A YEAR after the four original towns in New Hampshire joined the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1641), the united thought of the colonists was turned toward the enactment of the first New England law on education. A notable act was passed in 1642 as follows:
Forasmuch as the good education of children is of singular behoof and benefit to any commonwealth, and whereas many parents and masters are too indulgent, and negligent of their duty in that kind,
It is ordered, that the selectmen of every town in the several precincts and quarters where they dwell, shall have a vigilant eye over their neighbors, to see, first, that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in their families, as not to endeavor to teach, by themselves or others, their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them to read perfectly the English tongue, and to get knowledge of the capital laws, upon penalty of twenty shillings for each neglect therein.
Also, that all masters of families do, once a week at least, catechise their children and servants in the grounds and principles of religion.
This measure, while it required parents and masters to provide instruction for the children dependent upon them, placed no obligation on the towns for education at public expense.
In 1647, an act was passed that, as an educational milestone, was not equaled in importance for one hundred and fifty years. The Great and General Court of Massachusetts, of which Colony the New Hampshire settlements were then a part, passed what is known as the Act of 1647, requiring each town in which there were fifty or more householders to maintain a school for teaching reading and writing, and every town in which there were one hundred or more householders to maintain a grammar school, for the following odd reason:
It being one chiefe project of that ould deluder, Sathan, to keepe men from the knowledge of the Scripture as in former times, by keeping them in an unknowne tongue, so in these latter times, by perswading from the use of tongues, so that at least, the true sence, and meaning of the original might be clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers, that learning may not be buried in the grave of our fathers in the church and commonwealth the Lord assisting our endeavors.
Although the Act of 1647 was compulsory in that it left the towns no choice as to whether a school should be maintained, it did not in any way make it compulsory for children to attend school.
That the importance of education was realized in the towns is seen, for instance, in the statutes of Portsmouth, where mention is made of funds contributed to the erection of a building at Harvard College in 1669 because of the need of perpetuating ‘knowledge, both religious and civil, among us and our posterity after us.’
The premises considered, we have made a collection in our town of sixty pounds per annum (and hope to make it more), which said sum is to be paid annually for these seven years ensuing, to be improved at the discretion of the honored overseers of the college for the behalf of the same, and the advancement of good literature there, hoping withal that the example of ourselves (which have been accounted no people) will provoke the rest of the country to jealousy.
Dover added thirty-two pounds and Exeter ten pounds to this fund for Harvard College.
In 1680, when the New Hampshire towns were separated from the Massachusetts Colony, the educational laws of Massachusetts were copied upon the New Hampshire statute books. The New Hampshire lawmakers first put the word ‘free’ into the school laws of the State in 1708, in ‘An Act for a free school to bee kept at Portsmouth,’ which provided for ‘a free School for writers, Readers and Latinists.’
In general it may be said that education in New Hampshire in the Colonial period (1623–1776) was a matter of local initiative. The State laws required only that there be schools in the towns supported someway and conducted somehow. So badly were these laws carried out that Governor Wentworth declared in a message to the Assembly in 1771 that ‘nine-tenths of your towns are wholly without schools or having vagrant teachers . . . worse than none . . . unknown in principle and deplorably illiterate.’
As the towns increased in population, settlements were made in sections so remote from the central town schools that there arose demands for the right to establish separate schools in these places. The beginnings of the district school system are traceable as early as 1716 when the Legislature voted:
That where any Parish is sett off from any town to maintain a minister by themselves, they shall have powr wthin themselves to agree wth a publick schoolmaster & to build or hire a School house, as they shall think convenient.
This act initiated a long period of decentralization in control and support, of dependence upon local maintenance and insistence upon local management that later (1805–85) resulted in a vast number of small, locally supported, mismanaged, and tradition-ridden ‘deestrict schools.’
After years of opposition by those who treasured the New England tradition of local self-government, a period of increasing State influence (1885–1919) followed, during which the district organization was abolished, the town restored as the unit of administration and support, and supervisory unions of town districts formed for the purpose of employing professional school superintendents toward whose salary the State contributed.
In 1919, a State school system was established by a law providing for a powerful State board of education composed of educational laymen, with a professional educator serving as State commissioner of education and acting as executive officer of the board. The powers of the State board of education include the certification of teachers, superintendents, and nurses, responsibility for teacher training, enforcement of attendance and of the child-labor laws, the organization of supervisory school unions, the preparation of a program of study, and general enforcement of education laws. Local boards in the various school districts are considered responsible for the immediate direction, control, and management of the schools. With this administrative organization, provision was made for generous financial aid from the State, making it possible for the poorest towns to have full-term schools, with State-accredited teachers, suitable schoolhouses and professional supervision.
The latest trend of school management lies in the gradual demolition of one-room district-school buildings, and the transportation of children from the outlying districts to a central school in each town. Beginning in the late 1920’s, this trend has been greatly accelerated by the necessity for economy in government since 1929. State laws regulate the use of busses for this purpose, with the safety of the children as their main import.
The achievements since 1919 can be measured in various ways. The school year has been extended to at least thirty-six weeks a year, and schools have not fallen below that minimum except during epidemics. School attendance increased from 91.60 per cent in 1917–18 to 94.63 per cent in 1925–26. In 1930, 74,240 pupils were enrolled in elementary and secondary public schools. The number of superior school buildings has increased and of unsuitable buildings has decreased. By 1924, the advantages of medical inspection were extended to all districts. The hit-or-miss training of teachers was abandoned for genuine State certification. The greatest gains have been made in the primary schools.
If the percentage of illiteracy be made a test of educational efficiency, New Hampshire offers a creditable showing. The general average of illiteracy, which stood at 4.4 per cent in 1920, was reduced to 2.7 per cent by 1930. This reduction was largely in terms of foreign-born among whom the 1920 percentage of 15.4 was reduced to 9.6 by 1930. Among the New England States only Vermont has a lower rate of illiteracy than New Hampshire.
Enrollment in secondary schools has doubled since 1920. During the school year of 1933–34, 27,381 pupils were enrolled in the secondary schools, while the number of graduates was 3859. In 1937 there were ninety-one approved high schools.
Naturally the cost of education in the State has mounted. The sum of $6,000,000 was expended during the school year of 1933–34. Financial support of educational and related services constitutes about one-third of the burden on New Hampshire taxpayers. The public schools absorb about ninety per cent of this educational tax.
Catholic parochial schools have an important place in the educational system of New Hampshire. A total of 25,378 children was enrolled in these schools in 1936.
Private schools and academies still play an important part in New Hampshire education. In common with other New England States, New Hampshire went through the ‘academy period,’ and the first public high school was not established until 1830, at Portsmouth. As early as 1768, an academy was founded at Windham, only to disappear by 1790. New Hampshire’s most famous academy, Phillips Exeter, is also the oldest, dating from 1781. A college-preparatory school of the highest academic and social standing, it has an enrollment of 700 students. Ample endowments and a recent gift from Edward H. Harkness make possible the conference method of instruction, with one tutor for every twelve boys. Other leading academies, with dates of their founding, are Kimball Union (1813) at Meriden, New Hampton (1821) at New Hampton, and Brewster (1887) at Wolfeborough. In the field of private schools, apart from Phillips Exeter, St. Paul’s School at Concord is the most distinguished in the State.
Provision for teacher training is maintained by two State normal schools, the first established at Plymouth in 1871, the second at Keene in 1901.
New Hampshire has several junior colleges: Colby, at New London with a student body of two hundred and sixty girls; Tilton at Tilton, founded in 1846 and recently opened to women as well as men; and Stoneleigh, at Rye, a progressive institution offering two years of college work, now (1937) in its second academic year.
In the field of higher education there are five collegiate institutions in New Hampshire. Oldest and largest is Dartmouth College at Hanover, founded in 1769; its present enrollment of about 2500 includes students from forty-seven States and eleven countries. One of the most distinguished colleges in the country, it has many famous men among its graduates. The University of New Hampshire, the State university at Durham, has three colleges and a graduate school, with an enrollment of nearly 2000. In the suburbs of Manchester is St. Anselm College, a Roman Catholic college for men founded by the Benedictine Order in 1893, with a present enrollment of two hundred and fifty. Mount St. Mary, a Roman Catholic college for girls in Hooksett, was recently empowered to grant degrees, and has an enrollment of about thirty. The same status applies to Rivier College at Hudson, with twenty-four students. Each of these institutions is more fully described in the story of the town in which it is situated. Of the graduates of New Hampshire’s secondary schools who continue their education, about seventy per cent enroll in the State’s higher educational institutions.
Under educational facilities should be noted evening schools, of which in 1934 there were three (in Dover, Manchester, and Nashua) with a membership of 908. Residents of New Hampshire, during the same year, took 61 university extension courses, covering a wide range of subjects. In 1936, the Works Progress Administration established classes in adult education. Vocational education is provided for trades and industries, home economics, and agriculture, under the Smith-Hughes and George-Reed Acts, whereby the sum of $30,718.25 was made available for the State if matched by local funds. New Hampshire has no specialized schools for blind and deaf children, but the State assumes the expense of their board and tuition in schools in other States.
The contribution of libraries to New Hampshire education is noteworthy. By 1792, Jeremy Belknap, New Hampshire’s first historian, was urging citizens of the newly established State to found ‘social’ libraries as the ‘easiest, cheapest and most effectual mode of diffusing knowledge among the people.’
The earliest library was incorporated in 1792 by 28 citizens of Dover, organized in what they called the Social Library Company. Groups of citizens in Rochester and Portsmouth soon followed this example. As early as 1796, Tamworth, with only two hundred and sixty-six inhabitants, had a ‘social’ library. By 1820, one hundred and fifty-six of these ‘society libraries,’ supported by members of societies and by private endowments, had been incorporated.
These were succeeded by public libraries. In this field, New Hampshire had two ‘firsts.’ The Juvenile Library at Dublin, established in 1822, was the first free public library in the United States. At Peterborough was founded (1833) the first free public library in the United States to be supported by public funds. The trend toward the free library was continued by the law of 1849, which authorized towns to levy taxes for the support of libraries. In 1891, a library commission was appointed to establish free libraries with State aid.
The movement became so general that by 1934 only twelve towns in New Hampshire were without libraries, and these were served by circulating libraries. There are about 1,600,000 volumes in the public libraries of the State, with nearly half a million more in the colleges. Reduced to statistics, the per capita appropriation for public libraries in New Hampshire is forty-three cents, but the per capita income of public libraries is sixty-two cents. The volumes owned by public libraries total 3.48 per capita, and the annual circulation rate is 6.75. In 1934, New Hampshire stood third in per capita circulation, being outranked in this respect only by California and Massachusetts.