Beverley,¹ who wrote in 1705, says: “There are large tracts of land, houses, and other things granted to free schools for the education of children in many parts of this country, and some of these are so large that of themselves they are a handsome maintenance to a master; but the additional allowance which gentlemen give with their sons render them a comfortable subsistence. These schools have been founded by the legacies of well-inclined gentlemen, and the management of them hath commonly been left to the direction of the county court or the vestry of their respective parishes.”

     As early as 1617 King James had issued his letters patent throughout the kingdom for collecting funds for a college at Henrico in Virginia, and almost contemporaneously money was raised for a school at City Point (then called Charles City), which was named the East India School, in honor of its first benefactors. The first contribution came from some of the East India Company that came home in the ship Royal James, and the school as “a collegiate or free school” was to have dependence upon the college at Henrico, which should be made capable to receive scholars from the school into such scholarships and fellowships as should be endowed. The question of the college received discussion in 1619 in the assembly at Jamestown, the first ever convened on this continent. But though the college and the school were rapidly pushed, and a rector for the college, a master and usher for the school, and a manager for the college lands and tenants were selected, and all but the rector sent over to the colony, the Indian massacre of 1622, by destroying at one blow three hundred and fifty persons in the settlement, effectually crushed both the college and the school.²

[A portrait of John Mark on this page has been omitted because it has no apparent relation to the article.]

And yet the example was not lost. Private persons took up the design of a free school, and some years after the massacre Edward Palmer, of London, in his will made November 22, 1624, left all his lands in Virginia and New England, after the failure of certain issue, “For the foundinge and maintenance of a university and such schools in Virginia as shall be then erected, and shall be called Academia Virginiensis et Oxoniensis, and shall be divided into several streets or alleys of twentye foot broade, provided always that all such as can prove their descent from John Palmer, of Lemington, aforesaid, my grandfather deceased, and from my late grandmother his wife, being sonnes shall there be freelye admitted and shall be brought up in such schools as shall bee fitt for their age and learninge, and shall be removed from time to time as they shall profitt in knowledge and understandinge. And further, my will is, that the schollers of the said universitye for avoyding of Idleness at their houres of recreation shall have two paynters, the one for oyle cullors, and the other for water cullors, w^ch shall bee admitted fellowes in the same colledge to the end and intent that the said schollers shall or may learne the arts of payntinge, and further my will and minde is, that two grinders, the one for oyle cullors and the other for water cullors, and also coullers, oyle and gumme waters shall be provided from tyme to tyme to the charges of the said college, beseeching God to add a blessing to all these intents.”

     Fuller in his Worthies mentions that Palmer was at many thousands expense in purchasing and preparing an island in the Susquehanna for the object, but was transported to another world, leaving to posterity the monument of his worthy but unfinished institution. Wood, in his Athenæ Oxoniensis, alluding to Palmer’s collection, writes, that “coming into the hands of such persons who understood them not, were therefore, as I have heard, embezzled and in a manner lost. He also had a curious collection of coins and subterranean antiquities, which one also embezzled.” The island in the Susquehanna, selected by Palmer, is designated on Faithorne’s map as Palmer’s Island, but on modern maps as Watson’s Island.¹

     A better fortune attended a few years later the benefaction of a resident of the colony. Four years before John Harvard bequeathed his estate to the college near Boston, Benjamin Syms, of Virginia, left the first legacy by a resident of the American Plantations for

the promotion of education. By his will, made February 12, 1634-’35, he gave two hundred acres on the Poquoson, a small river which enters the Chesapeake Bay, a mile or less below the mouth of York river, with the milk and increase of eight cows for the education and instruction of the children of the adjoining parishes of Elizabeth City and Kiquotan, “from Mary’s Mount downward to the Poquoson river.” The money arising from the first increase of the cattle was to be used to build a school-house, and the profits from the subsequent sales of cattle to support the poor scholars.¹ This Benjamin Syms was born in 1590, and in 1623 was living at “Basse’s Choice,” in what was subsequently known as Isle of Wight county. In 1624, at this point, died a Margaret Syms.² In 1629 Thomas Warnet, a leading merchant of Jamestown, bequeathed Benjamin Syms a weeding hoe. Syms was evidently an honest, religious, and childless planter.³

     In March 1642-’43 the Virginia Assembly gave a solemn sanction to Syms’ will in the following words: “Be it enacted and confirmed, upon consideration had of the godly disposition and good intent of Benjamin Syms deceased, in founding by his last will and testament a free school in Elizabeth county, for the encouragement of all others in like pious performances, that the said will and testament with all donations therein contained concerning the free school and the situation thereof in the said county, and the land appertaining to the same, shall be confirmed according to the godly intent of the said testator, without any alienation or conversion thereof to any place or county.” In 1647, a few years later, we hear from an early writer that the school-house has been erected and number of kine greatly increased: “I may not forget to tell you,” he writes, “we have a free school, with two hundred acres of land, a fine house upon it, forty milch kine and other accommodations. The benefactor deserveth perpetual mention, Mr. Benjamin Syms, worthy to be chronicled. Other petty schools we have.”⁴

     This school was soon succeeded by another. Thomas Eaton, on March 11, 1634, patented⁵ 250 acres “at the head of Back River within a mile of the wading place, joining to the beaver dams.” Back River enters the Chesapeake Bay a few miles below the mouth of Poquoson River.

     Next to Mr. Eaton’s land, and west into the woods going up to Elizabeth City, Henry Coleman patented 150 acres in 1635; and

there is in the York records an order dated Dec. 21, 1646, for the payment by Richard Wyat of a hhd. of tobacco to Thomas Eaton, of London, “cururgeon.” His charity was established by deed, most probably before this period, when he had returned to England.

     Both schools were undoubtedly in operation at the time when Berkeley uttered his much-quoted remark about free schools Virginia.¹

     In 1670 James Ranson, of the county of Gloucester, gent., deeded, to Abraham Savoy 50 acres on Old Poquoson River, “extending its breadth upon the school land (Syms’) on one side.”

     In the oldest record book of the county now preserved (1689-’99) there are the following references to these schools:

     19 Xber, 1692.—Whereas M^r Ebenezer Taylor, late schoolmaster of Eaton’s ffree-school, his time being expired & having had y^e Benefitt & pquisetts thereof, It is thought reasonable y^t a negroe woman belonging to y^e s^d schoole should be cloathed at y^e charges of y^e s^d schoolemaster, she being almost naked. It is therefore ordered y^t y^e said Taylor doe w^thin fourteen dayes, next pvide and deliver unto M^r Henry Royall, one of y^e ffeoffees, one new cotton wastcoate and pettycoate, 3 yards of good new canvis for a shift, one pare of new shoes & stockins & alsoe 3 Barrells of sound Indian Corn for y^e said negroes use w^th costs als ex^on.

     Nov. 20, 1693.—It is ordered y^t Robert Crook Schoolmaster of Symmes School be allowed and paid for his charges in repairing y^e school House two old cowes in lieu thereof.

     May 20, 1695.—It is ordered a negroe Joan belonging to Eaton’s free school by reason of age for y^e future be free from paying Levyes and what crop she makes of Corne, Tobacco or Pulse y^t shee keepe y^e same to her owne use for her maintenance.

     18 Nov. 1697.—Mr. George Eland with consent of this court is elected Schoolemaster of Eaton’s free school & he to continue in place as he shall be approved of from year to year Teaching all such children in English and gramer learninge as shall be sent to him y^t are belonging to this county, and he to have all such pqussetes & pfitts as is belonging to y^e s^d schoole.

     19 June 1699.—Upon y^e peticon of William Williams wee doe hereby give, grant, possess, and confirm unto the said Williams & his heirs &c all that plantation or tract of land whereon John Tams lately lived, belonging to Eaton’s

free-school land, being part thereof, beginning from Tony Kings along y^e Dam side & extending in breadth Eastward as far as the next swamp or branch of y^e s^d dams and soe into y^e woods as far as y^e head Lyne [the term is, stated to be 21 years and the consideration that Williams should build or cause to be built one substantial thirty-foot dwelling house, and plant one hundred apple trees at usual distances, and keep the same well trimmed and fenced, and pay yearly 200 lbs. of tobacco “unto such pson as the same in right shall belong or apptayn, and at y^e expiracon of y^e s^d time the said Williams should deliver up the said plantation and houses tenantable.”]

     Aug. 17, 1720.—Upon compl^t made by Henry Irvin gent ag^t Jn^o Curle about Eaton’s free schoole land of waste being made of the timbers, it is ordered that the Clk. bring s^d Eaton’s will and Deed to next court concerning the pr^emises and a copy of the vestry ord^r whereby Curle hath the land granted to him.

     Nov. 17, 1725.—Upon the motion of William Tucker setting forth that he is willing to take the school land and provide a schoolmaster, it is ordered that the said Tucker have possession of the said land with this proviso and condition, that he constantly keep and provide a schoolmaster to teach children in said land.

Dec. 18, 1728.—Ordered that the quit rents due for the school land according to the rent rolls thereof be paid out of the money arising from the sale of wood from the said land to Henry Cary.

     In 1765 there was a lease of tract No 1, surveyed by Robert Lucas in 1759, and containing 75 acres, the consideration being an annual rent of £4 10s., the building a dwelling 28 feet long by 16 feet broad, pitch 9 feet, to be covered with good heart-pine or cypress shingles, to be tarred once in every three years, having a brick chimney and two rooms above and two below, lathed and plastered, and doors, floors and windows of good plank, as also an orchard of 100 Grixon (?) apple trees, which is to be kept fenced and secure against all damage.

     It appears that in course of time much pecuniary loss befell both schools from trespassers, who cut down the timber, and from tenants who failed to pay the rents.¹

     When Rev. James Falconer, minister of the parish, made his report to the Bishop of London about this time, he said, in answer to the question, “Have you any public schools in your parish?” “There are two public schools, endowed, though very meanly, whereof John Mason and Abram Paris are teachers.”

     To put Eaton’s school on a better footing, the General Assembly thought proper, in 1730, to give a legislative sanction to Eaton’s

deed; and when, by reason of the trustees not being incorporated by the act, some doubt was again started as to the validity of their authority to punish trespassers and delinquents, the Legislature incorporated the trustees of both schools, under the name, in the one case (1759), of “The Trustees and Governors of Eaton’s Charity School,”¹ and in the other (1753), under that of “The Trustees and Governors of Syms’ Free School.”²

     The trustees were empowered to have perpetual succession; to, use a corporate seal; to select and remove the master, who, before selection, was to be approved by the minister and by the governor; to visit the school; to order, reform, and redress all abuses; and to lease the school lands and the cattle thereon for a period not exceeding twenty-one years.

     By an advertisement in the Virginia Gazette we learn that in 1752 the perquisites of Syms’ school was £31 annually. The act of 1759 testified to the good work performed by the Eaton school, to which, in addition to the proper objects of charity, “a great number of children” had been admitted free “who were able to pay for their own education.”

     After the Revolution, the two schools lost their efficiency for a time; for, under the changed state of affairs, the ministers and churchwardens, and even the justices, doubted their true succession as incorporators. Thus the lands were again wasted, and the schools much impaired. At length, in 1805, the two schools were incorporated in one as the Hampton Academy, and, aided by new contributions, continued for many years as a prosperous institution for the benefit of the children of Elizabeth City and of Poquoson parish, York county. The following list of teachers has been furnished me by Col. John B. Cary, of Richmond, who was the last teacher of the school previous to its union with the general public school system: Prior to 1826, Parson Halstead; 1826-1829, John Page; 1829-1832, C. J. D. Pryor; 1832-1835, George Cooper; 1837-1840, C. J. D. Pryor; 1840-1847, John A. Getty; 1847-1852, John B. Cary.³ In 1852 the fund, amounting to $10,000, was associated with the public system adopted for the county; but the fund is still preserved separate from the State funds, and the interest is expended in support of the Hampton High School, situated on the same lot where formerly the old academy stood. Hampton,

the oldest existing English town in the United States, has the oldest free school. It has been the happy history of Elizabeth City¹ that its people have enjoyed exceptional literary advantages. Perhaps Margaret Wythe,² the mother of George Wythe, was not the only woman of Elizabeth City educated sufficiently to be the tutor of her son in Greek.

     The report of the minister in 1724, already referred to, gives an account of his parish of Elizabeth City that, on the whole, shows a people very careful of both church and school[.]³

     In Isle of Wight county, another of the eight original counties of Virginia, there were several small tree schools of very old standing. Of these, the lower parish, or Newport parish, had four in 1724, at the time Rev. Thos. Baylie made his report to the bishop. The masters were Mr. Hurst, Mr. Irons, Mr. Gills, and Mr. Reynolds. One of these schools was undoubtedly that established by Capt. John Moon, who, by his will, proved August 12, 1655, gave four female cattle to constitute, with their female increase, a stock forever for the support and schooling of “poor fatherless children that hath nothing left them to bring them up,” or “for old people past their labour,” or “destitute lame people.” Another doubtless grew out of the bequest of Henry King, whose will was proved May 3, 1668, and gave “100 acres of land lying next adjacent to Mr. England’s, . . . for the maintenance of a free school.” In the next century, in addition to the four schools referred to, we have the record of a much more substantial free school, established in the upper parish of Isle of Wight by Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, widow of Arthur Smith. This lady,⁴ in 1753, donated £125 to Joseph

Bridges, Miles Cary, and Richard Kello, in trust, for the establishment of a free school in the town. The schoolhouse was built on lot 26 in said town, and its exercises continued until after the Revolutionary War. In 1774, Mrs. Smith, then a widow Stith, died in Surry county, and left £120 more to the school, the interest of which was to be used for the schooling of “any six poor children.” After the Revolution, in 1788, the schoolhouse, with the consent of Richard Kello, the surviving trustee, was enlarged by the addition of a new story and by twelve feet to its length, for the use of Union Lodge, No. 18, of Free and Accepted Masons.

     In Northampton county, another of the original counties of Virginia, William Whittington in 1659 gave 2,000 pounds of tobacco for the use of a free school. Before this time Stephen Charlton died (1654), and devised his entire estate of 1,500 acres, with houses, gardens, etc., for the maintenance of a minister in the county. In 1724 there was no public school, but as the minister had about the best endowed benefice in the colony the parish never lacked a teacher.

     York county was another of the early counties, and there were three parishes in it. Syms’ school, aided by private schools, like Jane Culley’s school, administered to the needs of the lowest parish (Poquoson or Charles), but the two upper parishes (York-Hampton and Bruton) had to content themselves with private schools until 1697. Then Sir Francis Nicholson gave the trustees of Yorktown, in York-Hampton parish, his three half-acre lots and houses thereon for a school. Robert Leightenhouse had been teacher of a private school in the vicinity, and now became teacher of the Nicholson school. This school, however, appears to have been discontinued before 1724, when the Rev. Francis Fountaine reported that there was no public school in his parish (York-Hampton), but “here and the^re small private schools to teach children to read and write.”²

Of these I have already noticed the school in York-Hampton parish to which William Starke gave the land.

     In 1706 Mrs. Mary Whaley established, in honor of her little son Matthew, a school in Bruton parish, York county, near Williamsburg, above York-Hampton parish, which she called “Mattey’s School.” She gave to the school ten acres of land on the road leading to Queen Mary’s port, and there were erected on this land a wooden dwelling-house, a kitchen, a coach-house, and a schoolhouse. In 1741-42, Mrs. Whaley, dying in England, left to the school a legacy of fifty pounds and the residue of her estate after payment of legacies. This particular sum, however, was not realized till a hundred years later. The executor declined to pay the money, and in the course of time the fund was lost sight of till the year 1867, when the English courts handed over the money, then amounting to $10,000, to the care of the College of William and Mary. The building occupying the site of the old palace, now used as the model and practice school of the college, was built with the larger part of this fund.

     The school was probably taught continuously from 1706 to a period succeeding the Revolution. Richard Allen was master before 1764. In 1766 the churchwardens of Bruton parish advertised for a teacher and secured Mr. Jacob Bruce. Then William Rose succeeded Mr. Bruce in April, 1768.¹

     In answer to the inquiry of the Bishop of London in 1724, whether there was any public parish school in Bruton parish, Rev. James Blair replied: “No public parish school. Little schools where they teach to read and write and arithmetic are set up wherever there happen to be a convenient number of scholars of these I have four in my parish. A public grammar school is kept here at the college and a school for teaching Indian boys endowed by Esq. Boyle.”² It is probable that during her lifetime Mrs. Whaley appointed her own teachers, and the school was not a parish school in the sense of being governed by the churchwardens till her death in 1742. In the York records, about 1720, mention is made of a school-house beyond the Capitol Landing

bridge in York county, and there is on an early map of Williamsburg, in that part of the town lying in James City, a school known as Curtis’ school. And these with “Mattey’s School” may be three of the four schools reported in 1724 to the bishop. In 1774 the people of Williamsburg established an academy, which existed many years. Before 1764 William Hunter, the editor of the Gazette, established a school for negroes in Williamsburg, since I find this entry against his estate: “To paid Ann Wages for teaching at the negro school 7 £.”

     The records of James City, Charles City, Warwick, and Henrico, the other four original counties, being in a great measure destroyed, we know little except in a general way of their educational condition. In 1724 we are told that there were several private schools in Wilmington parish, James City county, and that in Westover parish, Charles City county, there were two private schools. In Bristol parish, Henrico, there were also several private schools. In what remains of the records of this county there is reference to teachers, some of whose names are given.

     Next in order, after the eight original shires or counties established in 1634, come Norfolk county, established in 1637, Nansemond in 1637, Northumberland in 1648, Surry in 1649, Gloucester in 1651, Lancaster in 1652, Accomac in 1652, Westmoreland in 1653, New Kent in 1654, Richmond in 1674, Middlesex in 1675 Stafford in 1675, Princess Anne and King and Queen in 1691, and Essex in 1692.

     In Norfolk county Richard Russell, in his will made July 24, 1667, and proved December 16, the same year, gave a part of his estate unto six of the poorest men’s children in Elizabeth River parish to pay for their teaching to read, and after these six are entered, then a part of his estate for six more.¹ In 1691, for the support of persons to impart religious instruction to the people living near North River in Norfolk county, Black Water in Isle of Wight, and Saumertown in Nansemond county, and to teach school, Captain Hugh Campbell gave 200 acres of land in each of the said places, or the equivalent in tobacco, and Governor Nicholson gave his part of the marriage and ordinary licenses’ fees.² When Norfolk borough was laid off in 1736, a site was reserved for a school to be taught by an able master, “capable to teach the Greek and Latin tongues,” which said master was to be nominated by the

county authorities, after undergoing an examination by the masters of the College of William and Mary. The school was in operation certainly before 1756, when Mr. Richard Collinson¹ was examined by the college faculty and “thought capable of teaching the grammar school at Norfolk.”

     In 1762 we are informed that the school had not prospered as it, should, by reason of the contentions between the town and county authorities; so in that year the Legislature vested the control of the school and the appointment of the teacher wholly in the mayor, recorder and aldermen of the said borough of Norfolk. In 1763 Robert Fry is mentioned as master of the school.

     The schoolhouse, with other buildings in Norfolk being burned down, the Common Council in 1786 appropriated 300 pds. for the rebuilding of the same. The schoolhouse was made sixty feet by twenty-two, and two stories high, and Rev. Walker Maury, a graduate of William and Mary, was appointed to take charge, under the rules and regulations drawn up by a committee of the council. These rules provided for instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, book-keeping, English grammar, geography with the use of globes, the Latin language, and the Greek and French languages. Females were to be admitted, and the pupils were to be arranged in two classes, junior and senior, and the classes were to be distinguished by blue and black ribbons. The principal of the school was to appoint his assistants, all except the French tutor, who was to be appointed by the trustees.²

     Rev. Walker Maury dying in 1788,³ Rev. Alexander Whitehead, of the University of Glasgow, was elected to succeed him. In 1792 the Rev. James Whitehead, producing to the court a certificate from the president and professors of William and Mary College of his ability to teach in the Latin and Greek languages, was appointed master in the place of Alexander Whitehead, who had resigned.

     After Norfolk county, next in order is Nansemond county; but, as the records of this county are totally destroyed, only an unsatisfactory

account can be given of it. We have noticed the gift of Hugh Campbell, and we are also told that one Yates left a considerable portion of land for the establishment of two schools in that county.¹

     In Surry county there was a public school, which is noticed by the Virginia Gazette about 1770. It may have been the school intended by James Allen (who died about 1744), after the failure of certain devisees.

     In Gloucester county there were four parishes—Abingdon, Ware, Petsworth, and Kingston. For the benefit of the first and second parishes, Henry Peasley established a free school in 1675, by his his will, which devised 600 acres of land, ten cows, and one breeding mare. Afterwards several slaves were given by private persons for the same purpose.

     In 1724 Rev. Thomas Hughes reported the school as endowed with 500 acres of land, three slaves, and a number of cattle; and the master then was George Ranson.

     In 1756 the General Assembly incorporated the ministers and churchwardens of the two parishes of Abingdon and Ware, by the name of “The Trustees and Governors of Peasley’s Free School,” with orders to found a free school in each of the parishes.

     In 1770 Mordecai Cooke, Jr., gave a tract of land for a free school in Ware parish.²

     The Peasley fund, increased by the proceeds of the glebe lands, is still extant, and is used for the support of the poor of the county. In 1724 Rev. Emmanuel Jones reported no “public school” in Petsworth parish, but several private schools where children learn to read English and to write.

     Of Kingston parish there is no report, the records being destroyed.

     In Accomac, Samuel Sanford endowed³ a school in 1710; and in 1724 John Morogh, an Irishman, was master. In 1700 William Horton established a free school in Westmoreland county; and the parson, in 1724, reported the fund as operative. In Middlesex, in 1685, William Gordon gave 100 acres of land for a free school, on which land a schoolhouse was built; and school was conducted for some years. In 1700 the court of Middlesex reported that the said land “now lyeth void.” In 1764 James Reid, of Urbanna,

gave a lot in Urbanna, between Mr. Young’s and Major John Robinson’s, to the vestry of the parish of Christ’s Church, for a free school. (Will of James Reid.) The records of King and Queen are destroyed, but we learn from the report of the minister in 1724 that there were several private schools in that county. In Princess Anne, the vestry of Lynhaven parish in 1736 established a public school at the Old Church.¹ Northumberland and Lancaster, Essex and Richmond, still preserve their ancient records; but, not having made a full examination of the books, I leave to some future investigator the duty of making a report upon their educational condition. From the report, however, of the minister for St. Anne’s, Essex county, we learn that there were private schools there, as elsewhere.

     The facts, however, prove that Berkeley could not have meant that there were no schools in the colony, or no schools giving gratuitous instruction (as is understood now by the term free). As “free school” then signified a school affording a liberal education, perhaps he did not choose to regard the Syms or Eaton schools as coming up to this standard, since they aspired to little beyond teaching the “three R’s.” He had in mind such a school as Eton or Harrow, or the colleges at the universities in England. This supposition is confirmed by the fact that, eleven years before (in 1660), the colonial Assembly had passed an act for the founding of “a college and free schoole,” to which object Berkeley, the council, and the members of the General Assembly all subscribed. This free school had not materialized as expected, and it was certainly its failure that was uppermost in Berkeley’s mind when he said, in 1671, that there were no free schools in Virginia. When, in 1690, the project of 1660 was revived and carried through to completion, “free school and college” made the usual phrase in which the proposed institution of “universal study” was described in the literature of the period.² It was certainly true that there was no college in Virginia in 1671; but it is also true that the Virginians, under all the disadvantages of a scattered population, had shown, in 1619 and in 1660, remarkable interest in the establishment of the higher education. It was the catastrophe of an

Indian massacre which alone had prevented the founding of “the college and free school” some fifteen years before the first steps were taken in Massachusetts.

     The founding of the College of William and Mary was the result of the action of the Virginia people as a whole. The project of 1619, which was reflected in the work of the Syms and Eaton schools, and which took its ancient shape again in 1660, till the movement was arrested by the succession of events that culminated in Bacon’s Rebellion and the destruction by fire of the capital city, was in 1690 happily revived, as the country, once more prosperous, took the forward road. Dr. James Blair, a Scotch clergyman, recently arrived in the colony, assumed the initiative, and Governor Francis Nicholson and his council, as well as the Convention of Clergy held at Jamestown in 1690, enthusiastically adopted the proposals drawn by him for a college, to be recommended to the next General Assembly. That body rendered itself illustrious by giving its approval in May, 1691, to the design, and by appointing Dr. Blair as agent in England to solicit a charter from their majesties, King William and Queen Mary. No more competent a man for such a purpose could have been procured than Dr. Blair. He interested the Bishop of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the leading merchants of London in the design. Queen Mary lent a gracious ear, and at her request even King William turned from affairs of state to listen to the appeal of his subject in Virginia. On the 2d of February, 1693 (N. S.), there issued, under the sanction of the seal of the privy council, the great charter of public education.¹ Dr. Blair did not do things by halves. The College was the first corporation in America to be recognized by the royal will. It was the first English college to receive from the College of Heralds, in 1694, a coat of arms, which was: on a field of green a silver edi fice of many turrets, in the glories of a golden sun. The College was not to be, like Harvard, a local institution, but was to take rank, in theory at least, with Oxford and Cambridge as “Their Majesties’ Royal College of William and Mary.” The corporation was not to be one, like Harvard’s, consisting of “a President and Tutors,” but one of “a President and Masters or Professors.”

     The Free School and College was to consist of three schools, viz. Grammar, Philosophy and Divinity. But at first only the Grammar School was operated. This was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Blair, the President, by Mungo Ingles, grammar master, James Hodges, usher, and James Allen, writing master. In

1712 Mr. Le Fevre¹ was elected first professor of Mathematics. In 1717 Rev. Hugh Jones had succeeded him. In 1729 there were six professors, graduates of Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge. At Harvard at that time there was only one regular professorship. The attendance at William and Mary in 1704 was 29; in 1737, 60; and about the time of the Revolution 100.² The influence of the College from 1729 forward on public thought in Virginia was enormous. Especially did it manifest its results in training that generation of Virginia statesmen that left so deep an impress on the history of the world. One of the professors, Samuel Henley, the translator of Bickford’s great romance, Vathek, easily held pre-eminence in America as a classical scholar. Another professor, William Small, of Birmingham, the friend of the elder Darwin and of Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, taught the sciences in a manner never before heard in the lecture-room. Then there shone forth the great fruits of such teaching. Richard Bland appears as the most conspicuous man to set forth the philosophic relations of the mother country to the colonies. Thomas Jefferson, the best educated and the most original man of his day, draws the paper which declares the independence of the colonies. George Wythe, destined to be the first professor of law in any American college, is a signer, and so are Carter Braxton and Benjamin Harrison, the last the descendant and ancestor of a line of men always at the head of affairs. Peyton Randolph was the first President of the Continental Congress, and Edmund Randolph was the chief draftsman of the Federal Constitution. John Marshall, the great chief-justice, and John Tyler, Sr., who carried through the Virginia Legislature the call for the Annapolis convention, James Monroe, Spencer Roane, Archibald Stuart, Dr. James McClurg and Bishop James Madison, who, as President of the College, was the first to teach political economy in the modern sense—all these and many others were the fruits of the “Free School and College of William and Mary.” In after days to three of its alumni, Presidents Jefferson, Monroe and Tyler, the Union was indebted for twothirds of its territory as we know it at present.³