their teacher, and was remarkable for retaining his large bush-wig, long after others had disused them, they bored a hole through the ceiling over his sitting place, and by suspending a pin-hook to a cord, so attached it to his wig as to draw it up, leaving it suspended as if depending from the ceiling. At another time they combined at night to take to pieces a country wagon, which they lifted on to a chimney wall then building, there replacing the wheels, awning, &c. to the astonishment of the owner and the diversion of the populace. Some of those urchins lived, notwithstanding their misapplied talents and ingenuity, to make very grave and exemplary members of society. Youth is the season of levity and mirth, and although we must chide its wanton aberrations, we may yet feel sensations of indulgence, knowing what we ourselves have been, and to what they, with ourselves, must come,

"When cherish'd fancies one by one
Shall slowly fade from day to day;-
And then from weary sun to sun

They will not have the heart to play!"

The time was when the "uptown" and "downtown boys" were rival clans, as well understood in the city precincts as the bigger clans of feds and anti-feds. They used to have, according to the streets, their regular night battles with sticks and stones, making the panes of glass to jingle occasionally. But the appearance of "old Carlisle" and the famous West (the constable) would scatter them into all the hiding-places; peeping out from holes and corners when the coast was clear. Those from the south of Chesnut street were frequently headed by one whose naval exploits, since that time, in

the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic have secured to him imperishable fame; also by his faithful friend and ardent admirer, well known since throughout the community for his suavity and exquisitely polished manners. They were the Achilles and the Patroclus of the "downtowners."

The Northern Liberties about Camptown and Pegg's run used to be in agitation almost every Saturday night, by the regular clans of "rough and tumble" fighting, between the ship-carpenters from Kensington, and the butchers from Spring Garden; the public authority not even attempting to hinder them, as it was deemed an affair out of town.

All this spirit of rivalry and fighting was the product of the war of independence. Their ears, as boys, were filled with the echoes of battles lost or won. They felt their buoyant spirits inspired with martial ardour too, and having no real enemies to encounter, they invented them for the occasion. In this way the academy boys were accoutred as young soldiers, and they much piqued themselves as the rivals of another class of schoolboys. Each had their officers, and all of them some emblems a la militaire, all aspiring to the marks and influence of manhood; burning to get through their minority, and to take their chances in the world before them.

"Then passions wild and dark and strong,
And hopes and powers and feelings high,
Ere manhood's thoughts, a rushing throng,
Shall sink the cheek and dim the eye!"

EDUCATION.

"Thus form the mind by use of alphabetic signs."

It is greatly to the credit of our forefathers, that they showed an early and continued regard to the education of their posterity. They were men of too much practical wisdom not to foresee the abiding advantages of proper instruction to the rising generation. What they aimed to impart was solid and substantial. If it in general bore the plain appellation of "reading, writing and arithmetic" only, it gave these so effectively as to make many of their pupils persons of first rate consequence and wisdom in the early annals of our country. With such gifts in their possession, many of them were enabled to become their self-instructers in numerous branches of science and belles lettres studies. All these came as matter of course, by readings at home, when the mind was matured and the school acquirements were finished. They then learned to read on purpose to be able to pursue such branches of enquiry for themselves. They thus acquired, when the mind was old enough fondly to enlist in the enquiry, all they read "by heart," because, as it was mental treasure of their own seeking and attainment, it was valued in the affection. They therefore did not perplex their youth by "getting" lessons by head or dint of memory; of mere facts, forgotten as fast as learned, because above the capacity of the youthful mind to appreciate and keep for future ser

vice. All they taught was practical; and, so far as it went, every lesson was efficient and good.

It is gratifying to add that the mass of our forefathers were also an instructed and reading community. A letter of Mr. Jefferson's, of the year 1785, well sustains this assertion, saying, "In science the mass of the people in Europe is two centuries behind ours; their literati is half a dozen years before us. Books, really good, acquire just reputation in that time, and so become known to us. In the mean time, we are out of reach of that swarm of nonsense which issues from a thousand presses and perishes almost in issuing." But since then solid reading is less sought after; "the press must be kept going," even as abroad. The ephemera of England flutter across the ocean and breathe once more a short lived existence ere they finally perish.

As early as 1683, Enoch Flower opened the first English school. The prices were moderate; to read English four shillings, to write six shillings, and to read, write, and cast accounts, eight shillings, and for teaching lodging and diet £10. per annum. A curious autograph letter from his ancestors, is preserved in my MS. Annals, page 334, in the Historical Society.

In 1689, the Friends originated the Friends' public school in Philadelphia, the same which now stands in Fourth below Chestnut street. It was to be a grammar school, and to teach the learned languages. George Keith, a Scotch Friend and public preacher, (afterwards an Episcopal clergyman and a bitter foe to Friends!) became the first teacher, assisted by Thomas Makin, who in the next year became the principal. This Makin was called "a good latinist;" we have the remains of

his ability in that way in his long latin poem "descriptive of Pennsylvania in 1729." His life was simple, and probably fettered by the "res angusti domi;" for his death occurred, in 1733, in a manner indicative of his pains-taking domestic concerns. In the Mercury of November, 1733, it is thus announced: "Last Tuesday night Mr. Thomas Makin, a very ancient man, who for many years was a schoolmaster in this city, stooping over a wharf end to get a pail of water, unhappily fell in and was drowned." He appears to have passed Meeting with Sarah Rich in 1700, the same year in which he became principal to the academy or school. During the same time he served as the clerk of the assembly.

At this early period of time, so much had the little Lewistown at our southern cape the pre-eminence in female tuition, that Thomas Lloyd, the deputy governor, preferred to send his younger daughters from Philadelphia to that place to finish their education.

Our first most distinguished seminaries of learning began in the country before the academy in Philadelphia was instituted. The Rev. William Tennent, who came from Ireland, arrived at New York in 1718, and in 1721 removed to Bensalem in Bucks county; soon after he settled in a Presbyterian church, of small consideration, at "the forks of Neshamina," (he had been ordained a churchman) where he opened a school for teaching the languages, &c. There he formed many of the youth of early renown. From its celebrity among us, it received the popular name of the "Log College." He died in 1743, and was buried there. His four sons all became clergymen, well known to most readers, especially his sons Gilbert and William ;