colonists engage in the manufacture of woolen goods. Corn and wheat were the staple products of the northern colonies. Tobacco, rice, indigo, and corn were the chief products in the south, though much wheat was raised in Maryland and Virginia. The Germans in Pennsylvania were the best farmers. Maryland made the best flour.

Manufacturing was discouraged by Great Britain. Shipbuilding not being discouraged, New England became one of the greatest ship-building countries in the world, supplying nearly one-third of all the ships used by England. Not

SPINNING WHEEL

able to pay the price asked for
imported English goods and
wares, the mass of the colonists
were forced to manufacture
their own clothing, hats, paper,
farm implements, cutlery, and
household furniture. In almost
every home was
was a spinning
wheel, each household spinning
its yarn and weaving its fabrics
by hand.

Lumbering, and the manufacture of barrel staves, and other articles of commerce were carried on in New England. The iron mines of Pennsylvania and Maryland were opened and furnaces set up as early as 1740. However, manufactures from iron were early prohibited by parliament, though these two colonies were permitted to ship pigiron to England. The whole policy of the mother country was to keep the colonies dependent upon Great Britain by prohibiting manufacturing. The people on the coasts of New England were extensively engaged in fishing.

The colonies traded among themselves, but England discouraged even this; and in case of some commodities, prohibited trade altogether. A flourishing commerce had

sprung up between New England and the West Indies, New England exchanging her timber, ships, and rum for the sugar and molasses of the West Indies.

170. Money. In the early history of the colonies, dried codfish, wampum, firs, bullets, corn, lumber, and even cattle, constituted money. A few of the colonies passed laws making some of these articles a legal tender in payment of debts and taxes. As early as 1650 the exports of Massachusetts had brought much gold and silver Spanish coin into the New England colonies. As a check on the circulation of this Spanish coin, a mint was set up at Boston in 1652 to make a set of coins for home circulation. Laws were passed which forced holders of Spanish coin to have their money recoined into New England coin at this mint. The Boston mint was discontinued in 1688. The money issued by it became known as the "pine tree currency"-due to the representation of a pine tree on one side of the coin. Of course English and Dutch money early came into use in the colonies.

PINE TREE SHILLING

Massachusetts issued paper money in 1690, and all the other colonies by 1750 had followed her example. Money alues were measured in English pounds, shillings, and pence up to the time of the Revolution, when dollars and cents came into general use. Banks were established in some of the larger cities. However, the banks of colonial days were merely banks of issue, or loan banks. They did not receive deposits.

EDUCATION

171. In New England.-As early as 1647 the general court of Massachusetts declared that every town or district of fifty families should support a common school and that every town of one hundred families or over, should

support a grammar school of sufficient grade to prepare young men for Harvard College, which had been founded in 1636. Thus was founded the American public school system. The Massachusetts plan spread to every district in New England, so that by the time of the Revolution there was hardly a native born person twenty-one years of age in all New England who could not read and write. It is estimated at this time that the six hundred thousand people of New England constituted the best educated body of people in the world. They had their academies and colleges, and many of their leaders were college bred men.

The "town meetings" had their part in the education of the people of New England. They afforded a means of inter

in politics and religion. They were familiar with the colonial charters, with the powers of the British government, and were always ready with a written argument, protest, or petition, when colonial rights were being interfered with.

172. In the Middle Colonies, education was not neglected. Some historians insist that the Dutch had founded a free school system in New York even before the Puritans had founded one in Massachusetts. A few New Englanders had migrated to New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and even into some sections of the southern colonies, and wherever they went they set up the free public school. first girls' school in the colonies was established at Lewiston,

The

Delaware. When the Quakers settled Pennsylvania in 1682, they established a public school system which gradually spread throughout the Quaker settlements of that colony. The Scotch-Irish, too, were believers in education and early looked after the education of their children. The middle colonies, like the New England colonies, had their colleges and academies, which took high rank.

173. In the Southern Colonies, however, education was most sadly neglected, though Virginia boasted of the second oldest college in the United States-the William and Mary College. Some of the royal governors of the south were opposed to the education of the common people. Governor Berkeley of Virginia protested against public schools and printing presses in these oft-quoted words: "Thank God! there are no free schools nor printing presses, and I hope there will be none for a hundred years. This wish was nearly fulfilled-the first newspaper in Virginia was not set up until 1736, and even then was controlled by the government. However, some localities in the south believed in education. Maryland established free schools in 1696 and a free school was opened in Charleston in 1712. Private schools, which are still so numerous in the south, were established in many places. It must be remembered that negro slaves made up one-third of the population of the southern colonies and that the eight hundred thousand white population of that section were scattered over a vast territory. The rich planters of the south, and all others who could afford to do so, sent their sons to England to be educated. Many students from the south attended college in the northern and middle colonies, or were educated by private tutors at home.

174. The Colleges.-At the time of the Revolution the colonies boasted of nine colleges. Three were controlled by Episcopalians, three by Congregationalists, and one each by the Presbyterians, by the Dutch Reformed Church, and by the Baptists. The influence of these early colleges

on the intellectual development of the colonial period cannot be estimated. They were veritable centers of education. They scattered throughout the colonies a vast number of young men who became leaders of many a community in the trying days of the Revolution.

Harvard College, founded at Cambridge, Mass., in 1636, is the oldest college in the United States. It was named after a learned Englishman, John Harvard, who in his will left the college his library and five thousand dollars in money. To-day it is known as Harvard University, the largest insti

tution of learning in America. The orator, Edward Everett, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, the historian Sparks, and the four great authors, Emerson, Lowell, and Holmes, have issued from its halls.

William and Mary College was established in 1693 at Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia. It was named after the king and queen of England. George Washington was at one time its president. It counted among its students three presidents of the United States, Jefferson, Monroe, Tyler, one chief justice, John Marshall, and one great American general, Winfield Scott.