bution among the districts there was no responsibility to the town for its expenditure.

Yet it is to be noted that the Massachusetts law

of 1789 required supervision. This supervising was done by a committee that usually included the ministers of the gospel and the selectmen in their capacity as town officials. They were obliged to visit and inspect the schools at least once in six months and inquire into the regulation, discipline, and proficiency of the scholars. Their visitations were very formal and solemn affairs. The whole delegation, composed of the community's chief priests and elders - sometimes to the number of more than twenty - went in stately procession to the schools in turn. They heard the classes read in the primer, Psalter, Testament, etc., examined the writing and ciphering books, and addressed the children in short speeches of the customary school-committee style. Just before departing, they entered on the school records their testimony to the good behavior and proficiency of the pupils, and the fidelity of the master. "The school may be said to flourish like the palm tree" is the way one such visitation closed its commendation in the records of old Nicholas Pike's school at Newburyport.

Supervision waned as time went on, until nearly all real power in the affairs of each local district was vested in the prudential committeeman. This individual received no pay and little honor, and there was seldom any rivalry for the position. It went to the man who was willing to serve, and had ability enough to look after the repairs of the building

and other material needs of the school. His educational qualifications were likely to be meagre, and some of the local committeemen were very rude and ignorant. The district system resulted in many a tea-pot tempest, for every person had decided ideas as to how affairs in his or her own neighborhood should be managed, and whatever action the committeeman took, he had to run a gauntlet of criticism that was often far from judicial or gentle. To settle the question of where one of the little frame schoolhouses should stand has been known to require ten district meetings scattered over a period of two years; and the meetings would be attended by men from the mountain farms for miles around. Some of these men had no children to be schooled, and some of them were not interested enough in national affairs to vote in a presidential election. The one point on which all could agree was that the schoolhouse should be built where the land was as nearly valueless as possible. Any spot was good enough, provided it was in the geographical centre of the district. If the schoolhouse was not thus centrally located, and the rights, real or fancied, of individuals were set aside for the convenience of the majority, then there was trouble that might smoulder almost interminably, ready to blaze forth at any time.

Most of the buildings were erected close to the highway, and they encroached on the adjoining field very little. Usually they formed a part of the line fence. A favorite situation was at the meeting of two or more roads, and sometimes the building

would be so near the wheel tracks that a large stone was set up at the most exposed corner to protect the structure from being injured by passing vehicles.

The schoolhouses seldom had enclosures or shade trees, and the summer sun and the winter winds had free play.

The number of pupils to be accommodated in a district was likely to be large, for the children in the old-time families were numerous, and the farm regions had not yet begun to be depopulated by the cityward migration destined to drain them later. Nevertheless, no matter how many the scholars, there was never any thought of providing more than a single teacher. The main purpose of the constructors of the buildings seems to have been to see into how

small a space the children could be crowded, and some schoolrooms not over thirty feet square accommodated a hundred pupils. The structure was generally roughly clapboarded, and it might possibly receive a coat of red or yellow paint, but more likely paint was lacking both outside and in. The school

Plan of a Characteristic Schoolroom of 1840.

room was lathed and plastered, and was lighted by five or six small windows of twelve panes each. The glass in the windows was often broken, and during school hours, in cool weather, the place of the missing panes was apt to be supplied with hats.

Just inside, next to the entrance, was a fireplace, and at this same end of the room was the master's desk or table- usually a table in the early days;