USA > New York > Bronx County > The Bronx and its people; a history, 1609-1927, Volume II > Part 11
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The early school was soon found to be inadequate for the accommo- dation of the number of children swarming in the Dutch families. Cornelius van Tienhoven, the secretary of New Netherland, in reply to a remonstrance of the province said: "Other teachers keep school in hired houses, so that the youth are provided with means of educa- tion." Still the remonstrances had the effect that the new provisional order of government directed that at least two schoolmasters should be appointed for the population of New Amsterdam, numbering then
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between seven and eight hundred, while the number of children had increased in proportion. This second public school was held at the City Tavern, later the City Hall. The directors of the company write about that time to the director-general :
"At your request we have engaged a schoolmaster, who will also perform the duties of a comforter of the sick. He is recommended as an honest and pious man, and will follow this letter by the first oppor- tunity." He sailed for his new field of duty, but his name is not given. The immediate successor of Adam Roelantsen seems to have been Jan Stevensen called by Dominie Backerus a "faithful schoolmaster and reader, who has served the Company here for six or seven years, and is now (September, 1648) going home." His place was temporarily filled by Pieter van der Linde, who was appointed October 26, 1648, at a salary of one hundred and fifty florins (sixty dollars), until another proper person can be sent from Holland." The "proper person from Holland" was apparently William Verstius, who asks for his discharge "as schoolmaster and precentor in this city, as he has done the duty for which he was engaged, and as there are other fit people here who can take his place, he desiring to return to Holland." This desire to return is explained by a passage in Dominie Megapol- ensis's letter : "As to Willem Verstius, who has been schoolmaster and sexton here, I could neither do much nor say anything to the Council, because for some years past they were not satisfied or pleased with his services, and therefore when he asked for an increase of salary last year, he was told that if the service did not suit him he might ask for his discharge."
During the same period, private schools had sprung up, kept in "hired houses," as van Tienhoven reported. Jan Cornelissen and Adrian Jansen are mentioned as teachers of such schools; in September, 1652, Hans Stegn received permission to open one; David Provoost had a school at the house "where the selectmen usually meet"; Andries Hudde asks for a license to keep a school in the city, but is told that the dominie and his consistory have to be consulted about it. Evert Pietersen taught pupils in Brouwer, later Stone Street; and Carol Beauvois, from Leyden, schoolmaster, received the small burgher right. Adrian Jansen van Ilpendam, a native of Leyden or the vicinity, is mentioned as schoolmaster in New Amsterdam, and was later a notary public at Fort Orange. Jan Lubberts received a license to keep a school for teaching to read, write, and cipher ; and a similar license was granted to Jan Juriaensen Becker and Johnnes van Gelder. In 1663 the magis- trates of Harlem petitioned for the appointment of Jan de la Montagne as schoolmaster in the village, and the request was speedily granted; Jacob van Corlaer was ordered by Stuyvesant to desist from keeping school; and when the burgomasters and schepens interceded for him,
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VIEW OF UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS WITHI FOUNDERS' MONUMENT IN THE FOREGROUND.
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they were told that the keeping of schools and the appointment of schoolmasters absolutely depended on the jus patronatus, and as Jacob van Corlaer had undertaken to act as teacher without proper license, he was now altogether forbidden to do so. Therefore when the unfor- tunate Jacob applied for a license a month later, no action whatever was taken on his petition, or, as the record has it, nihil actum.
The request of Verstius to be discharged from his duties as school- master was granted, and Harman van Hobocken was appointed to his place, with the advice and consent of the consistory, during the first two years of whose incumbency not only "the number of children in the public school having greatly increased, further accommodation was allowed to the schoolmaster," but also the schoolhouse was partly burned down, so that the teacher applied to the magistrates of the city for the use of the hall and side chamber in the City Hali for the school and as family residence. As the rooms asked for were out of repair, and wanted for other uses, the burgomasters could not allow the request, but "the youth of the town doing so uncommonly well, it is thought proper to find a convenient place for their accommodation, and for that purpose the petitioner is granted 100 fl. ($40) yearly."
While van Hobocken was master of the "trivial" school, Dominie Drisius suggested the establishment of a Latin temple of learning to the directors of the company, who consequently wrote to the director- general: "Dr. Drisius has often expressed to us his opinion about the necessity of establishing a Latin school, and has offered his services for this purpose. We approve of the plan, and if you are of the same opinion you may take the initiatory steps." The result of this reference to Stuyvesant was a consultation with the burgomasters and schepens, and a representation of the latter to the dirctors "that the youth of this place and neighborhood are increasing in number gradually, and that most of them can read and write; but that some of the people would like to send their children to a school where Latin is taught, but are not able to do so without sending them to New England, nor can they afford to hire a Latin schoolmaster from there, therefore they ask the Company to send out a fit person as such master, while we shall endeavor to find a fit place in which he shall keep his school." The answer to this municipal representation came to Stuyvesant in the following spring, the directors writing: "How much trouble we have taken in finding a Latin schoolmaster is shown by Alexander Carolus Curtius, late Professor in Lithuania, now coming over, whom we have engaged at a yearly salary of 500 fl.($200)." He entered upon his duties in due time and being present at a meeting of the magistrates, he was tendered a present of one hundred florins in goods, told that a house and garden would be provided for him, that every pupil would have to pay him per quarter six florins, and that he had permission to prac-
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tice medicine. A few years were sufficient to prove that he lacked the sine qua non of a schoolmaster, and the parents complained of the want of proper discipline among his pupils, "who beat each other and tore the clothes from each other's back." He retorted that "his hands were tied, as some of the parents forbade him punishing their children." The result was that he had to surrender the mastership of the high school to the Rev. Aegidius Luyck. Dominie Luyck had apparently not looked after the temporalities of his new charge, for he declares to Stuyvesant and the council, that having at first been specially engaged as a teacher to the director general's children, some inhabitants had seen that he was successful as such, and that the director was satisfied with his good methods of teaching the "foundations of Latin and Greek, with writing, reading, cyphering, catechizing and bonorom morum praxis," so that they had asked for his appointment to the rectorate in the city, vice Curtius. This was done, and "I have now twenty pupils, among whom two are from Virginia, and two from Fort Orange, and I expect ten to twelve more from these and other places. The question of salary was to be settled by the Directors of the Company, but nothing has as yet been done, and now I need my salary." After voting with the council to refer the matter to the directors, Stuyvesant added : "I have agreed with you of the council to the reference, but believe that the instruction of the young people, the school service, is not less necessary than the church service, and as the master's fitness has been shown by his pupils' learning in five quarters of a year as much as in one year and a half under Curtius, I shall recommend to the Directors to give to Dr. Luyck the same salary as his predecessor had." As a reference did not put money in the teacher's pocket nor bread in his mouth, the burgomasters were authorized to settle the question without waiting for an answer from Holland, and on August 16th agreed upon a yearly salary of one thousand florins, or four hundred dollars. At the time of the surrender he lived in Winckel Street, and an order of the governor and council in 1675, directing him to be examined in regard to Governor Lovelace's property, left in his hands, calls him "Myn Heer, Dominie, Burghemeester and Captain." He and his family left America in the ship "Providence" for London in 1676. No mention is found in the records of his Latin school after the return of the Dutch govern- ment in 1673.
When the colony on the South River had been turned over by the West India Company to the city of Amsterdam, Evert Pietersen Ketel- tas had been appointed schoolmaster there; but the population decreas- ing through sickness and emigration, he came to New Amsterdam, where "he was employed by Stuyvesant either as a colleague of Harman van Hobocken, or as his locum tenens when Harman was sick." He returned to Holland, and applied to the directors for an appointment as master,
GOULD MEMORIAL LIBRARY AT UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS. THE GIFT OF MRS. FINLEY J. SHEPARD IN HONOR OF HER FATHER, JAY GOULD. THIS BUILDING IS REGARDED AS ONE OF THE FINEST ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE ARCHITECTURAL GENIUS OF THE LATE STANFORD WHITE
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which was given him, vice van Hobocken. The discharged man was taken care of by the council, who decided: "Whereas, Harman van Hobocken, lately schoolmaster and precentor, was removed because another man was sent out to replace him, and as he asks to be employed again in some way or the other in the Company's service. Therefore he is appointed Adelborst (Cadet), and as De Selyns, arrived about this time, had as stated above, established church service at Stuyvesant's Bouwery, which always carried school service with it, it was further decreed: Whereas, the aforesaid Harman is a person of irreproachable life and conduct, therefore he shall be employed at the Director-General's Bouwery as schoolmaster and reader, with the condition that whenever his services as Adelborst are required by the Company, the Director shall replace him by another fit person."
When the West India Company lost all political interest in the New Netherlands through the English conquest, Evert Pietersen applied to the burgomasters and schepens for a salary, and was told that as they were considering about the salary of the ministers in the city, under which head also his application came, he should await the result of their deliberations. Various indications lead to the belief that this question of salary was not settled then. Schoolmaster Keteltas is mentioned as still in office in 1686, when the Consistory of the Reformed Church, considering his advanced age, appointed Abraham de la Noy to relieve the master of his duties as reader, precentor, and comforter of the sick. But we do not know who his immediate successor was, as the minutes of the deacons from 1687 to 1726 are missing. That the school was not closed during this period is proved by the action of the con- sistory when a new vacancy in the post of schoolmaster occurred, and the governor claimed the right to make the appointment.
We have the first knowledge of how this school of the Collegiate Church was conducted from the contract made with Barent de Foreest in 1725-26, to give "instructions not only in the Low Dutch language, but also in the elements of Christian piety." The school hours were to be in the morning from 9 to 11 in summer, and from 9:30 to 12 in winter, the afternoon session from 1 to 5 throughout the year. Prayer and singing were to open every day's school term, and the pupils were to be taught to spell, read, write, cipher, and the usual prayers of the catechism. "If ten of the scholars or less (of seven years of age or upwards) were unable to pay for their instruction, the Consistory guaranteed to pay the schoolmaster annually £9 N. Y. ($22.50), if more in proportion." Either the scanty pay or the improvidence of the man brought De Foreest into the debtors' prison in 1732, which seems to have so scandalized the fathers of the church that on March 21, 1733, they invited Gerrit van Wagenen, master of a similar school at Kingston, to become their foresinger, schoolmaster, and visitor of the sick, with
Bronx-34
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the additional duties of keeping the records of the consistory, at a fixed salary of £34 6s. and four cords of wood. Gerrit van Wagenen died in 1743, and was succeeded by his son, Heybert, who resigned in April, 1740.
Soon after Heybert van Wagenen's appointment, the deacons, in consideration of the up-town movement of the population, and the con- sequent long distance from the school, opened a branch school in Cortlandt Street, of which Abraham de la Noy was made the master, with the same salary as van Wagenen; the children of members of the Cedar Street or Middle Church to be instructed at de la Noy's school, while those of the South Church, in Garden Street, went to van Wagenen's. Abraham de la Noy taught in the school until 1747, and was followed by William van Dalsem, who is recorded as master of this branch school till 1757. Van Wagenen's successor, Daniel Bratt, chorister of the Catskill church, was engaged by the New York consistory for five years, from April, 1749, with the same additional duty of acting as clerk to the consistory as his predecessors, but with a change in salary. For his clerical services he was to receive £12 10s .; as schoolmaster the same amount with a dwelling house, a schoolroom, in the Old Church, and a load of wood, half oak, half nut, for each scholar, of whom twelve were not to pay any fees. On November 18, 1751, Daniel Bratt handed in a list of free scholars taught by him, which exceeded the stipulated number of three. Requesting additional pay for these, he also asked for permission to take more if they offered themselves. He received both pay and permission, but the number was limited to twenty; and in April, 1753, notice was given him "that his services as schoolmaster would end in May, 1754." Bratt had already in December, 1751, been relieved from the duties of comforter of the sick and catechizer, by the appointment of Adriaen van der Sman to this office; but "on finding him a man of very immoral behavior, having forged the handwriting of the Rev. Johannes Ritzema, he was dismis- sed in 1767."
The discharge of Bratt created a vacancy not easily filled, for a man was needed who could teach in Dutch and English, and among the teachers licensed during the preceding twenty years no Dutch name appears. The consistory had therefore to call a chorister, catechist, and schoolmaster from Holland, and made the following proposals: - that he should not be under twenty-five nor over thirty-five years of age; that he should have a free dwelling house with a large schoolroom, a small chamber, a kitchen and a cellar, a fine kitchen-garden behind the house, and a salary of £80; for which emoluments he was expected to lead the singing in church, keep the books of the church officers, register baptisms, and teach twenty poor children gratis. He was allowed to take pay scholars, for whose tuition in reading only he could charge
ELMER ELLSWORTH BROWN, PH.D., LL.D., CHANCELLOR OF NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
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five shillings per quarter; in reading and writing, eight shillings; in ciphering, ten shillings; in singing, six shillings; pen and ink, bought from him, were placed at six pence-which the call says may be expected to add £40 to the fixed salary. John Nichols Welp, of Amsterdam, responded to the call, and arrived at New York, via New London, in the fall or early winter of 1755. The consistory, writing to the agents who had procured his services, say : "His testimonials are highly lauda- tory, and the proof of his work hitherto satisfactory to the congrega- tion." During his incumbency the number of free scholars increased to thirty, and after his death, in January, 1773, the consistory showed their appreciation of his faithful and efficient services by burying him at the expense of the church, and allowing his widow a yearly pension of £20.
Dutch and English Language Schools-The introduction of the English language into the pulpit in 1764 relieved the consistory from the absolute necessity of finding again a Dutch master, although the original language of the school was not to be relinquished. They in- vited Peter van Steenburgh, schoolmaster at Flatbush, to take charge of the school, offering a salary of £81, a dwelling house with garden, and a schoolroom for his services of teaching thirty poor children in English or Dutch, in reading, writing, and arithmetic, in the Heidelberg Catechism, and as janitor of the consistory room. He was also to be allowed to teach thirty paying pupils, and to keep an evening school. The call was accepted, and on August 6, 1773, Peter van Steenburgh entered upon his duties, which he continued until, upon the arrival of the British Army in 1776, the school was closed, to be reopened with the same master on September 7, 1783, while the same army was occu- pying the city. But as the church buildings had suffered through the war, and had to be repaired at great expense, the number of free or "charity" pupils had to be restricted to ten. By collections made in the churches for the purpose, the consistory was enabled to increase this number to thirty in 1788, and to fifty in 1790. As Mr. van Steen- burgh did not act as chorister in the church, Stanton Latham, then clerk in the North Church, was appointed to succeed van Steenburgh in 1791, thus preserving the inherited custom of having the school- master also serve as foresinger. Latham had offered to teach fifty chil- dren at seven shillings per quarter, which offer was accepted, to begin on May 1st-the consistory resolving that they "have a high sense of the abilities, assiduity and faithfulness which Mr. van Steenburgh has for many years exerted in the school under his care." During the next year, 1792, ten more free scholars were admitted, and "ten girls, at present under the tuition of Mr. Latham, were removed, and put under the care of a female instructor," Miss Elizabeth Ten Eyck, who re-
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mained in charge of the girls' department until 1809, and was probably the first female teacher in a public school in the State of New York.
The system of receiving pay scholars was continued until 1795, when the consistory, after consultation with the head master, Latham, re- solved that from the first of February of that year, none but charity scholars should be admitted, whose number was to be unlimited, and that Mr. Latham's salary should be raised to two hundred pounds and a free dwelling house. Four years later, May 25, 1799, however, the number had to be again restricted to fifty, probably in consequence of the withdrawal of the funds which during the years 1796 and 1797 the school had received from the State. Coming to the locality of the houses where these masters taught, nothing can be said about it for the first hundred years, unless we believe that the school was kept in the house of a teacher. Adam Roelantsen, the first schoolmaster of what must be considered the oldest school now in existence in America, had a house near the farm of Jan Damen, the south side of which ran along Wall Street. Jan Stevensen's house and lot, granted him by the com- pany in 1643, was on the northwest corner of the "Heere Straat" and Morris Street. Stuyvesant who took an active interest in the school question, not only as an official, but also as a private citizen, wrote to the Chassis of Amsterdam soon after his arrival: "We need a pious and diligent schoolmaster here, a year having passed since we were deprived of such help"-Stevenson had left in 1648; and soon after a plate was sent around to collect money for a school building; "some few materials for it have been bought, but the first stone is yet to be laid." When the question as to where the children should gather for instruction had been raised during the winter of 1647-48, Stuyvesant had recommended that the cook-house of the Fiscal might be used for the school. Nothing seems to have been done for many years, according to a petition of the burgomasters intended then "to build a schoolhouse for the benefit of the inhabitants, for which they needed land, and thought the most appropriate lot would be behind the property of Master Jacob Hendricksen Varrevanger, fronting on Brouwer Street, opposite to Johannis de Peyster's. The director and council, however, considered the best place to be in a corner of the churchyard, a new burying place to be laid out outside of the landgate." The school building recommended to be placed in a corner of the churchyard was apparently not erected, so that, continuing the before-expressed belief, the school will have to be located, when taught by Evert Pietersen Keteltas, in his dwelling on Stone Street. Not knowing the names of Keteltas's successors from 1687 to 1726, and no directory of the city existing for the period from 1726 to 1743, to give the dwelling places of the schoolmasters, it is impossible to say where the school was then located.
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FORDHAM UNIVERSITY-ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
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Dutch and English Interest in Education-The earliest English laws of the colony-the Duke's Laws of 1664, and the Dongan Laws of 1683-84-have nothing in regard to schools or teachers, and "it is said that when the Dutch were obliged to surrender to the English, in 1664, the educational spirit- was so common throughout the colony, that almost every settlement had a regular school taught by more or less permanent teachers, and that there was a decided setback given to this movement on the arrival of the English, in consequence of the apprehension, on the part of the authorities, that common schools would nourish and strengthen a spirit of independence, which had, even then, made some considerable headway." This and the considerable evidence which has been already adduced will be sufficient to counter the declaration, frequently made, that the Dutch of the New Nether- lands paid no attention to education, and that the later English author- ities did. It is clear that the case was the other way around. If a man wished to teach, either because he thought it good policy to have all the children educated, or because he was not fitted for any other business, he petitioned the governor for a teacher's license, and usually received it, or, like Matthew Hiller in 1676, was referred to the municipal officers. A qualifying condition was not imposed on would-be teachers until the accession to the throne of England of James II, when there appears in the instructions sent to Governor Dongan the clause: "And wee doe further direct that noe School --- master bee henceforth permitted to come from England and to keep school within Our Province of New York without the license of the Archbishop of Canterbury; And that noe other person now there, or that shall come from other parts, bee admitted to keep school without your license first had." For fear that Catholic teachers might come "from other parts," the instructions given to the succeeding governors directed them "not to permit any schoolmaster to teach without a certificate of the Bishop of London."
It appears doubtful whether this policy was dictated by the wish to exclude incompetent instructors, or for the purpose of controlling appointments and of determining the course of the schools. The only act in which the ruling powers of the colony showed a disposition to promote popular education was forced upon them by the strongly Dutch element in the General Assembly of 1702. This was the "Act for Encouragement of a Grammar Free School in New York City," which, as passed by the Assembly, the governor and council refused to approve, until after days of controversy in conference committee. An amendment was finally agreed upon by which it was required that the teachers should have a license from the Bishop of London or the governor. The mayor and common council were "to elect, choose, license, authorize, and appoint one able, skillful, and orthodox person
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to be schoolmaster for the education of youth and male children of French and Dutch extraction as well as English." This teacher's yearly salary of £50 was to be raised by a general tax for seven years; but when by its own limitation this measure expired in 1709, nothing was done to renew or continue it. The next governmental step in the line of public instruction was a law, passed in 1732, providing for the establishment of a public school where Latin, Greek, and mathematics were to be taught. The preamble of this law says: "Whereas the City and Colony of New York abounds with youth of a Genius not Inferior to other Countries," who ought to receive a classical educa- tion; therefore provision is made to open a school with the Rev. Alex- ander Malcolm as head master, which is to be in existence for five years-that is, from December 1, 1732, to the same date in 1737. Mal- colm had at the time of this appointment a private school, and this fact may have led to his selection, for the law required the master to provide at his own expense the necessary quarters for the school, where he was to teach gratuitously twenty boys, of whom the municipal authorities of New York were to appoint ten, the same officers of Albany two, and the justices of the peace in the other counties one each. The master's salary of £110 was to come out of the fees collected from hawkers and peddlers. The legal life of this school expired before the act for "further encouragement of a public school" was passed, prolonging the existence of Malcolm's institution for one whole year. The legislature thought that "a Liberal Education is not only a very great accomplishment, but also the Properest means to attain to knowl- edge, Improve the Mind and good Manners and to make men Better, wiser and more useful to their Country," and "Mr. Malcolm having given Satisfactory proof of his abilities to Teach Latin, Greek, and the Mathematics," he is continued as master, with an addition to his salary of £40, to be raised by tax in New York, Richmond, West- chester, and Queens counties. The other provisions of the law of 1732 remained the same. Modest as the salary was, the public treasury could not raise it, for the fees exacted from hawkers and peddlers did not bring in sufficient revenue, so that two years after the school had ceased to exist, a special law had to be passed to pay to Mr. Malcolm £111 7s. 6d., as balance due on the salary earned by him. Although the provincial government did nothing, or almost nothing, for popular education during the whole time of British sway over the colonies, such education was not wholly neglected, for while the Collegiate Church took care of her children the Episcopalians also did the same.
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