the none may be idle, but the poor may work to live, and the rich, if they become poor, may not want.”

Penn’s last words to his wife and children as he embarked for America show how dear to his heart was education, as well as the system he advocated; of the education of his children he wrote feelingly:

“For their learning be liberal, spare no cost, for by such parsimony all is lost that is saved; but let it be useful knowledge, such as is consistent with truth and godliness, not cherishing a vain conversation or idle mind, but ingenuity mixed with industry is good for the body and mind too. I recommend the useful part of mathematics, as building houses or ships, measuring, surveying, dialling, navigation; but agriculture is especially in my eye: let my children be husbandmen and housewives; it is industrious, healthy. honest and of good example.”

The first legislation in the Colony was by the first General Assembly, which met at Chester, December 4th, 1682, They adopted the educational provisions prepared and printed by Penn in England and also “The Great Law" of seventy-one chapters, among them the following remarkable provision: That the laws of this Province, from time to time, shall be publisht and printed; that every person may have the knowledge thereof: and they shall be one of the Books taught in the Schools of this Province and Territories thereof.”

“Children were to be taught some useful skill or trade.”

The first attempt to establish a school, Dec., 1683, is described in the “Minutes of the Provisional Council” in the following quaint words:

“The Govr. and Provil. Council, having taken into their serious consideration the great Necessity there is for a School Master for ye Instruction & Sober Education of Youth in the towne of Philadelphia, sent for Enoch Flower, an inhabitant of the towne, who for twenty Year past hath been Exercised in that care and Imploymt in England, to whom having Communicated their Minds, he Embraced it upon these following terms: to Learne to read English 4s by the Quarter, to Learne to read and write 6s by ye Quarter; to Learne to read, Write and Cast accot 8s by ye quarter for Boarding a Scholler, that is to say dyet, Washing, Lodging, & Schooling, Tenn pounds for one whole year.”

[Continued on page 168]