54.] History of Schools in New York City. HISTORY OF SCHOOLS IN NEW YORK CITY. HE FIRST SCHOOL AND FIRST TEACHER. EVEN generations have passed since O the First School was opened in New asterdam. This was an elementary pahial school under the management of the acons of the Dutch Church. At that -iod (1633) the infant city of New York ended from the Battery northward only the present location of Wall-street, and tained a population of but four hundred rsons. THE FIRST TEACHER as Adam Roelandsen, who came from olland in company with Wouter Van viller, to fill the triple office of teacher, orister, and beadle. He came from the nd where the pilgrims found their first me on escaping from the religious percutions in England. While sojourning ere they learned to prize education and od schools as the noblest allies of liberty. bout a dozen years prior to the advent of e first schoolmaster on the island of Manattan, the Pilgrims had borne with them ross the Atlantic the seeds of public edmation, which they subsequently planted the New England colonies, side by side ith the Church. THE FIRST SCHOOL-HOUSE. At this early period there were no chool-houses in New Amsterdam; all the chools were of a private character. About en years after the first school was opened, hose early Knickerbockers began to agitate he subject of erecting a building for its accommodation. It took them twenty ears to agree upon a suitable site, collect The necessary means, and erect their First School-house, which was completed about 1663. While arrangements for building This school-house were in progress, in 1659, the first Latin Schoolmaster" arrived from Holland. THE FIRST ENGLISH SCHOOL. In 1687, the first English Grammarschool was commenced in New York. It 105 the support of its teacher. In addition, forty pounds were granted to this institution for the purpose of establishing free scholarships. In 1702 this school was established on the King's Farm, and thus became the germ of King's College. During this period the Island of Manhattan was in the possession of the English, and the name of the city had been changed from New Amsterdam to New York. Its population was about five thousand. The citizens of this young metropolis were very desirous of securing a person who was well qualified to fill the position of teacher in their first English Grammarschool, and accordingly they wrote to the Bishop of London, requesting him to send them a "master, as there was not any person within the city, proper and duly qualified to take upon himself the office of schoolmaster in said city, with whose convenience it would be agreeable." COLUMBIA COLLEGE. In 1732 a "Free-school for teaching the Latin and Greek and practical branches of mathematics" was incorporated by law. In 1754 a royal charter was granted for establishing an English college, which was called King's College. Two years later an edifice was erected for its use, on grounds granted for that purpose by the corporation of Trinity Church. A few years subsequently, a grammar-school and a medical department were added. This institution was in a flourishing condition at the beginning of the American Revolution; but the war suddenly suspended its operations, and the buildings were occupied for military purposes. After the Revolution this college was reopened and its name changed to Columbia College, which it still bears. As the population of the city increased, new schools were occasionally opened; some for private instruction, at expensive rates of tuition; others, under the management of the different religious denominations, and known as charity schools, were chiefly designed for the children of the Prior to 1800 no provision had been made for public schools, and the means of education were entirely beyond the reach of the great body of the citizens. Some time during 1795 several benevolent ladies, of the Society of Friends, formed an association for the purpose of aiding poor women who were not of the order of Quakers. In a few years they observed that there was a large and increas ing class of poor children who were entirely without the means of education, even at the charity schools of the several churches. Accordingly, in 1802, they opened a school for poor girls, children of that class of women for whom their association provided employment and the means of support. Afterwards they admitted both girls and boys into their schools; but they finally excluded all boys from them, admitting girls only. These schools were taught by these benevolent ladies in person, taking the duty week by week, in turn. The success of the schools for girls suggested a plan for opening similar schools for boys. On the 19th of February, 1805, twelve philanthropic gentlemen met for the purpose of considering this subject. The result of this meeting was the presentation of a memorial to the Legislature of the State of New York, which was signed by about one hundred prominent citizens, asking for a charter, and such pecuniary aid as would enable them to establish free schools. On the 9th of April, 1805, the Legislature of New York passed " An act to incorporate the society instituted in the city of New York, for the establishment of a freeschool, for the education of poor children, who do not belong to, or are not provided for, by any religious society." This act provided, that "any person who should contribute to the society the sum of eight dollars should be a member thereof; and that any person who should contribute the sum of twenty-five dollars should be a member, and be further entitled, during the life of such contributor, to send one child to be educated at any school under the care of the society; and whoever should contribute the sum of forty dollars, should be a meinber, and be entitled to send two children, etc." This act also provided that the society should be managed by thirteen trustees, to be elected on the first Monday in May in every year, who should be members of the said corporation and actual residents of the city of New York. The first Board of Trustees was elected on the tenth day of May, 1805, and composed of the following persons, with whom the plan of the society originated: DE WITT CLINTON, President. JOHN MURRAY, JR., Vice-President. LEONARD BLEECKER, Treasurer. BENJAMIN D. PERKINS, Secretary. Gilbert Aspinwall, Thomas Eddy, Thomas Franklin, Matthew Franklin, Adrian Hegeman, William Johnson, Samuel Miller, Benjamin G. Minturn, and Henry Ten Brook. THE FIRST PUBLIC SCHOOL. This association having now assumed & responsible shape, the trustees began to appeal to the public for the necessary means to carry forward their noble enterprise. Notwithstanding great exertions made in soliciting subscriptions, nearly twelve months elapsed before they had collected a sum sufficient to warrant them in making the requisite engagements for opening a school. were About this time intelligence reached this country concerning the mode of teaching elementary classes, which had then just been introduced into a school of about one thousand children in London, under the superintendence of Joseph Lancaster. "Economy in expense, and facility and expedition in communicating instruction," were the characteristic distinctions claimed for this method of instruction. This plan of teaching comprehended reading, writing, and arithmetic. A school was divided into classes of ten or fifteen pupils each, who were placed under the care of a monitor, who was a pupil in a class of a higher grade. Thus the children were to be made the instruments of their own instruction. One of the Board of Trustees had visited Lancaster's school in London, and was very desirous of adopting the same system in the schools of this society in New York. At length a teacher was found, who appeared to be qualified for the undertaking, and a small apartment .] History of Schools in New York City. secured in Bancker-street (now Madinear Pearl-street, and the first school r the charge of this society was ed on the 14th of May, 1806. In a days this school contained forty-two ls. This was the first Lancasterian l established in America. bout this time Col. Henry Rutgers ented two lots of ground in Henry-t, for the purpose of erecting thereon hool-house to meet the wants of the in that part of the city. These lots e valued at $2,500. In addition, the ens contributed cloth, stockings, shoes, bats, to make the children who ated the school comfortable during the re cold weather. uring the winter of 1807, the trustees ied to the Legislature for aid, and reed an appropriation of $4,000 toward ding a school-house, and $1,000 to be I annually toward defraying the exses of the school. About the same = the trustees applied to the corporaof the city for assistance in their le work, and the use of a building on northwest corner of the City Hall k, adjoining the Almshouse, was grantthem as a temporary location, together $500 for putting it in repair, on conon that the society would admit into school fifty of the children of the shouse. To this place the school in cker-street was removed on the 28th =pril, 1807, and before the close of that it had one hundred and fifty pupils in ndance. E FREE SCHOOL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK." April, 1808, the Legislature amended charter of this institution, and changed name to that of "The Free School Soy of New York." During the autumn his year the city government presented he society the grounds occupied by the arsenal in Chatham-street, on condiof their educating gratuitously the ldren of the Almshouse. Fifteen hundred lars were also appropriated to aid in paring a new building on this site for reception of the school. THE FIRST FREE-SCHOOL BUILDING. The first school-building of the Free 107 appropriate exercises on the 11th day of December, 1809. The occasion was one of great interest, as the dedication of a building to the gratuitous instruction of five hundred children, under the superintendence of a single teacher,* was a spectacle which had never before been witnessed on the American continent. The president of the Free School Society-De Witt Clinton -in his address on this occasion, described the origin and progress of the association, and portrayed the great benefits which might justly be expected to flow from the diffusion of knowledge among the great mass of the people. The corner-stone of the second schoolhouse was laid by the donor of the soil, Col. Rutgers, on the 11th of November, 1810. An additional appropriation was secured from the legislature, besides several liberal donations from individuals to aid in erecting the house. This school was opened, with John Missing for principal, on the 13th of November, 1811, as School No. 2, which number it now bears in the present list of grammar-schools of New York. The two free-schools thus opened accommodated about eight hundred children in attendance; about four hundred were admitted, and the same number discharged, each year. PLAN FOR RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. The Board of Trustees of the Free School Society comprised those who represented almost every religious denomination; but in the schools under their care they studiously avoided the inculcation of the peculiar tenets of any religious society. From the commencement of their schools they had directed that the Holy Scriptures should be read daily in them. To satisfy the wishes of all, it was determined that the secular instruction should be suspended on the afternoon of every Tuesday, and that this time should be devoted to the religious instruction of the children. order to carry out this plan, an association of about fifty ladies, belonging to the dif ferent religious denominations in the city, volunteered their services, and met at the schools to examine the children in their In William Smith was the first principal of different catechisms. The parents or guardians designated the denomination in whose tenets they wished their children to be educated. Sunday monitors were also appointed to conduct the children to places of public worship. THE COMMON-SCHOOL FUND. In 1815 the Common-school Fund of the State of New York was divided, and the Free School Society received $3,700 as its first annual installment. In 1818 a third school was opened in Greenwich village, at the corner of Hudson and Amos streets; but it was soon afterward removed to the new house, built on the lots given for this purpose by the Trinity Church corporation, on the corner of Hudson and Grove streets. This school was called No. 3. The house stood where the new Grammar School No. 3 now stands. ADDITIONAL SCHOOLS. In 1819 and 1820 the fourth and fifth schools were opened. In 1824 the sixth school was started. The six schools now contained an aggregate of four thousand three hundred and eighty-four children. Thus, in the term of eighteen years, the free-schools had increased from the humble school of forty-two pupils, more than a hundred-fold. Important changes took place in the school system of New York soon after this period, an account of which we must defer for another article. (To be continued.) EVE LIFE AND DEATH. VERY thing has its use; life to teach us the contempt of death, and death the contempt of life. Death has two aspects: dreary and sorrowful to those of prosperous, mild, and almost genial to those of adverse fortune. Her countenance is old to the young, and youthful to the aged: to the former her voice is importunate, her gait terrific; the latter she approaches like a bedside friend, and calls in a whisper that invites to rest. If life is a present which any one, foreknowing its contents, would have willingly declined, does it not follow that any one would as willingly give it up, having well tried what they are? I speak of the reasonable, the firm, the virtuous; not of those who, like bad governors, are afraid of laying down the powers and privileges they have been proved unworthy of holding. sorrows come in place of them; if any wish is rational, it is surely the wish that we should go away unshaken by years, undepressed by griefs, and undespoiled of our better faculties. Life and death appear more certainly ours than whatsoever else: and yet hardly can that be called ours which comes without our knowledge, or goes without it; or that which can not be put aside if we would, and indeed can anticipate but little. There are few who can regulate life to any extent; none who can order the things it shall receive or exclude. What value should be placed upon it then by the prudent man, when duty or necessity calls him away? or what reluctance should he feel on passing into a state where, at least, he must be conscious of fewer checks and inabilities? Such, my reader, as the brave commander, when from the secret and dark passages of some fortress, wherein implacable enemies besieged him, having performed all his duties and exhausted all his munition, he issues at a distance into open day. -] Dr. Lewis Adolfus. 109 R. LEWIS ADOLFUS"-AN ENGLISH SCHOOLMASTER, AND HIS OPERATIONS IN AMERICA. ME three years ago, the subject of this sketch arrived in Cincinnati from pe—from England's capital-where as a private tutor in Lord John Rusfamily, as he represented to the many ential citizens into whose favor he aged to ingratiate himself. Favored a great address and fine education, Adolfus managed, in the course of a t time, to gain the confidence of many. stablished a school for boys at College where he soon had a large number of Is-sons of some of the wealthiest lies of the city and vicinity. The docbusiness flourished, apparently, for he commenced living in elegant style sed in broadcloth and fine linen, kept a good table, drove fast horses, and -ted a fine carriage. any people wondered how he could rd all this, having no means of support, arently, save his school; but the truth t last developed, and the doctor stood ealed in his true character of forger, ndler, and rascal in general. The first saction of a dishonest character in ch we hear of his being engaged, was negotiating the sale of bills of foreign change on parties in London. He dissed of bills of this kind to the amount of ween £1,700 to £2,000, to parties in cinnati, which, of course, came back otested; and the worthy doctor stood nvicted before the parties whom he had us swindled, of obtaining money under se pretenses. He managed, however, to mpromise this matter, having enjoyed e use of the money—$8,000 to $10,000— the mean while, together with the intert and premium, which was clear gain. The excitement produced in business rcles by this affair having blown over, e doctor commenced operations again. I managed to borrow money from parties ho were entirely unsuspicious of his true haracter; he made purchases for which e never paid, swindled employees and ervants out of their wages, and, in fact, scheme of deliberate and systematic rascality. We hear of an instance of his borrowing $2,000 from a widow lady residing at College Hill, giving her as security a chattel mortgage on property already completely covered with mortgages. By these various means he managed to victimize some fifty different persons, in amounts large and small, all the time covering his real character with an able duplicity at which we can not but wonder. The last and heaviest transaction in which we find the doctor engaged, was in forging the name of Henry Mack & Bros., on notes to the amount of between $4,000 and $5,000, all of which he disposed of without exciting any suspicion. Some of these notes were for amounts as high as $600. This was done in the latter part of 1863, and the fact of the forgery was not discovered until lately. Success in villainy seems to have blinded the doctor to any danger of detection, for his last operation was conducted in the boldest manner imaginable. Hearing, however, of the discovery of the forgery, he made preparations to leave; and on or about the first of the past month, drove into town and left his horses and carriage at William Wood's stable as usual, pretending that he was going to return the same night. He had with him his wife and child, with whom he immediately took passage on the night-express for New York, and upon his arrival at that place, took passage on a steamer to Liverpool, where he has probably arrived by this time, with a considerable sum of money, the proceeds of his rascalities in Cincinnati. As an instance of the boldness with which he conducted himself, we are informed that up to the very day of his departure he continued his dishonest operations. The night before he started he made a purchase of furs, silver-ware, and other valuable articles, which could be conveniently carried away, ordering the |