ing children in the lower branches of education, such as reading their native language with propriety, and so much of writing and arithmetic, as to enable them, when they come forward into active life, to transact with accuracy and despatch, the business arising from their daily intercourse with each other."

And this, less than sixty years ago, was the highest view of popular education entertained in a state, which now has its noble and munificently-endowed seminaries and colleges, its armies of teachers, and its hundreds of thousands of pupils.

COMMON SCHOOLS.-The first report | accrue to the citizens in general, from to the legislature, showing the number the institution of schools in various parts and condition of the schools in New York, of the state, for the purpose of instructwas made in 1798, when the number of schools in the state was but about 1,500 and the number of scholars about 60,000. The first appropriations for common schools was made in 1795, and was on a scale of liberality which shows a just appreciation of the importance of this fundamental interest in the infancy of the state. The sum appropriated was $50,000 annually for five years. In 1805, a permanent school fund was founded by the appropriation of half a million of acres of the vacant lands of the state. The annual returns from the school districts were incomplete till 1817, when there was 5,000 schools, and over SCHENECTADY.-This is one of the 200,000 scholars, exclusive of the city oldest towns in the state, and was for a of New York. In 1821, the number of long time important as a frontier posipupils had increased to over 300,000; tion, nothing but a wilderness being and since that period the increase in the found between it and Canada. For a number of schools, and of children in-number of years it has been distinguishstructed, has borne a near proportion to the increase of population, till by the last report of the state superintendent of common schools, the number of school districts is shown to be near 12,000, and the children instructed, about 800,000. The annual appropriation from the income of the permanent fund is now $300,000 and from taxes $800,000, of which $55,000 is appropriated to the purchase of school libraries and apparatus, and the remainder is applicable exclusively to the payment of teachers' wages and the support of schools.

ed as the seat of one of the most flourishing literary institutions in the state, Union college, the edifices of which occupy a pleasant and commanding position, overlooking the extensive meadows of the Mohawk, surrounded by a succession of undulated and hilly country, and enlivened by the Erie canal and the lines of railroads which here meet by various routes from Albany, and proceed on in company, with occasional separations, to Rochester, and finally terminate together at Buffalo.

In the year 1769, Schenectady, while Since the foundation in 1835, the dis- a mere village, fifteen miles west of Altrict libraries have grown to the amount bany, garrisoned by a few troops, was of 1,500,000 volumes. The benefits of the victim of the jealousies and contenthese depositories of intelligence. accessi-tions of those sent for its protection; for ble to every mind in the state, can never be adequately estimated. They will be abundant in the fruits of industry, virtue, and refinement, through all coming generations.

A striking illustration of the progress of education in this state is found in looking at the views of her early statesmen as to the degree of instruction to be provided in the common schools. The regents of the university, in 1793, suggest to the legislature "the numerous advantages which they conceive would

the soldiers having deserted their posts, one of those secret predatory bands of savages, which were long the scourge of our frontier settlements, led on by Frenchmen from Canada, fell upon it in the dead of night, massacred almost every man, woman, and child, and burnt their dwellings. A few fugitives escaped, and carried the shocking tale to Albany.

The exposed state of the country west of this place was so great, and the number of the people so small compar

Schenectady Lyceum.-This institution (a view of which is given on the opposite page) was erected a few years since, to supply a deficiency, long felt, in a city so long and so honorably distinguished as the seat of a seminary of the highest class. It is designed for the instruction of boys in studies preparatory to college and business; and enjoys an advantageous and convenient situation. The principal building is of an octagonal form, of brick stuccoed, in a fanciful Gothic style, with pointed doors Cooperstown may be taken as a faand windows, and surmounted by a stee-vorable specimen of one of the several ple. In advance of this, and of the classes of New York villages: such as line of the yard-fence, are two small have grown up since the Revolutionary buildings belonging to the institution; war, and have no associations with the

sufferings and dangers of the earlier | valuable "Annals of Tryon County," settlements, and yet removed from ca- are painful in the extreme, but yet valunals and railroads, and every other in- able to impress future generations with fluence which might have given it a abhorrence of war, and especially that rapid growth or sudden and great pros- unwarrantable practice, in which severperity. Left to the steady but slow al civilized nations have engaged, of improvement of an agricultural neigh- hiring savages to exercise their bloodborhood, it presents fewer evidences of thirsty ferocity upon the innocent and increase in wealth or numbers, but is defenceless. The sketch given in that less liable to some of the evils incident work, of the history of the settlement, to many other places. and the character of the people, renders their fate the more deeply interesting. We shall here introduce an account abridged from its pages.

There are a few small manufactories along the banks of the outlet of the lake, where about eight thousand spindles are employed in cotton-spinning, and on that of Oak creek, one of the numerous small streams in this county, most of which flow southward into the Susquehannah.

Otsego county is hilly, and in some parts mountainous, being crossed by the Susquehannah and Kaatsberg ranges. There is much good grass land. Limestone is found near Schuyler's lake in Cherry Valley, and iron ore in several places.

Cherry Valley is one of those unfortunate villages which suffered from Indian barbarity in the Revolutionary war; and it may be noticed in this place. It is fourteen miles northeast of Cooperstown, and fifty-three west of Albany, amidst the high and irregular ground which gives rise to Canajoharie creek and several other early tributaries of the Mohawk, with the head stream of that river. Several vales lie between the neighboring hills, which possess a fertile soil; and one of these, with the wild cherry-trees that naturally abounded in the neighborhood, gave to the place its pleasing name.

It happened to lie so exposed and defenceless, in the early years of its history, that it shared in the dangers of the other scattering settlements in the neighboring region, and was finally surprised by a band of Indians, led by the notorious Col. Butler, from Canada, and fell under a general and indiscriminate massacre, in which whole families, men, women, and children, bled under the tomahawk.

The particulars given of this mournful tragedy by Wm. W. Campbell, in his

The survey was made in 1739, and the ground first occupied by Mr. Lindesay, a Scotch gentleman, of some fortune and distinction. He took with him his wife and his father-in-law, a Mr. Congreve, a lieutenant in the British army. The low ground was then covered with a thick forest of beech and maple, mingled with wild-cherry trees, the highlands with evergreen; and the native wild animals, even the deer, elk, bears, and wolves, undisturbed by civilized man, ranged through the woods, being hunted only occasionally by the Mohawks. The settlers sought the friendship of the wild men, and with success. In the winter of 1745, while the snow lay very deep, and the journey to the nearest neighbors, on the Mohawk river, 15 miles off, was impossible for any of the family, all the provisions were consumed, and nothing but famine and death were in prospect. An Indian, travelling on snowshoes, becoming acquainted with their situation, supplied them with food through the remainder of the season, by bringing, repeatedly, loads upon his back all that distance.

The following year, the settlement was increased, by the addition of several Scotch and Irish families, who removed from Londonderry, in New Hampshire, at the invitation of the Rev. Samuel Dunlop, one of their countrymen, a gentleman of education and travel, who had been induced by the present of a large tract of land, to join Mr. Lindesay. They brought an addition of thirty persons, and the aspect of the place was speedily improved by their industry. A house was built of

In 1744, Mr. Congreve joined the British army as lieutenant, in place of his father-in-law; and Mr. Dunlop opened the first grammar-school in the state west of Albany, at which were taught a number of boys from the settlements on the Mohawk. Several of these were distinguished men in the Revolutionary

war.

logs, for religious use, on the declivity on his way to the fort, was pursued and of a little hill, near the house of the scalped by one of the enemy. The pastor, whose support was secured by Senecas, who were the most fierce of the payment of ten shillings for every the Five Nations, were foremost in the hundred acres of land, added to prod- attack. They assailed the house of Mr. ucts of his own labor, and the voluntary Robert Wells, and killed the whole famcontributions of his parishioners. ily within, consisting of the father and mother, four children, his brother, sister, and three domestics. A little son alone remained, who had been sent to school at Schenectady. He was afterward a distinguished counsellor of New York city, the Hon. John Wells. Miss Jane Wells, the sister of the proprietor of the house, and a young lady of superior character and exalted piety, having escaped by the door, sought safety in the woodpile; but an Indian discovered her, and, after deliberately wiping his scalping-knife on his legging, sheathed it, and seized her by the arm, at the same time, brandishing his tomahawk. The captive remonstrated with him in the Indian language, with which she had some acquaintance; and one of the tories among the invading party, named Peter Smith, who had once lived with the family of Mr. Wells as a servant, interposed and begged the savage to spare her life, pretending that she was his sister. But this availed only to procure a short delay. The next moment the interesting young lady fell dead from a blow of the tomahawk.

In 1778, the apprehensions of an invasion from Canada was general in Tryon county; and, on account of the weakness of this solitary village, numbers of the inhabitants left their homes for places of greater safety. In the autumn, however, the danger being supposed to be past, they returned. But an expedition had been prepared at Montreal, consisting of seven hundred tories and Indians, who proceeded, with Brandt and Butler at their head. Rumors of their approach spread a new alarm; but Colonel Alden, commander of a few soldiers, stationed at Cherry Valley, refused to admit the women and children into the fort, and to quiet their apprehensions, sent out a scouting party, who were surprised asleep, and captured by the more cautious enemy.

The invaders, on the 10th, reached a hill, a mile southwest from the fort, where they remained concealed till the next day; and then, having learned from their prisoners, that the officers lodged in several dwelling-houses in the village, made preparations to surround them all by small parties, while the main body should assail the fort. Mr. Hamble, who was that morning riding into the village, being unable to discover distant objects, in consequence of the hazy weather, and the falling sleet, was fired upon and wounded by some of the Indians, and hastening on his horse, gave the alarm to Colonel Alden, and then turned for the fort. The colonel, who had always discredited the reports of danger, still doubted them; but,

The house of the venerable pastor was entered by the enemy, and his aged wife immediately put to death; but one of the Mohawk chiefs, named Little Aaron, led him out of the house, and kept him under his protection. An Indian, running by, pulled off the old gentleman's hat; and the chief pursued him and brought it back. The old man was thus rescued from massacre; but the shock he received was so great, that, although he was set at liberty soon after, he died a few months subsequently. The fort was not taken by the enemy; but, on the first alarm, a gun was fired from it, which gave intimation of the attack.

One of the householders, Mr. Mitchell, discovered the enemy, while at a distance from his house; and finding it impossible to reach it, he escaped to the