Colonial days in old New York

								

doubtful whether there was for many years any other English teacher
who eagerly sought what was so far from being either an onerous or
lucrative position. Many generations of Albany children grew to manhood
ere the Dutch schoolmasters found their positions supererogatory.
Women-teachers and girl-scholars were of small account in New York in
early days. Girls did, however, attend the public schools. We find
Matthew Hillyer, in 1676, setting forth in New York that he “hath kept
school for children of both sexes for two years past to satisfaction.”
Dame-schools existed, especially on Long Island, where English
influences and Connecticut emigration obtained. In Flushing Elizabeth
Cowperthwait was reckoned with in 1681 for “schooling and diet for
children;” and in 1683 she received for thirty weeks’ schooling, of
“Martha Johanna,” a scarlet petticoat,--truly a typical Dutch payment.
A school bill settled by John Bowne in Flushing in 1695 shows that
sixpence a week was paid to the teacher for each scholar who learned
reading, while writing and ciphering cost one shilling twopence a week.
This, considering the usual wages and prices of the times, was fair pay
enough.
We have access to a detailed school bill of the Lloyd boys in 1693,
but they were sent away from their Long Island home at Lloyd’s Neck to
New England; so the information is of no value as a record of a New
York school; but one or two of these items are curious enough to be
recounted:--



                                                   £ s. d.
1 Quarter’s board for boys                         9   7    6
Pd knitting stockings for Joseph                       1    4
Pd knitting 1 stocking for Henry                            6
Joseph’s Schooling, 7 mos.                             7
A bottle of wine for His Mistris                           10
To shoo nails & cutting their har                           7
Stockins & mittins                                     3    9
Pd a woman tailor mending their cloaths                3    3
Wormwood & rubab for them                                   6
To Joseph’s Mistris for yearly feast and wine          1    8
Pair gloves for boys                                   2    6
Drest deerskin for the boys’ breeches                  1    6
Wormwood and rhubarb for the boys and a feast and wine for the
schoolmistress, albeit the wine was but tenpence a bottle, seems
somewhat unfair discrimination.
There is an excellent list of the clothing of a New York schoolboy of
eleven years given in a letter written by Fitz-John Winthrop to Robert
Livingstone in 1690. This young lad, John Livingstone, had also been in
school in New England. The “account of linen & clothes” shows him to
have been very well dressed. It reads thus:--



    Eleven new shirts

    4 p^r laced sleves

    8 plane cravets

    4 cravets with lace

    4 stripte wastecoats with black buttons

    1 flowered wastecoat