States territory. Not the less lasting, however, were the influences that had arisen from its possessions and its wars while they endured.

French

pared.

The issue of the French wars needs little comand Eng- ment after what has gone before. The English, in lish com- their compact colonies, resembled à man in full armor, in contending with whom, the French, scattered over their disjointed settlements, were like a knight protected by nothing but fragments of his coat of mail. The Englishman, moreover, stood strong in himself, strong in his colony even more than in his mother land; but the Frenchman leaned upon the distant France, with all his enterprise a dependent colonist, with all his gallantry a submissive subject. So much for the causes and contrasts that were at work in America. If we return to Europe, we shall find France too much engaged in ambition and in battle there to put forth her strength for the defence of colonies as languishing fact as they were magnificent in form.

Develop

CHAPTER VIII.

COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT.

THE English territory was immensely increased ment of by the successful wars that have been described. territory. Nor were its limits extended solely at the expense of neighboring domains. Within the boundaries already belonging to the colonies of England, there had been a large accession to the lands formerly occupied. New fields were brought into cultivation; new towns were formed; new means of communication were opened between the old habitations and the new.

Of occu

The development of territory arose chiefly from pation. the development of occupation. As the numbers and wants of the colonists multiplied with time, they found fresh ways of employing and of enriching themselves. The seaboard was lined with merchants and traders; the interior was filled with farmers and planters; while around them all were clustered the artisans and the laborers whose ser vices were needed to complete the circle of toil. Few men, or even women, in the early period, were without some laborious pursuit; few, as wealth increased and individuals grew to be above the necessity of labor, laid aside industry altogether. In one light, the entire people is seen exerting itself to improve the soil, to build up the dwelling, to enlarge the limits of commerce, of trade, and of manufacture. How successful these exertions were, appears from the steady growth of the colonies in resources and in possessions.

ur habits of life.

The habits of the colonists were long of the simplest nature. Little space for liberality or for luxury could be found in a new land crowded with its everrecurring demands for sobriety and for self-denial. Wher ever men lived, in the little knot of cottages that was called a town, in the scattered villages of the country, in the isolated posts of the frontier, they had a narrow life before them. Afterwards things changed, and in many a spacious enclosure there arose dwellings of greater comfort and of greater pretension. As the strict rules of the primitive period were loosened, there was also more frequent and more genial intercourse amongst men and amongst women. Without falling into extravagance, the wealthy found new objects of expenditure. Without yielding to idleness, the poorer classes found new means of relaxation. The change was for the better, physically and mentally. It relieved the nerves that had been tightly strung. It enlarged the interests that had been closely confined. If it did away with the primitive simplicity, it also did away with the primitive ruggedness of life. Time was gained for thought, for culture, for expansion.

Of educa

The sources of education had been opened at an tion. early period. The first laws of Massachusetts provided for the schoolmaster and the school, each township of fifty families being bound to maintain a teacher of reading and writing, while each of a hundred families was called upon to set up a grammar school, (1645-47.) The example was generally imitated throughout New England. Some of the central colonies were equally on the alert, Pennsylvania, especially, making provision from the first for public schools, (1685-89.) Maryland was much later in the field, proposing schools long before she established them, and laying them, when established, under the restriction of being taught only by members of the church of England,

(1723.) The southern colonies were mostly behindhand in the matter of education. South Carolina was amongst the earliest to organize public schools, (1721;) but these, like the schools of almost all the country, were of a very limited design. Private instruction being preferred by the richer colonists, the schools were left to the middle and lower classes, whose interest was not strong enough to support them.

Colleges.

The patronage of the upper classes turned to the

colleges which began with Harvard, in Massachu- /636. setts. Virginia, after depending upon a Latin school at New Amsterdam, bestirred herself to have a seminary of her own. At the instance of the Bishop of London's commissary, the ecclesiastical head of the province, James Blair, the long-sleeping project of a college was revived. The aid of the king was invoked; and he granted a charter, with donations in money and lands, to create a corporation, whose chief charge it should be to provide instruction for such as proposed to take orders in the established church. A department was also to be organized for the education of Indians. The royal names of William and Mary, then king and queen, were bestowed upon the rising institution, (1691.) Connecticut soon had her Yale College, (1700 ;) New Jersey her College of New Jersey, (1738-46;) New York her King's College, (1754;) and Pennsylvania her Academy, (1750,) afterwards the University of Pennsylvania.

These institutions became the centres of quite an amount of intellectual activity.

Of the

The printing press had long been at work. The press. first to be set up was at Cambridge in Massachusetts, (1639.) But it was under so much restraint that it can hardly be said to have exerted any general influence. The importation of books was under similar hinderances, certain volumes being absolutely prohibited, (1654.) Not

withstanding, the trade seemed to flourish, there soon being as many as four bookstores in Boston, while libraries were gathering on a small scale, (1686.) The first newspaper of the colonies was a diminutive sheet, issued once a week, under the title of the Boston News Letter, (1704.) No other press kept pace with that of Massachusetts. The royal governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley, made it a boast that under him “there are no free schools nor printing." "God keep us," he profanely added, "from both!" (1671.) Not many years after, the owner of a press introduced into the colony was bound over to make no use of it until the royal pleasure could be consulted. The royal pleasure turned out to be, that the press and its proprietor should leave Virginia, (1682-83.)

Official in

The increasing activity of the press is proved by terference. nothing more clearly than the continued interference to which it was subject from the colonial officials. In time, the governors of the royal provinces were regularly instructed to allow no printing without their special license, (1702.) It was virtually the same in all the colonies. In Pennsylvania, a printer was called to account for one of his publications in such a way as to suggest a retreat to New York, (1692.) Thirty years subsequently, the publisher of the Philadelphia Mercury, the only newspaper out of Boston, was obliged to apologize for an article displeasing to the governor and the council, (1722.) "I'll have no printing of your address," says Governor Shute of Massachusetts to the House of Representatives, on their remonstrating against his proceedings; "the press is under my control." But he did not succeed in preventing the printing, or even in bringing the printers to trial, (1719.) It was not because the Massachusetts press was free. On the contrary, within a very few years, Benjamin Franklin, then a boy of seventeen, was admonished by a joint committee of the council