating to the Subscribers, Trustees, etc., for the government and support of said School; and for regulating other matters concerning the care and management thereof.
I. That the present annual subscription shall be deemed to com- mence from the day of the date of the subscription roll, and the pay- ments to be made accordingly.
II. That at the end of each year any subscriber may withdraw his or her subscription for the time to come by signifying the same in writing, under his or her hand, to the Trustees and Treasurer, for the time being, three months before the expiration of the year. When no such notice is given, such persons to be deemed subscribers for the same rate of value for the following year, and payment to be made accordingly.
III. That there shall be a general meeting of the subscribers, on Saturday 29th September 1750, at the Parish Church of St. Peter's in Talbot county at the hour of XII; when six Trustees and a Treasurer shall be chosen by a majority of the subscribers then present, who with the Rector of the said parish for the time being shall have the immediate care and government of the said school, and shall report the state and condition of the same at the Quarterly or other general meetings of the subscribers.
IV. That no person shall be qualified to be chosen a Trustee or Treasurer for the said Charity school who does not at least subscribe five pounds current money of this Province, per annum, toward the support of said school.
V. That at the first general meeting of the subscribers, on the 29th of Sept., 1750, shall be settled the times and manner of the future gen- eral meetings, and such other regulations agreed upon as shall be deemed the standing rules and orders for the government and management of the said Charity school.
VI. That if there shall happen to be any money in stock at the entrance of the Treasurer in office, or that there be a considerable sub- scription to be received, the Treasurer shall give his bond to four or more of the subscribers, to lay out the same as the Trustees shall order; but more especially that in case of his death the money so received and not expended, may be answered to the school.
VII. That the Treasurer shall keep a fair account of all the receipts and disbursements for the view of the subscribers and others who may desire to know how the money is disposed of.
VIII. That the Treasurer shall bring in his accounts once or oftener in a year; if required, to be examined and audited by the Trustees, or persons appointed for that purpose.
IX. That on Easter Monday in each year there shall be chosen a Treasurer and six Trustees, by the majority of the subscribers then present; nor shall any Treasurer or Trustee continue in his office above one year, unless re-elected by the majority aforesaid.
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THE SCHOOLS OF TALBOT
X. That every person subscribing Five pounds currency per annum, or upwards, shall have a right to name a child to enjoy the benefit of the school, such child appearing to the Trustees to be a fit object for it. The largest subscriber to have the first nomination, and the rest in order, according to the value of their annual subscriptions. Those of equal value to cast lots for their choice or nomination, and afterwards chil- dren to be presented by them in their turns as settled by the said lot.
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