Radio Script #802

Little Talks on Common Things

April 6, 1969

An ancient book that recently came into my possession was printed in Portland in 1810. It is a small volume of 120 pages, measuring 7 x 4 inches, and carries on its title page these words: “The Constitution of the State of Massachusetts and that of the United States, the Declaration of Independence; with President Washington’ s Farewell Address. Recommended by the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to the inhabitants of the several towns, to be read as a schoolbook in the Common Schools. Portland. Printed for Isaac Adams, 7 Fish Street.”

This book, appearing in 1810, was published ten years before Maine became a separate state, and its publication in Portland shows that it was intended for use in the common schools of what was then known as the District of Maine. Since the Maine Constitution of 1820 was molded on the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, it may behoove us as we approach the 150th year of Maine statehood to see what were some of the items in the older Massachusetts Constitution that are pertinent to us today.

New England people have always been concerned with education. It is no accident that the oldest American College is Harvard, older by forty years than the oldest college in America’s original colony of Virginia. The statesmen who framed the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780 saw to it that in that state education should have official, legal support. This is what they said: “Wisdom and knowledge. as well as virtue. diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend upon spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature and Magistrates, in all future periods of the Commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the University at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions for the promotion of agriculture. arts, sciences, commerce, trades. manufactures, and the natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings; sincerity, good humor and all social affections and generous sentiments among the people.”

Now I admit that is somewhat difficult to follow. because it is all printed as one, single sentence, and much of the language is stilted and in vague generalities. But reduced to its lowest terms, it meant that the state encourages formal education from the earliest ABC’s to graduation from Harvard. It did not make clear to what extent the state should give its financial support, but that support was so clearly implied that immediately after 1780 the Commonwealth proceeded to make substantial grants of land to colleges and academies within its borders, including among the earliest the grants to Bowdoin College, and to Berwick. Hallowell and Fryeburg Academies, all in the District of Maine.

Another point worth noting about that article in the Massachusetts Constitution is its clear recognition of the partnership of public and private education, a point that with some of us today interested in Maine education still has pertinence. Especially at the levels of secondary and higher education, the rights of private institutions are persistently being menaced. I, for one, want to see the time-honored partnership between public and private education continually honored and preserved so we note that the Massachusetts Constitution, the mother of our own in Maine, contained the words “to encourage private societies and public institutions, as well as public and private charity, industry and frugality”. In what they termed “the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people” demanded, through education, both public and private support. Some of the terms in the section of the constitution demand explanation, because of changes during the 190 years since its enactment. Today we refer to three principal levels: elementary, secondary and higher education. Because kindergarten is now generally accepted as the first step in formal schools, though preceding Grade One, we now speak of the elementary level as K through 8, and the secondary level as 9 through 12. and a common term for all education beyond high school. whether in a regular college or in some other formalized training is called post-secondary.

In 1780 nobody used such terms. In fact, at what is now our elementary school level. there was no such thing as grades. Promotion was not by years, but by readers. Reading was considered the basic subject~ much more important than the other two R’s. And, by the way, there is much misunderstanding about that third R. We have long been told that the three R’s stood for Reading, Riting and Rithmetic, the latter two omitting respectively the initial Wand the initial A. Two hundred years ago the third R did not stand for Arithmetic. It stood for Reckoning, the name which all New England people gave to skill with numbers.

We are straying from our subject of the names used to designate the different kinds of schools in 1780. The Massachusetts Constitution urged the cherishing of “all seminaries of literature and science, and of public schools and grammar schools in the towns”. What was meant by public schools and grammar schools?

The public school was what in Maine law we long called the common school. to distinguish it from the academy and the later high school. It meant what my grandparents knew as the district school, teaching reading, writing, spelling, the elements of English grammar by parsing of sentences, reckoning to the rule of three, a little geography, even less history. and almost nothing else. Boys and girls attended that school as long as their parents felt they could profit by it. Since boys over ten years of age seldom attended during the warm months, when their labor was needed, their schooling was often limited annually to a winter term of seven or eight weeks. Hence they attended winter after winter. sometimes until they reached the adult age of 21.

When in 1636, based upon the model of the British universities, the Massachusetts pioneers had set up the college at Cambridge, which today we call Harvard, it soon became apparent that few boys finishing the common or public school were prepared for the university studies taken over almost completely from Cambridge and Oxford in England. Much of the deficiency was because the universities placed emphasis on Latin and Greek, neither of which was taught in the common school. Hence there were established the Latin Grammar Schools. the oldest being Roxbury Latin School; the second. the Collegiate School in New York. These were soon followed by the Boston Latin School and the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven.

It should thus be clear that what was originally the grammar school, or more correctly the Latin Grammar School, became later the academy. Under either name the school was one that was at a level beyond the common or public school. That kind of advanced school above the common school level was at first not public at all. It was a pri vate school that collected tuition from parents, just as the first academies always did.

Long before the advent of the public high school, the term high school had come into use as an alternative for academy. In Portland. for instance. in the middle of the 19th century. long before Maine had public-supported high schools. there were two such private institutions operating in competition. One was the Portland Academy; the other was the Portland High School. So the early high schools that preceded the Maine law providing for free high schools. in 1872. must be considered as actually private schools charging tuition.

It was the preference for the terms academy and high school that changed entirely the status of the grammar school. To this day we still call our public school on Gold Street in Waterville the South Grammar School. By the time I started school in a Maine town in 1897. the school reports spoke of the town’s primary, intermediate, grammar, and high schools. In other words. before the dawn of the 20th century, grammar school had come to designate the upper years of the elementary school. As time went by. and graded schools were carefully worked out, it happened in the larger towns that all elementary grades might be included in what had previously been a grammar school. That is what happened in Waterville.

Originally our South Grammar School and North Grammar School were meant for upper grades fed into them from the town’s numerous one room schools. But long before 1900 they had become complete elementary schools, including all grades from 1 to 8. Then in 1922, with the building of our junior high school. their topmost grade became Grade 6.

It is interesting to see what the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 said about Harvard College. In the first place the constitution declared that “all gifts, grants and conveyances heretofore given to Harvard should be confirmed in perpetuity”; that is, never to be taken away by any act of the state. The charter of Harvard had set up two bodies that still control that university today, a board of trustees and a board of overseers. Bowdoin has the same governmental structure, whereas Colby and Bates have trustees alone. Interesting, especially with regard to recognition of the church is what the 1780 constitution said about the Harvard overseers. Here are the words: “Whereas the General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay enacted in 1642 that the Governor and Deputy Governor for the time being and all the magistrates of that jurisdiction, were with the President and a member of the clergy in said act described, constituted the Overseers of Harvard College, it is now declared that the Governor. Lt. Governor. Council and Senate of this Commonwealth, are and shall be their successors, who, with the President of Harvard College for the time being, together with the Ministers of the Congregational Churches in the towns of Cambridge, Watertown. Charlestown, Boston. Roxbury and Dorchester, shall be the Overseers of Harvard College.”

What I want you especially to note is that, as late as 1780, when the American Revolution was so nearly won that Massachusetts dared to set up a state constitution, there was included in that constitution preferential treatment of the established church, the Congregational. Certain of their ministers, and those of no other denomination, could be recognized as Overseers of Harvard. That situation lasted for only seven years, when it was struck down by the Third Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. which says: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Year: 1969