Bi-centennial history of Albany. History of the county of Albany, N. Y., from 1609 to 1886. With portraits, biographies and illustrations, Part 63

Author: Howell, George Rogers, 1833-1899; Tenney, Jonathan, 1817-1888
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1452

USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > Bi-centennial history of Albany. History of the county of Albany, N. Y., from 1609 to 1886. With portraits, biographies and illustrations > Part 63

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The following specimen quotations from the society's annual " Abstracts of Proceedings " are of interest in this connection :

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HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF ALBANY.

Besides the Missionaries, there has been a great Demand upon them for Catechists and School-Masters to Instruct not only the Servants and Slaves (who have heretofore lived as without God in the World) but also the Children of the Planters, especially the poorer sort, in Reading, Writing, and the Principles of the Christian Religion, as Taught and Professed in the Church of England; but the Narrowness of their fund having obliged the Society to send but few of these, a worthy member of their body, Colonel Heathcote of New York, has suggested an expedient of maintaining a great many more School-Masters, at the easy rate of Five or Six Pounds per annum, which the Society has most readily embraced, and referred it to the Governor himself, and the Missionaries of that Province, to put the proposal into practice.

Mr. Hudlestone, Schoolmaster at New York, teaches fifty poor children on the Society's Bounty to read and write, and instructs them in the Church Catechism, many of which are now fit for any Trade; and as they go off, his number is always kept up, poor People daily coming to see if there is any vacancy to admit their Children, being not able them- selves to pay for their Learning.

The Society also have received an Account from Mr. Peasly, in 1731-33, Schoolmaster at Albany, in the Province of New York, That he hath lately instructed 8 negroes, viz .: 6 Adults and 2 Children, who have been baptized by the Reverend Mr. Miln, the Society's Missionary at Albany.

Mr. Noxon, the Schoolmaster, writes from New York, August 6, 1738, That he hath upwards of fifty poor Chil- dren, whom he teaches to read, write and cypher upon the Society's Charity; and brings to Trinity Church, on Wednes- days, Fridays and Holy Days, to be catechised. He adds, there is great want of Common Prayer-Books and Psalters.

And as the maintenance of a learned and orthodox Clergy abroad, though the principal, is not the only Intent of this Corporation, but they are also to make such other Provision as shall be found necessary for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts : The Society have done all in their power to encourage the setting up of Schools, that the rising Generation may be brought up in the Nurture and Fear of the Lord, and they give Salaries to three Catechists and twelve Schoolmasters for this purpose.

We give a few extracts from the standing orders of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts relating to the schoolmasters :

I. That no person be admitted a Schoolmaster, till he bring Certificates, with respect to the Particulars following:

I. The Age of the Person.

2. His Condition of Life, whether Single or Married.

3. His Temper.

4. His Prudence.

5. His Learning.

6. His sober and pious Conversation.

7. His Zeal for the Christian Religion and Diligence in his Calling.

8. His Affection to the present Government.

9. His Conformity to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England.

II. That no Person be sent, as a Schoolmaster by the So- ciety, till he has been try'd and approv'd by Three Mem- bers, appointed by the Society or Committee, who shall testify, by Word or Writing, his Ability to teach Reading,

Writing, and the Catechism of the Church of England, and such Exposition thereof, as the Society shall order.

Instructions for schoolmasters employed by the Society:

I. That they well consider the End for which they are employed by the Society, viz .: The instructing and dispos- ing Children to believe and live as Christians.

II. In order to this End, that they teach them to read truly and distinctly, that they may be capable of reading the Holy Scriptures, and other pious and useful Books, for informing their Understandings and regulating their Manners.

III. That they instruct them thoroughly in the Church- Catechism; teach them first to read it distinctly and exactly, then to learn it perfectly by Heart; endeavoring to make them understand the Sense and Meaning of it, by the Help of such Expositions, as the Society shall send over.

IV. That they teach them to Write a plain and legible Hand, in order to the fitting them for useful Employments; with as much Arithmetick, as shall be necessary to the same Purpose.

V. That they be industrious, and give constant Attend- ance at proper School-Hours.

VI. That they daily use, Morning and Evening, the Prayers composed for their Use in this Collection with their Scholars in the School, and teach them the Prayers and Graces composed for their Use at Home.

VII. That they oblige their Scholars to be constant at Church on the Lords-Day Morning and Afternoon, and at all other Times of Publick Worship; that they cause them to carry their Bibles and Prayer Books with them, instruct- ing them how to use them there, and how to demean them- selves in the several Parts of Worship; that they be there present with them, taking Care of their reverent and decent Behaviour, and examine them afterwards, as to what they have heard and learned.

VII. That when any of their Scholars are fit for it, they recommend them to the Minister of the Parish, to be publickly Catechized in the Church.

IX. That they take especial Care of their Manners, both in their Schools, and out of them; warning them seriously of those Vices to which Children are most liable; teaching them to abhor Lying and Falsehood, and to avoid all Sorts of Evil-speaking; to love Truth and Honesty; to be Modest, Gentle, Well-behav'd, Just and Affable, and Courteous to all their Companions; respectful to their Superiors, particularly toward all that minister in holy Things, and especially to the Minister of their Parish; and all this from a Sense and Fear of Almighty God; endeavor- ing to bring them in their tender Years to that Sense of Religion, which may render it the constant Principle of their Lives and Actions.

X. That they use all kind and gentle Methods in the Government of their Scholars, that they may be lov'd, as well as fear'd by them; and that when Correction is neces- sary, they make the Children to understand, that it is given them out of kindness, for their Good, bringing them to a Sense of their Fault, as well as of their Punishment.

XI. That they frequently consult with the Minister of the Parish, in which they dwell, about the Methods of manag- ing their Schools, and be ready to be advised by him.

XII. That they do, in their whole Conversation, shew themselves Examples of Piety and Virtue to their Scholars, and to all, with whom they shall converse.

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The labors of these schoolmasters and catechists seem to have been very self-denying, devoted and useful. They continued from about 1702 to 1776. The annual salaries paid varied between £7 and £50, the clergy receiving the highest salary.

Says Rev. Dr. Berrian, speaking especially of Trinity Church :

There is nothing with which I have been so much struck and impressed, in the investigation of the early history of this Parish, as the zeal, the earnestness, and devotedness of the schoolmasters and catechists of that day. The former appear to have been selected from among the laity with great caution and care, and to have been persons of respect- ability and worth. The latter were occasionally laymen, but more commonly such as were preparing for holy orders, or who had actually received them. Some of these were men of liberal education, who in the commencement of their professional life were full of promise, and who ended it with respect and honor. But they all seem to have en- tered with the same spirit upon their humble labors, and to have prosecuted them with a patience, an interest and a blessed result, which put ours to shame at the present day. Intellectual was not then, to the extent that it is now, separated from religious improvement, but both went hand in hand throughout the week. The whole of early life was, in a certain measure, devoted to Christian instruction, and not merely reserved for the scanty intervals between the hours of worship on the Lord's Day.

It is delightful to observe, in the annual reports of the schoolmasters and catechists to the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel, with what cheerfulness and industry they appear to have labored in their useful hut lowly em- ployment.

We have given enough to show that, however lowly and incomplete were the labors of the schools of this society for the education of the children of the humbler classes in this State for the first three-quarters of the last century, the work was a noble one, and is specially deserving as it was about the only work of the kind that was pursued with zeal and patience during this long period of general disturbance in public affairs. The instruc- tion was purely elementary. John Adams, who visited Rye in 1774, where this society sup- ported a school from 1707 to the period of the Revolution, says: "They have a school for writ- ing and cyphering, but no Grammar School." Rye belonged to Connecticut until 1683, and its schools in its early history, we infer, were not in- ferior to those of any other settlement in the prov- ince of New York.

The establishment, in 1773, of "a public school to teach Latin, Greek and Mathematics, in the City of New York," under authority of an act of the General Assembly of the province, may be regarded as an event of considerable interest in the history of public education in this colony; though, like the Grammar Free School of 1702-1709, it

seems to have flourished during a period of only about seven years. Both the schools referred to may have been vitally, if not formally, connected with the repeated proposals and attempts, begin- ning as early as 1703, to found a college in this province; though of this there seems to be no offi- cial evidence.

This latter school was incorporated, October 14, 1732, with. Alexander Malcolm as schoolmaster. He was required to admit and teach gratis as many as twenty youths, apportioned among the ten counties, of which Albany County had two assigned. Candidates were not to be under 14 years of age, to have been "well in- structed in reading and writing of English," and to be recommended by the Justice of Sessions, or by Mayor, Recorder and Alderman in cities.

This act was renewed for one year, amid much opposition, December 1, 1737. The members for Albany County, Col. Rensselaer and Col. Schuyler, favored the bill. Its conditions were not essentially changed.

Female teachers were not plenty, as nearly as we can learn, in the early history of New York; not one do we find in New Netherlands. Some appear in the schools of Long Island and Westchester, where were many settlers from New England, in the latter part of the seventeenth century. They were, no doubt, importations from Connecticut, where females were early employed, especially in the summer schools. One writer thinks that Rachel Spencer, who taught school in Hemp- stead, and died in 1687, was the first schoolmistress on record in the provinces; and that the nameless "traveling woman who came out of ye Jerseys, and kept school at several places in Rye Parish," about 1716, was second schoolmistress in the provinces, of whom we have any record. In this, however, we think, he errs; as, in an old account book noticed by Mr. H. Onderdonk, in Flushing, the book- keeper, in 1681, reckoned with Elizabeth Cowper- thwaite, about "schooling and diet for children," and in 1683, with Martha Johanna "upon an agreement for thirty weeks schooling, paid for by a red petticoat." In 1685 Goody Davis keeps schools at Jamaica in " a little house," soon after used "as a shoppe."

At a much later period, the girls in Mr. Hil- dreth's school, at New York City, "in the after- noon learned to write, being the rest of the day under the care of a schoolmistress employed by the Vestry," by whom they were "taught necdle- work."

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HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF ALBANY.

Who was the first schoolmistress in Albany County? We have, thus far, asked in vain.

Some are and must be brighter and greater than the rest. While wealth is no measure of wit or learning, it affords larger opportunities for the culture of whatever tact or talent may be native. And as long as learning adds grace to riches and respect to public and social position, it will be sought by families who have money to aid in its attainment.

Hence, the children, especially the sons, of the wealthy families of the colonial period in this State were often placed under a private tutor, who, sometimes, was the parish clergyman. Tuition schools, usually of only temporary duration, were established in the larger towns, especially in New Amsterdam, to which the favored children of for- tune resorted.

Under the English Government, private or sub- scription schools were to be found all over the country. In some neighborhoods Dutch was taught.

Before the Revolution, if but little attention was given to the mental culture of young men in the schools, there was still less given to the young women. Most in the humbler walks of life re- garded themselves as born to household drudgery. Beyond this few attained. In the realm of letters they were usually ambitionless. Many bright daughters, who married worthy men and became excellent wives and mothers, could read only sim- ple reading and rarely write at all, or, if at all, only their names.

Those who attained more than this were usually daughters of men of fortune and unusual intelli- gence, who early manifested marked fondness for knowledge and tact in acquiring. They learned of parents or older brothers at home, or of private tutors. Observation, books and conversation did much for girls of active minds who had access to these great educators.

As a remarkable illustration of a woman of those days educated without the " advantages " of schools, we quote what Mrs. Grant tells us, in her " Mem- ories of an American Lady," of Miss Margaretta Schuyler, who afterward became the wife of her cousin, Col. Philip Schuyler, and the honored Madame Schuyler. Her mind from her earliest years was distinguished for maturity and remarka- able aptness. Its culture came about by the keen appreciation of her talents and the wise direction of her mental training by her uncle, Col. Peter Schuy- ler, after the early death of her father, Col. John Schuyler. "He was at the pains to cultivate her

taste for reading which soon discovered itself, by procuring for her the best authors in history, divin- ity and belles-lettres. The few books of this kind that she possessed were very well chosen; and she was early and intimately familiar with them. Whatever she knew she knew to the bottom; and the reflections which were thus suggested to her strong, discerning mind were digested by means of easy and instructive conversation." Col. Schuyler was acquainted with the families of rank in New York, where he had many relatives. Spending a portion of every winter there, "he often took his favorite niece along with him," who soon attracted attention by her personal graces as well as by the charms of her conversation." Here she was much admired, because such " cultivation and refinement were rare"-out of the routine common to young women of her time-and she had a mind strong enough to bear the admiration bestowed upon her without the conceit and pedantry of weaker minds. She was never taught that the great motive to ex- celling was to "dazzle or outshine others; she never thought of despising her less fortunate com- panions, or of assuming superiority over them. Her acquisitions were never shaded by affectation."

Such was "Aunt Schuyler" of Albany in her early womanhood, according to one who wrote of her, long years after, as the model "American lady. ' She was a queen all her life in the wide circle that knew her. The women she lived among "were all natives of the county, and few liad more than a domestic education." But men who possessed the advantages of early culture and usage of the world daily arrived in New York and Albany. "Female elegance" in the colony was not common. Says Mrs. Grant: "The supply was not equal to the demand." Mrs. Schuyler received due attention. "She was respected for the strength of her character, the dignity and composure of her manners," her unusual mental culture and her practical common sense.

"The Mohawk language was early familiar to her. She spoke Dutch and English with equal ease and purity; was no stranger to the French tongue, and could read German." And yet we do not find that she ever attended a fashionable ladies' school.

" Books are, no doubt, the granaries of knowl- edge; but a diligent, inquiring mind, in the active morning of life, will find it strewed with manna over the face of the earthi, and need not, in all cases, rest satisfied with intelligence accumulated by others, and tinctured with their passions and prejudices. Whoever reads Homer and Shake-

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EDUCATION.

speare may daily discover that they both describe nature and art from their own observation.

"The enlarged mind of 'Madame Schuyler' and her simple yet dignified manners made her readily adapt herself to those with whom she conversed, and everywhere command respect and kindness, and, on a nearer acquaintance, affection followed. But she had too much sedateness and independence to adopt those caressing and insinuat- ing manners by which the vain and artful soon find their way into shallow minds. Her character did not captivate at once, but gradually unfolded itself. You always had something new to dis- cover. Her style was * * without the least embellishment, and at the same time so pure that everything she said might be printed without cor- rection, and so plain that the most ignorant and most inferior persons were never at a loss to com- prehend it. It possessed, too, a wonderful flexi- bility; it seemed to rise and fall with the subject. I have not met with a style which to a noble and uniform simplicity united such variety of expression. Whoever drinks knowledge pure at its sources, solely from the delight in filling the capacities of a large mind, without the desire of dazzling or out- shining others; whoever speaks for the sole pur- pose of conveying to other minds those ideas from which he himself has received pleasure and advan- tage, may possess this chaste and natural style. But it is not to be acquired by art or study."

We have given this example of Miss Schuyler, afterward known as Madame Schuyler, as an ex- hibition of the best type of an educated woman in the New York colonial period, before the forma- tion of our government, when female education was generally little thought of, when scarcely any public provision for it was made. She was an Albany lady. She lived in the days of our grand- mothers. The methods of her education, the use she made of it, and its reflex influence on her character, are deserving the careful consideration of the girls of this generation, when the avenues to knowledge are as plenty and free as water.

Lossing, in his Life and Times of Gen. Philip Schuyler, tells us that young Schuyler (born in 1733), when a little more than 14 years of age, " had studied the ordinary branches of a plain education under the instruction of his mother, for the schools of Albany were very indifferent. He also had the advantages of listening to the con- versation, and perhaps actually receiving instruction from educated French Protestants, who had ever been welcome visitors to the mansion of Gen.

Schuyler at the Flats. He received some instruc- tion in the science of mathematics from one of those Huguenots who may have been employed as a private tutor in some wealthy families at Albany."

Young Schuyler's education was directed toward a mercantile life. He was sent to school, when 15 years of age, to New Rochelle, in Westchester County, among the sons of French Huguenots and New York merchants. At that time, no class of people in the province was more thrifty and progressive; none had superior culture in good manners and the learning of the day. They were religionists of the John Calvin school, and were matched only by the Puritans in their zeal for mental and spiritual progress, and for the rights of conscience and popular government. This school, kept among those French refugees of the latter part of the seventeenth century and their descendants, was the only one in New York, at that time, where was taught the French language, and few, if any, taught so well other subjects needed by an intelligent mer- chant. Its principal, Rev. Mr. Stouppe, was a Swiss, and pastor of the French Protestant Church of the settlement. Three years later, Schuyler was spending his summers among the hunters and trappers of the upper Hudson. He became influ- ential among the Indians. He spent several weeks every autumn and winter with his relatives and friends in the City of New York, where he found congenial society. Large landed estates soon de- manded his care, and the affairs of his country de- manded his influence, his wealth, his talents and his acquirements of head and heart. He is given here as one of the best examples of the methods and influence of the education of his times among the young men of good family and ample means, and who were not aiming at law, medicine or divinity.

Schools in New York were of a very low order as late as 1760. Said a writer of that time: "The instructors want instruction, and through a long, shameful neglect of all the arts and sciences our common speech is extremely corrupt, and the evi- dences of bad taste as to both thought and lan- guage are visible in all our proceedings, public and private." Reading was neglected by all classes ; education was regarded as an affectation of learn- ing, and a student was rarely found outside the professions of law, medicine and divinity.

Some few of the young men were sent over to Europe for education. They belonged to families of wealth or social and political influence. There were no higher schools for the people-for the poor and toiling classes. If they obtained rank by

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HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF ALBANY.

learning, wealth and title, it was the expression of an irrepressible energy that nothing human could re- sist. Such expression has become common all over our country now.

Commerce engrossed the energies of the princi- pal families of New York, in provincial times, as we have often had occasion to say. It was the surest avenne to wealth and social distinction. The young men destined to these pursuits attended schools for teaching writing and accounts ; went thence to the counting room ; and, in due time, were sent on some short trading trip, usually to the West Indies. Affairs, society and the activities of the day did the rest.

The leading hindrances to the promotion of learning, especially of the masses, during the whole English colonial period, may be summed up as follows :

I. The helplessness of the working classes. A large portion regarded themselves as born to igno- rance and servitude, as powerless of influence, and destined to nothing but lives of drudgery. Such were most of the tenants, farm laborers and ordi- nary mechanics and traders in Albany County.

2. The general indifference of the officers and friends of royalty to anything that could elevate the masses. Education set people to reading and think- ing, as it did in New England. It led them to know their rights, and knowing, to dare resist tyranny and assert popular sovereignty. Royal governors were afraid of schools for the common people.

3. The aristocratic class, which possessed wealth and some learning, were fond of association with men of royal rank, fond of having dependants, eager for increase of wealth and power. They were quite willing to keep the poor in blissful ignorance and poverty. They disliked paying taxes for schools, and despised labor.

4. Wars, and rumors of war, characterized all this period. These called for forts and munitions of war, for training for war, and for active service against the enemy. The arts of peace were ne- glected or perverted. Schools were hindered when contemplated, and interrupted when in operation. So things continued until the close of the Revolu- tionary war. Then men began to think and read and talk of rights and duties.

HIGHER AND PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION.

There were no schools of medicine, law or divinity ; no normal schools for teachers. The young disciples of Esculapins used " to ride " with "the old doctor," and visit with him his bedside

clinics, and witness his office consultations and treatment. Coke and Blackstone were read in the office of some eminent knight of the green bag ; and young aspirants sat at the feet of some learned Gamaliel and listened to his wisdom, took in his advice, and saw how he managed causes in the courts. But it is said that Albany had no pro- fessional lawyer for over 100 years. Students who contemplated the ministry read courses in theology in "the study" of some leading clergyman, and prepared sermons subject to his criticism. The clergy often gave academic instruction to those who came to them, especially to young persons of their parochial charge.

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Bi-centennial history of Albany. History of the county of Albany, N. Y., from 1609 to 1886. With portraits, biographies and illustrations, Part 63

Author: Howell, George Rogers, 1833-1899; Tenney, Jonathan, 1817-1888 Publication date: 1886 Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1452

Author: Howell, George Rogers, 1833-1899; Tenney, Jonathan, 1817-1888
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1452