next thing of mark among the Colonists was their love of learning;
all children were taught to read and write. They had been settled at
Plymouth, Salem, and Boston less than twenty years when they established
Harvard College, chiefly for the education of ministers, who took the
highest social rank in the Colonies, and were the most influential
people. Lawyers and physicians were not so well educated. As for
lawyers, there was but little need of them, since disputes were mostly
settled either by the ministers or the selectmen of the towns, who were
the most able and respectable men of the community. What the theocratic
Puritans desired the most was educated ministers and schoolmasters. In
1641 a school was established in Hartford, Connecticut, which was free
to the poor. By 1642 every township in Massachusetts had a schoolmaster,
and in 1665 every one embracing fifty families a common school. If the
town had over one hundred families it had a grammar school, in which
Latin was taught. It is probable, however, that the idea of popular
education originated with the Dutch. Elizabeth and her ministers did not
believe in the education of the masses, of which we read but little
until the 19th century. As early as 1582 the Estates of Friesland
decreed that the inhabitants of towns and villages should provide good
and able Reformed schoolmasters, so that when the English
nonconformists dwelt in Leyden in 1609 the school, according to Motley,
had become the common property of the people.

The next thing we note among the Colonists of New England is the
confederation of towns and their representation in the Legislature, or
the General Court. This was formed to settle questions of common
interest, to facilitate commerce, to establish a judicial system, to
devise means for protection against hostile Indians, to raise taxes to
support the common government. The Legislature, composed of delegates
chosen by the towns, exercised most of the rights of sovereignty,
especially in the direction of military affairs and the collection
of revenue.

The governors were chosen by the people in secret ballot, until the
liberal charter granted by Charles I. was revoked, and a royal governor
was placed over the four confederated Colonies of Massachusetts,
Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. This confederation was not a
federal union, but simply a league for mutual defence against the
Indians. Each Colony managed its own internal affairs, without