Part 10 (1/2)
His Education
[Ill.u.s.tration: His Education.]
Governor Berkeley, that old stumbling-block-head who stopped the wheels of progress in Virginia for fifty years, wrote to the English Commissioners in 1670: ”I thank G.o.d there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have, for learning hath brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing hath divulged them, and libels against the best government. G.o.d keep us from both!”
The bigoted Sir William set forth but too accurately the condition of affairs not only in Virginia, but in Maryland as well. It is impossible to avoid noting the striking contrast between the South and New England, where, by this time, every colony except Rhode Island had made education compulsory, where the school-house and the church stood side by side in every village. An old New England statute commands that ”every towns.h.i.+p, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty households, shall appoint one to teach all the children to write and read, and when any town shall increase to the number of a hundred families, they shall set up a grammar school.” All the energy of the Puritan which was not absorbed in religion vented itself on education. Ambition turned its current to learning as more desirable than wealth. ”Child,” said a New England matron to her boy, ”if G.o.d make thee a good Christian and a good scholar, thou hast all that thy mother ever asked for thee.”
Such a spirit bred a race of readers and students, trained to sift arguments and to weigh reasons. No such devotion to books or scholars.h.i.+p prevailed at the South. Yet when the Revolution came, the most thrilling eloquence, the highest statesmans.h.i.+p, the greatest military genius were found among these Southerners. Their education had been different from that of the Puritans, but it had been an education none the less. The Cavalier had been trained in the school of politics, in the responsibilities of power, and in the traditions of greatness.
The very absence of the reading habit tended to develop action, and the power of thinking out problems afresh, unhampered by the trammels of other men's thoughts. The haughtiness begotten by slave-holding made it doubly hard for the master to bow the knee even to a sovereign. The habit of command and responsibility of power, which shone on the battlefield and in the council-chamber, were learned on the lonely estates, where each planter was a king. Behind all these elements of training were the ideals which moulded the mind and the character.
Berkeley's taunting question to Bacon, ”Have you forgot to be _a gentleman_?” owed its sting to this suggestion that he had been false to the traditions of his cla.s.s. If we hold that tact and courtesy and gracious hospitality are results of education, we must admit that the Puritans of New England might have learned much from their neighbors in Maryland and Virginia. The education of politics, of power, of high traditions in virtue and in manners the Colonial Cavalier possessed. The education of books he lacked. Here and there, however, we find traces of some omnivorous reader even in the earliest times. Books were highly valued and treasured by generation after generation. We find among the old wills that ”Richard Russell left Richard Yates 'a booke called Lyons play,' 'John porter junr. six books' 'John porter (1) my exec'r, ten books,' 'Katherin Greene three bookes,' 'One book to Sarah Dyer,' 'unto Wm. Greene his wife two books & her mother a booke,' 'Anna G.o.dby two books,' 'Jno. Abell One booke in Quarto,' 'Richard Lawrence One booke.'”[1]
[1] V. _Library_ of Edmund Berkeley, Esq., Member of the Council (Died 15 Dec. 1718), from an inventory taken the 18 and 19 days of June, 1719:
The whole Duty of Mann One old Bible and one old comon pray{r} book The Christian Sacrifice The great Duty of frequenting the Christian Sacrifice A Brief chronicle of the Civil Wars of England and Ireland.
Cavalrie the first Book The common prayer book the best companion.
Janna Divoram. Contemplations on the State of Mann the first part of the English Dixtionary The Wel Spring of Sciences The Young Clerk guide A compendium of physick The Athenian Oracle A Guide to Constables Some consideration touching the Stile of the Holy Scriptures. A perfect Guide for a Studious Young Lawyer The p{r}sent State of London. a Profitable book for those that are burnt with Gunpowder. The first part of the English Dictionary a Compleat history of England The lives of the n.o.ble Grecians and Romans. The Tragedy of Darius and Julius Caesar A Compleat Collections of all the Laws of Virginia The new world of English words. The history of the Jews. The Countrey Justice The first part of Compleat Histrey The Expotion of the Creed The Surgeons mate An Essay concerning human understanding a Breife Treatise of Testaments The Decameron A Compendius Dictionary Lexicon Manuale. Lord Delamers Works. Sixteen sermons on several occasions ffarquhars Works. An abridgment of all the Statutes in fforce The standard of the Quakers. The Hearts Ease. A Tryal of Faith Several Discourses of the great Duties of Natural Religion The Works of Josephus in three Volumes Doctor Reads Works. Abridgment of the Statutes of King Wm. Plutarchs Morals. Bethel or a fform for ffamilys Discourses on the History of the whole world of wisdom the second and third books. Mr. John Banisters Works. The History of ffrance the first and fourth volumes of the turkish spy Sermons on several occasions resolutions and devisions of Cases of Conscience Plutarchs Morals the Second Volume and the third. A Manual Anatomy England's General Description Shakespears Works. Second Volume of Tom Browns Works Copies of Certain Letters. Ancient and the present State of the Empire of Germany. The Shepards oracles. Physoignomie and Chiromancy The Genral View of the Holy Scriptures The practice of piety The great law of consideration Trigonometrie Of generosity and constancy in the faith The History of the Revolutions in Sweeden The Marrow of Chyrurgery Toleration discuss'd. Letters of Remarkables in Switzerland The office of Executors a Companion for a Chyrurgeon The Critick The Lively Oracles The heaven of health The history of the Conquest of China Valentine and Orson. a Discourse on the Sacraments Some Motives to the Love of G.o.d. an Introduction to the Skill of Musick. Sermons and Discourses some of which never before printed. The Nature of Truth discuss'd The Method of physick The new London Dispensatory. a Compendius Dictionary Milk for Babes an Introduction to the Eight parts of Latin speech The use of piety The European Mercury The Books of psalms. Notes on Mr. Lockes Essay of Human Understanding Britains Remembrancer An Infallible way to Contentment a view of all the religions in the world A Description of the Little world. The portraiture of his sacred Maj{ty} in his solitudes and suferings The London Dispensatory English Examples a Short Introduction to Gramar a Short Catechisme The Esopps ffables Works of M{r} Tho{s} Southerne Eight Lattin Books.
Master Ralph Wormeley's library numbered several hundred volumes, and a man might have found enough among them to gratify any inclination. If his tastes were frivolous, here were ”fifty comodys and tragedies,” and ”The Genteel Siner.” Were he an epicure, he might regale himself with ”the body of cookery,” and revel in its appetizing recipes for potpies and the proper method of roasting a sucking pig; and if his mind were piously inclined, the resources of the library were unlimited. Side by side on its shelves stood ”No Cross, No Crowne,” ”The ffamous Doct{r} Usher's Body of Divinity,” ”Doct{r} ffuller's Holy State,” and last and longest, the ninety-six sermons of the good parson Andros.
Some of these old colonial sermons came to an unprofitable end. A bundle of them was laid away in a drawer, and, when sought for, it was learned that they had been torn up and used by the damsels of the household as curling-papers. The writer might have been at least half-satisfied in the reflection that his discourses had touched the head, if not the heart.
In spite of all the old inventories which are being brought to light to show the existence of books and book lovers in the South, the fact remains that the Cavalier was no bookworm. He felt that a boy who had learned to ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth, had received the rudiments at least of education. Whatever he learned more than this was acquired either in the old _field-school_ or more often from a private tutor, usually a clergyman of the Church of England. Some attempts were made by private persons to found public-schools. In 1634, Benjamin Sym devised two hundred acres of land on the Pocosan River, together with the milk and increase of eight cows, for ”the maintenance of a learned, honest man, to keep, upon the said ground, a Free-School for the education of the children of Elizabeth City and Kiquotan, from Mary's Mount downward to the Pocosan River.”
”Richard Russell in his will made July 24th, 1667, and proved December 16th, the same year, now among the records of Lower Norfolk county, declared: 'the other pte of my Estate I give & bequeath One pte of itt unto Six of the poorest mens Children in Eliz: Riv'r, to pay for their Teaching to read & after these six are entred then if Six more comes I give a pte allsoe to Enter them in like manner.'”
In spite of private gifts, and individual effort, and public Acts of a.s.sembly, the school system of New England did not and could not thrive at the South, because it was out of harmony with the spirit and inst.i.tutions of the people. The plantations were so separated that any a.s.sembling of the children was difficult, the spirit of caste was too strong to encourage the free mingling of rich and poor, and the traditions of the Cavalier were not traditions of scholars.h.i.+p. The sword, not the pen, had always been the weapon of the gentleman. Montrose, and not Milton, was his hero. When Captain Smith proudly boasted that he did not sit mewed up in a library writing of other men's exploits, but that what his sword did, his pen writ, he expressed the ideal of the Colonial Cavalier.
”I observe,” quoth Spotswood ironically to the Virginia Burgesses, ”that the grand ruling party in your House has not furnished chairmen of two of your standing committees who can spell English or write common-sense, as the grievances under their own hand-writing will manifest.”
Ebenezer Cook in his ”Voyage to Maryland,” writes with acrimonious sarcasm of ”A reverend judge who, to the shame of all the Bench, could write his name.” The jest of the Sot-Weed Factor scarcely outstripped the sober truth, and a century later the general ignorance was almost as dense.
Several instances are on record where the servant signed his name and the master made his mark. The cross or other conventional sign was not uncommon, and in general the letters of the names are evolved slowly and painfully, as by men more apt with the gun than with the quill.
Hugh Jones, a Fellow of William and Mary College, writes of his countrymen that, for the most part, they are only desirous of learning what is absolutely necessary, in the shortest way. To meet this peculiarity Mr.
Jones states that he has designed a royal road to learning, consisting of a series of text-books embracing an _Accidence to Christianity_, an _Accidence to the Mathematicks_, and an _Accidence to the English Tongue_.
This last is ”for the use of such boys and men as have never learned Latin, and for the Benefit of the Female s.e.x.”
The Bishop of London addressed a circular to the Virginia clergy inquiring as to the condition of their parishes. To the question, ”Are there any schools in your parish?” the almost invariable answer was: ”None.” To the question, ”Is there any parish library?” but a single affirmative response was received. One minister replied, ”We have the _The Book of Homilies_, _The Whole Duty of Man_, and _The Singing Psalms_.”
It may be to this very scarcity of books that we owe that originality and vigor of thought which distinguished the leaders of the Revolution.
Governor Page reported Patrick Henry as saying to him, ”Naiteral parts is better than all the larnin upon yearth,” and when to _naiteral parts_ we add the mastery of a few English cla.s.sics, we touch the secret of the dignity and virility which mark the utterances of these men who had known so little school-training.
Randolph of Roanoke, the youngest son of his widowed mother, was taught by her as a little child. As he grew older he was left a good deal to his own devices, but his mind was not idle, and he had access to an unusually good library. Before he was ten, he had read Voltaire's ”History of Charles XII.,” ”Reynard the Fox,” and odd volumes of _The Spectator_. The ”Arabian Nights” and Shakespeare were his delight. ”I had read them,” he writes, ”with Don Quixote, Quintus Curtius, Plutarch, Pope's Homer, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver, Tom Jones, Orlando Furioso, and Thomson's Seasons, before I was eleven years old.”