Colonial America

by Richard Middleton, Anne Lombard

  In the middle and southern colonies schooling was accordingly left to individual parishes and communities. Large towns like New York and Philadelphia had schools by the end of the seventeenth century, though their emphasis remained religious. The first school in New York was established by the Dutch Reformed Church, followed in 1710 by Trinity School, an SPG foundation. In Philadelphia the first educational institution was the Friends' School, founded by the Quakers in 1689, in part to maintain their tribal purity which made separate educational facilities seemingly necessary. Elsewhere, especially in the South, the only instruction available was by private tutor, though many parents did their best to pass on their skills. In reality, appreciation of the need for education had not advanced much beyond the time of Sir William Berkeley, who proudly boasted that Virginia had neither printing presses nor free schools, which he believed was a blessing, since they merely encouraged sedition and rebellion.

  As the eighteenth century progressed, the need for better schools outside New England was recognized not just by the churches. This increased awareness in part reflected a growing need for clerks and other literate persons in commerce, law, and administration. The growth of education was also a response to the Enlightenment, as the more affluent began to sense that they could improve themselves materially as well as morally if they were educated.

  These factors resulted in greater efforts to provide schooling. In Maryland attempts were made in 1723 to set up county schools for the poor, albeit unsuccessfully, while in the Charleston area a number of “free” schools were established where only the better off had to pay. This increase in schools in turn led more people to contemplate a career in teaching, which had now become accepted as a separate vocation from the ministry, though many people continued to practice both. Another aid to educational expansion was an increase in the number of legacies left to schools. The consequence was a respectable increase in literacy even in Virginia, where perhaps two-thirds of males could read documents and sign their names by 1760, though an ability to read did not necessarily mean an ability to write. Pennsylvania had roughly the same literacy level.

  The figure for women's literacy is less definite. Since women were expected to marry and wives could not normally participate in business transactions, girls were offered less education. In particular, girls were not taught to sign their names, so tended to sign documents with a mark even if they knew how to read. For this reason, it has been difficult for historians to measure women's literacy. However, women often did know how to read the Bible. For the daughters of the elite, music, penmanship, and foreign languages were sometimes added, in order to give girls some social polish. Female literacy was undoubtedly aided by the new form of literature, the novel. Especially influential was Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, which took the form of an exchange of letters between two young women.

  Figure 22 “A Westerly View of the Colledges … ” (Harvard College), attributed to Paul Revere. Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.

  We have already seen that New England was also at the forefront of higher education with the founding of Harvard in 1636 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to provide a trained ministry. The college was never intended solely as a seminary, for in addition to theological topics, instruction was offered in “good literature, arts and sciences.” Nevertheless, until the end of the colonial period any male wishing to graduate in anything other than classics, divinity, and philosophy had to journey across the Atlantic for his education. The most popular subjects were medicine in Edinburgh and law in London.

  Life at Harvard was very formal. Freshmen were not allowed to wear gowns or carry canes, and all undergraduates had to doff their caps on passing the president's house. They were similarly required to salute at 50 yards when meeting the president in the street and had to acknowledge professors and tutors at 40 and 25 yards respectively.

  Harvard remained the only institution of higher learning in British North America for 50 years until the College of William and Mary was established at Williamsburg in 1693 as a belated response by the Anglican community there to the need for a trained ministry. The lack of a higher institution to prepare Anglican clergy had hampered the Episcopalian cause, although with no bishop in the American colonies, candidates still had to cross the Atlantic to be ordained. The first president and founding father was a Scottish Episcopalian, James Blair, who always intended William and Mary to be a college as well as a seminary to cater to the needs of the Virginian planters.

  Blair's friendship with John Locke was reflected in the college's curriculum, which provided for the study of medicine and law in addition to the more traditional classics and theology. In 1717 the first chair in natural philosophy and mathematics was created. But though generously endowed, the college languished because of internal squabbles. A serious fire also destroyed most of the main building in 1705. As a result some planters continued to send their sons to England for their education, especially in law.

  By the turn of the eighteenth century, Harvard had begun to adopt more liberal attitudes in religious matters, reflecting the growth of Arminian views. Not everyone welcomed this trend, and as a result Yale was founded in New Haven in 1701 to produce ministers of a more orthodox stance. The curriculum at the new college was similar to that of Harvard in the previous century, having a heavy emphasis on classics, divinity, and philosophy. In due course Yale, too, found that it could not divorce itself from the intellectual currents which were sweeping Europe. By 1760 it was little different from its rival.

  The middle colonies had to wait longer for an institution of higher learning. New York lacked a single dominant religious group, while Quaker Pennsylvania felt no need of one, having no trained ministry. The Quakers in any case laid more emphasis on the “university of life,” as Benjamin Franklin termed it. However, as the Presbyterians grew in strength, they became increasingly eager to have some institution to train their ministers. A few candidates attended Harvard, and in 1726 William Tennent established a “log college” at Neshaminy in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which trained some 20 ministers before closing its doors through lack of funding. Accordingly, in 1746 a group of New Light Presbyterians, led by Jonathan Dickinson, a Yale-trained New Englander, with the enthusiastic support of the Neshaminy-trained ministers, founded the College of New Jersey. Initially this operated from Dickinson's house in Elizabethtown, before moving on his death to Newark. Finally, in 1754 new premises were established at Princeton, though the college was not known by that name until the 1760s. From the beginning it was interdenominational; indeed, its third president was Jonathan Edwards. And like Harvard, Yale, and William and Mary, Princeton had many students who were not candidates for the ministry.

  Figure 23 College of New Jersey (later Princeton University). Engraving by Henry Dawkins, 1764. A northwest prospect of Nassau Hall with a front view of the president's house. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

  Meanwhile, under Benjamin Franklin's guidance, in 1751 the Academy of Philadelphia had been founded, with the distinction of being the first secular institution to impose no religious test for admission. Initially it was designed to be only a school, but in 1755 a three-year undergraduate program was added, after which its name was changed to the Academy and College of Philadelphia. From the beginning its aim was to promote knowledge as an end in itself. As Franklin argued in his initial appeal, this was the surest way to advance “the happiness both of private families and of commonwealths.” Franklin was heavily influenced by his Quaker surroundings and by the educational philosophy of Locke. The academy therefore placed a heavy emphasis on what was useful. Among the proposed subjects were arithmetic, accounts, geometry, and astronomy. Also included were English and history, to show “the beauty and usefulness of virtue”; natural history and botany, to contribute to the “improvement of agriculture”; and mechanics, “by which weak men perform such wonders, labour is saved, [and] manufactures expedited.” The academ
y also taught Greek and Latin, which were useful in the study of divinity, law, medicine, and modern languages. Franklin's academy has often been seen as the forerunner of the future public school system of the United States. It was certainly no coincidence that the University of Pennsylvania was later to be the first institution of higher learning to have a medical school, in 1765.

  Lastly, in 1754 New York obtained its first institution of higher learning with the establishment of King's College. The Anglicans had tried to charter a college in 1746 but had been prevented by the Presbyterians in the assembly, where neither group was sufficiently dominant to dictate its wishes. When King's College finally opened, therefore, it was effectively a nondenominational institution. Its curriculum was centered on “the learned languages” and “liberal arts and sciences.” Entrants had to be able to read and write, have basic arithmetic, and possess a good knowledge of Greek and Latin. It, too, added a medical school in 1767.

  Document 19

  On training to be a lawyer: the early career of John Adams, 1758, reprinted in L.H. Butterfield, ed., The Diary and Autobiography of John Adams (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), Vol. 1, 54–5

  The law was just beginning to become more professional when John Adams set out to be a lawyer after graduating from Harvard. This segment of his diary describes the subjects he was advised to master in order to practice law. Questions to consider: Was the legal profession open to any person in the colonies who wanted to enter it? What kinds of skills, knowledge, and qualities was Adams urged to cultivate in order to become a lawyer?

  Went in the morning to Mr Gridleys, and asked the favour of his Advice what Steps to take for an Introduction to the Practice of Law in this Country. He answered “get sworn” [i.e. at the bar] …

  ADAMS: But in order to that, sir, as I have no Patron, in this County.

  GRIDLEY: I will recommend you to the Court. Mark the Day the Court adjourns to in order to make up Judgments. Come to Town that Day, and in the mean Time I will speak to the Bar for the Bar must be consulted, because the Court always inquires, if it be with the Consent of the Bar.

  Then Mr Gridley inquired what Method of Study I had pursued, what Latin Books I read, what Greek, what French. What I had read upon Rhetorick. Then he took his Common Place Book and gave me Lord Hale's Advice to a Student of the Common Law, and when I had read that, he gave me Lord C[hief] J[ustice] Reeves' Advice [to] his Nephew, in the Study of the common Law. Then He gave me a Letter from Dr. Dickins, Regius Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge, to him, pointing out a Method of Studying the civil Law. Then he turned to a Letter He wrote himself to Judge Lightfoot, Judge of the Admiralty in Rhode Island, directing a Method of Studying the Admiralty Law. Then Mr. Gridley run a Comparison between the Business and studies of a Lawyer or Gentleman of the Bar, in England, and that of one here. A Lawyer in this Country must study common Law and civil Law, and natural Law, and Admiralty Law, and must do the duty of a Counsellor, a Lawyer, an Attorney, a solicitor, and even of a scrivener, so that the Difficulties of the Profession are much greater here than in England …

  I have a few Pieces of Advice to give you Mr. Adams. One is to pursue the Study of the Law rather than the Gain of it. Pursue the Gain of it enough to keep out of the Briars, but give your main Attention to the study of it.

  The next is not to marry early. For an early Marriage will obstruct your Improvement, and in the next Place, twill involve you in Expence.

  Another Thing is not to keep much Company. For this application of a Man who aims to be a lawyer must be incessant. His Attention to his Books must be constant, which is inconsistent with keeping much Company.

  By 1760, then, six colonies had institutions of higher learning. Five of them were in the North, reflecting the concentration of dissenting churches there. All were exclusively male. An increasing number of students no longer intended to be ministers, having more secular ends in view. For a growing segment of the elite and the upper middle classes, saving the world was no longer a primary aim. But although all the colleges were broadening their curriculum, they still only partially met the needs of professions like law and medicine. Nor did the situation change dramatically in the 1760s. Of the three new institutions of higher education founded before the Revolution, two – Rutgers (Dutch Reformed) and Brown (Baptist) – were overtly religious; and Dartmouth, though affecting to be interdenominational, provided a traditional curriculum based on Christianity and the classics. Until the Revolution, those who could not afford to study law and medicine in Europe had to graduate from a colonial college and then practice with someone already qualified in the profession (see Document 19).

  3 The Anglicization of Taste

  Traditionally, historians viewed the eighteenth century as a time when the British North American colonies were becoming distinctively American. Many historians today have concluded that in reality the colonies were becoming anglicized as the century progressed.11

  Originally, when the colonists first came over during the seventeenth century, they were clearly English in their cultural attitudes. Then over time the unfamiliar environment compelled them to adapt their styles of life, modifying dress, food, housing, and farming methods. In many cases they borrowed agricultural techniques, crops, and even cuisine from Native Americans and adapted it to their own cultures. A landscape full of unfamiliar animals and potentially hostile native inhabitants caused the colonists to change their language and adopt new words from Native American languages. They developed a simplified standard of living more appropriate to an environment in which consumer goods were hard to come by.

  Yet with the advent of the eighteenth century, colonists in the more settled areas became eager to acquire British goods and manners and to develop British tastes. They bought British books and copied London furniture styles. They aspired to become more sophisticated and “polite.” In some respects, they were no different from their counterparts at home, for Great Britain itself was in the throes of a consumer revolution, in which the emerging middle classes were adopting the fashions, dress, and lifestyles of the aristocracy.12 In addition the British colonists had some of their own distinct reasons for emulating the British gentry. As discussed in the previous chapter, during the late seventeenth century an established colonial elite had emerged whose members aspired to be recognized as part of the gentry class. Fulfilling these aspirations required them to conform to the standards of refinement, in terms not only of living standards and consumer preferences but also of education, manners, and even artistic tastes. Second, the new efficiency of transatlantic communication in the eighteenth century had increased the amount of information available to people in the British North American colonies about what was going on in Britain. Their greater awareness of their connection with Great Britain gave colonial people a strong sense of pride and shared commitment to the mother country. A third factor was the increasing availability of consumer goods, which spurred even ordinary people to aspire to become more fashionable. Since London and other major British cities were recognized as the centers of fashion, becoming more fashionable by definition meant emulating the British.

  Several historians argued that the anglicization of British North American culture also heightened the colonists' awareness of class differences. Indeed more affluent colonists were eager to distinguish themselves from ordinary people by observing the new code of genteel refinement which had begun in the royal households of Europe before spreading to the gentry and commercial classes. Among its requirements was politeness of speech, especially the use of “please” and “thank you.” Refinement also required individuals to be clean and their surroundings to be neat. Particular attention was given to improving eating habits through the use of cutlery, plates, chairs, and linen rather than hands, bowls, and stools, which latter methods inevitably led to stained and smelly clothing. The aim everywhere was to elevate and refine in order to create a pleasing impression. Those who thought of themselves as polite invariably looked down on ordinary people w
ith their unrefined manners and undeveloped sensibilities and tastes.13

  At the same time, manners offered a relatively fluid way of demarcating class boundaries. Unlike the traditional British idea that membership in the elite depended on birth and inherited status, the concept of refinement which was developing in the northern colonies tended to stress that it was a person's ability to display polite behavior, dress fashionably, and attain a particular level of education that made him a gentleman. Thus a man from an urban artisan's family like Benjamin Franklin, or a man from a moderately prosperous but essentially undistinguished farming family like John Adams, could aspire to rise to the upper middle class by becoming well educated and learning to act the part of a gentleman. In the South, access to upper and upper middle-class status appears to have depended upon more traditional markers, such as distinguished family connections and ownership of considerable quantities of land (and slaves), although refinement was important here too.14 However, in the more commercially oriented North, where merchants dominated the society, refinement could turn a man with money into a gentleman within a single generation.

  The desire among merchants, professionals, upwardly mobile artisans, and planters to be thought of as refined, sophisticated, and “polite” helps to explain a great deal about the culture that developed in the long-settled areas of the eastern seaboard by 1700. Of course members of this group represented a minority of the colonial population, even if their group was growing. The differences (and to some extent the similarities) between their cultural sensibilities and those of the vast majority of the population can be seen in a survey of the kinds of reading material consumed by the literate population.

  4 Libraries, Literature, and the Press

  The earliest libraries in British North America belonged to private individuals and were relatively small and few in number. The first collection of a public nature was set up in Boston's town house and comprised mainly the books of Robert Keayne, a merchant who died in 1656 and bequeathed his collection to the town. Most of its stock was of a religious nature.