Forty years of American life Author:Thomas Low Nichols Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 58 CHAPTER VI. EDUCATION AND THE LECTURE SYSTEM. Common schools and teachers.—Sold at auction.—Boarding round. —The universal stimulus.—Our chief lesson... more ».—Lyceums and lectures.—Lecturers and systems. The founders of the New England Republics believed that the safety of democratic institutions depended upon the intelligence and virtue of the people. In the early days of the colonies, no one was allowed to vote who did not belong to the Church. In Connecticut, to-day, every voter must be able to read the constitution he is bound to support. Provision was made in the early times for both preaching and teaching. In my native State, and in all the States of New England, there was a school-house every three miles, an academy in every considerable village, and colleges enough to supply the demand for a classical education. We went, first of all, to the common or free school. There were,very few private or pay schools; and boarding-schools, except in the largest towns, were unknown. As none were very rich, and none had any need to be poor, and as all were equal in theory, and not very far from it in practice, we all went to the same schools, and were taught by the same schoolmasters in winter,Schools and Teachers. 69 and the same " schoolma'ams " in summer. At the age of four years I trudged off a mile and a quarter to the district school-house, at the foot of a sandy hill, near the hank of the beautiful river, with fields to play in shaded by spreading pine-trees, with winter-green, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, wild cherries, and grapes in their season, all free to us. Trespass ! we never knew the meaning of the word. In the winter we had the deep snow to wallow through and play in, sliding down-hill on our sleds, and skating when the ice was not too de...« less