bill proposed to lay off every county into Hundreds, or Wards, of a
proper size and population for a school, in which reading, writing, and
common arithmetic should be taught; and that the whole state should be
divided into twenty-four districts, in each of which should be a school
for classical learning, grammar, geography, and the higher branches of
numerical arithmetic. The second bill proposed to amend the constitution
of William and Mary college, to enlarge its sphere of science, and to
make it in fact a University. The third was for the establishment of
a library. These bills were not acted on until the same year, '96, and
then only so much of the first as provided for elementary schools. The
College of William and Mary was an establishment purely of the Church
of England; the Visitors were required to be all of that Church; the
Professors to subscribe its Thirty-nine Articles; its Students to learn
its Catechism; and one of its fundamental objects was declared to be, to
raise up Ministers for that Church. The religious jealousies, therefore,
of all the dissenters, took alarm lest this might give an ascendancy
to the Anglican sect, and refused acting on that bill. Its local
eccentricity, too, and unhealthy autumnal climate, lessened the general
inclination towards it. And in the Elementary bill, they inserted a
provision which completely defeated it; for they left it to the court
of each county to determine for itself, when this act should be carried
into execution, within their county. One provision of the bill was, that
the expenses of these schools should be borne by the inhabitants of
the county, every one in proportion to his general tax rate. This would
throw on wealth the education of the poor; and the justices, being
generally of the more wealthy class, were unwilling to incur that
burthen, and I believe it was not suffered to commence in a single
county. I shall recur again to this subject, towards the close of my
story, if I should have life and resolution enough to reach that term;
for I am already tired of talking about myself.