The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-09-09

| JuugeS tndC ever duorHeu our ElgneSt 1tueia
court, twas the first public measure ever taken
| to unite New England into a phalanx which
| has never been broken" And although iti
immediate effects were not so particularly
| marked, its silent influence in uniting and in
! creasing an 'habitual and close intercourse
among the Inhabitants of the separate colonies
| gave them similarity of character and feeling
| and when the dark hour of the Revolution
| came, it found them familiar with the idea OF
| acting in concert, and ready to avail them
| selves of all the advantages which must result
| from unity of thought and action"
One of the principal agencies for rapidly
| populating and settling townships and for es-
tablishing the permanent character and in
| huenee of town governments, has proved to
be the subdivision of the territory into small
freeholds owned by the individuals who occu-
pied them, instead of large tracts held by
companies or individual proprietors and occu-
pied by tenants on payment of time rents IN
money or specific articles, as in the old coun-
try. The Plymouth colonists' seven years ar
rangement to cultivate their lands in common,
disclosed in two or three years of actual ex-
pertinent, that they had drones among them,
like those of day, willing to live on others
labor; and they then saw that such induce
ments to idleness must be withdrawn; and
that if they would raise up an in
dustrious class of people, the people
must own their farms and not
be compelled by necessity to spend
their lives in cultivating and making
thrifty farms with nothing to show for III;
hence, they, as was contemplated by the Mas
sachusetts colony, apportioned to every mem
Der of their little communities, as they were
respectively settled, his proper share in the
land in the town-a house-lot in the village,
and farm lot with certain rights in the COM
mon land which belonged to the whole.
This subdivision, added to the laws of equal
descent of real and personal estate, tending to
prevent the establishment of colossal estates
and wealthy families, is among the most po-
tent influences which have given New England
the free, independent, thrifty and happy people
of which she feels SO proud. The other mode,
the evils of which are now SO prominent in
Great Britain, was tried for many years in
western New York in the Rensselaer, lands
which comprised what are now three entire
counties, 48 by "a miles in extent, and result
ed, even within my recollection, in most Sc
rious moral and political evils and to the
amazement of New Englanders, SO many OF
whom, with their leavening home views have
spread throughout the great West, the awful
curse of landlordism, and Irish at that, has
alread v cast its blight upon thousands of acres
IL
Such system of small freeholds is antago-
nistic to chattel slavery, since large planta-
tions such as the Southern States contained
are the essentials to servitude; and it prevents
even the suggestion of the spirit which reigned
in the French revolution.
To return, how was the right of private
judgment of what the Scriptures taught-this
idea of religious liberty which acknowledged
no temporal head-that great inspiration which
had so triumphantly "trodden the wine- press
of SO many battle fields" how was that to be
maintained by those far seeing men, whose
ancestors, in the prosecution OF their uncom-
promising purpose, had trampled upon
the acts of parliament which forbade
on penalty of death, the translation,
publication and distribution of the Scriptures
in the English tongues Among those early
settlers of Massachusetts, colony, one in every
200 had as good an education as the great
universities of England could furnish, and they
appreciated the benefits Of education. The
logic OF their action was irresistible. 10 read
the Scriptures understandingly, intelligence
was essential. Nothing short of the education
of the rising generation could answer that end ];
thev turned their attention, at an early day, to
provide the means therefor in connection with
their religion. Hence within two or three
years after landing, teachers were secured and
paid in land. Schools followed; and within
eight years after the settlement began, Harvard
college was founded, and towns were obliged
to support schools.
Thus began that unprecedented system OF
schools, at which every child, male and female,
had such opportunities as nowhere else in Ii Ike
magnitude existed, and the wisdom which
characterized their other acts is seen in the de-
tailed foundation work of this; schools sup
ported by a tax laid by the inhabitants them
selves of their respective towns, to be taught by
teachers selected by themselves and the money
to be expended where raised, assessed upon
their own property which might well afford to
pay for the value and protection which natu-
rally enured to it by being thereby situated in
the midst of an educated and consequently a
quiet, law abiding community
And herein is seen how our Puritan an
cestors adhered to fixed principles and not al
together to mere policy The intolerance which
had been so instrumental in driving them from
their old homes in turn made them stern and
uncompromising with all opposition; and
taking on the spirit of the age they thought
themselves warranted in attempting, in the
land which they had sought and thereon
established an asylum for such as held like
opinions, to check utterance and action not IN
accord with their own. And although they
saw that free thought was inconsistent with in
tolerance, and had broken the chains OF the
Popish hierarchy, and were loosening and
would probably break the narrow bonds which
surrounded themselves still they made it in
cumbent upon towns, long after Norway was
settled, as your act of incorporation and the
subsequent grant of lands therefor expressly
declare, to maintain the ministry as well as
public schools
Whence came this "ferce spirit of Ii berty'
4 L -.
of independence disclosed in some general place
of assembly where free speech prevailss His
torians concur in finding its germs among
those fierce tribes of fTeutonic barbarians-the
Angles, Saxons and Jutes-in Schleswig be-
tween the Baltic and North seas. feature
which it is said struck Tacitus, was "ther hatred
of cities and their love, even within their little
village settlements of jealous independence.
"The bulk of their homesteads," says the Eng
lish historian Green, 'where those of free men
distinguished by noble blood, from whom
their leaders in war time or rulers in peace,
were voluntarily chosen; but whose noble
blood conferred upon them no legal privileges
above their fellows-the actual sovereignty
within the settlement residing only in the body
of its freemen. Their homesteads clu stored
around mote-hill, or a sacred tree, where
the whole community met to administer its
Justice and frame it's laws" In after years
they erected and used common building for
their assemblages and free discussions, on the
| inner walls of one of which, in the city Of
| Nuremberg, built in 1919, it is said. runs the
significant legend which we may all do well to
remember: s'One mans talk is half talk
| one should hear both sides.'
The Saxons, after two hundred years con-
| fict conquered Britain, carrying with them
these germs which found some exemplihcation
| in the English burroughs, and thence came
| with the Puritans to New England where they
became developed, practical realities.
Hence came the town house wherein the
people gathered as they have ever since, to dis
| cuss, settle and provide for all their municipa
wants. In early times the meeting house wa
| used for the purpose and in very many towns
! is SO used to-d day. "The New England towr
house." says late writer, ''means not merel.
that the people are the origin and the most re-
mote source of governing power, but that the.
are themselves the governors. Every man whit
enters New England town house and cast
his vote knows that expression of his vii
| is force which may reach the legislature o
his State, the governor in his chair, the nationa
| Congress and the President in the Whit
| House. He feels an interest therefore and
responsibility which the voter in no other liant
| can feel; and the town house is an education
to him in the art of self government which n
| other country affords; and because of it. tn
town is an institution teaching how to main
tain government, local, State and general, an