The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-05-16

| ply taxed Irish servants twenty SI11l- lings a head, while foreigners, mean | ing Palestine Germans, were taxed for i ty shil1ings by the same law.
 | William Tennent, a native of Ireland was also a. great light in early Penn sylvania. In TIPS, he established at Neshaminy, the Log College" where some of the most eminent men of the Presbyterian Church in America were trained. It was the spiritual, if not the actual ancestor, of Princeton Uni vercity, where many Irish SchooI- masters have since found or begun their careers.
 A County Donegal SchooIn1aste.
 Dr. Francis Allison, of County Don egal, was another conspicuous figure among the Irish SchoolmasterS'' of early Pennsylvania. In 1741 he es- | tablished a school at New London, drawing students by his reputation as the foremost scholar of his time in America This school was the begin ming of the present Delaware College. Three /signers of the Declaration of In dependence were educated by him. He 1 later became head of the Academy which grew into the College of Phila- i delphia, out of which issued the great 1 University of Pennsylvania.
 '"The Irish Settlement" near Easton, led to the foundation of Lafayette Col 1ege, the first school of higher learn 1 ing in that part of Pennsylvania, and l New Sweden, according to her histor- 1 ian, Acrelius, scarcely knew what a school was until there came over from Ireland some Presbyterian and Cath olic teachers, who established sub scription schools to teach children their letters"
 In fact the Irish Schoolmaster'' was i the teacher of the wilderness. There | is scarcely a town or county in the history of Pennsylvania that does not ~rs-~ I1S ,1Ir fI0n fS1-cf frp open school in the region then remote. There he shared with the clergyman 1 the respect of the frontier people whom he served. acting in any capacity requiring education, running surveys, drawing up deeds and wills, and ever acting as the arbiter of disputes. The memory of the Penal Laws never grew cold and he imbued his pupils and cli- ents with his own antagonisn to Brit ish tyranny.
 In Peace Teacher; In War a Soldier
 The Colonial records of Delaware and Maryland tell the same story ''In peace a teacher, in war soldier" this is the record there as elsewhere in America. In 1755 four Irish l Schoolmasters are mentioned in the annals of New Castle County, Della ware. In 1758 their names appear on the rosters of the Volunteers for the French and Indian Wars, each care fully labeled: Nationality, Irish; oc- cupation, Schoo1master.'
 Gov. John Hart, a native of County Cavan, was "one of the original founders of public education in Mary land" and many of the teachers were Irishmen, generally we'll educated and 1 competent Roger. B. Fancy, Chief Jus tice of the United States Supreme tCourty declares in his memoirs, that one of his first teachers was ''an Irish man. a ripe scholar; an amiable and accomplished man"
 The Facts Stand Much the Same.
 It is hardly necessary to pursue the details further, in Virginia, North Car o1ina, South Carolina and Georgia, the facts stand much the same. In 1749 Robert Alexander, a native of Ireland, founded Augusta Academy which grew | into Washington and Lee University. | Archibald Murphy achieved the dis tinction of being written down in the | history F'the Father of North Caro- 1ina's Common Schools"
 Smith, the historian of Georgia, says that the Co1onists there in early days children, "save now and then a wan dering Irishman."
 The records of my own state, New Jersey, are we'll sprinkIed with the names of Irish Schoolmasters, from the first. As early as 1683,. the rec 1 | never ended. t'The earliest teachers were smart passab1y educated young Irishmen." says Clayton, and they were the late teachers also, drifting toward politics in later days as irresistibly as toward war in the earlier.
 A Century Changed Him
 1 Into an American Patriot
 From the year 1774. however, the tral of the Irish school1naster'' in | the Colonial records becomes obscure A hundred years had changed him into the American patriot. The shadow of a greal var for the rights of man was already over the land. The "Iliad and the Tain had given place to the musket and the drill manua1;i& the teacher of 1 the "Gent1er Art of Learning had be- come the Adjutant or the clerk of the tIocal Military Company. Up to this tine the Town Clerks meagre records of village education had brist1ed with 1rishmen's names Now these become equally conspicuous in the rosters of patriot militia
 The part that Irishmen played in the War for Independence had attracted some attention. It{was a great and noble part. but the Chief influence Of the Irish has been along the line of their real genius, that of teachers In All Ages Great Teaching
 And Missionary Race.
 In all ages of history the Irish have been a great teaching and a rnission- ary race. The monks of Armagh, Ban gor,i Clonard and Derry, Missionaries of the Celtic Church performed, for the regions touched in their wander ings, just this service They were devoted teachers and their successors of modern days. the Irish Schoolmas- ters in America" were the same So may it ever be, for he that teacheth a Nation. ., I battereth down the walls of a city, America has felt and is feeling the sure touch of the genius of the Irish race Her debt to them has never been fully acknowledged, but we are here tonight to proclaim it.