A history of public education in Rhode Island, from 1636 to 1876 ... Comp. by authority of the Board of education, and ed. by Thomas B. Stockwell ...

THE FIRST SCHOOL LAW. 21
taxes, and shall be appropriated to the uses aforesaid, according to the votes
and orders of the said school district meetings; and the freemen of said district,
assembled as aforesaid, shall and may make such other lawful orders and regulations, relative to the continuance and support of their district schools, as to
them may appear useful, and may be called by their clerk by warrant, on request
of any seven of said freemen, and the meeting so called shall and may have and
exercise the powers and privileges aforesaid.
" SC. 9. And be it further enacted, That no person shall establish or direct as
master or preceptor, any school or academy of instruction established by virtue
of this act, unless he shall be a native or naturalized citizen of the United
States, and be approved of by a certificate in writing from the town council of
the town in which he shall teach.
"SEC. 10. And be itfurther enacted, That the town councils of the several
towns shall have the government of the town and district schools in their respective towns.
" SEC. 11. And be itfurther enacted, That this act shall take effect and be in
force from and after the first Wednesday of May next, and shall be published in
all the newspapers in this State"
The law met with great opposition and was repealed in a few years.
I can find in the Providence Gazette and in the U. S. Chronicle of that
period no hint of the special iffluences which brought about the repeal.
It appears from the Newport lkJercury of November 4, 1800, that a motion
was made (October 31,) by Mr. J. Davis, seconded by Mr. A. Taylor,
in pursuance of instructions from the town of Little Compton, to repeal
the whole bill, and that, " after considerable debate," the mot'on was
defeated, 32 to 25. Again it appears from the same authority that on
June 17, 1801, "instructions from several towns were read against the
school-bill, which occasioned a motion for its repeal. It was finally referred to a committee, who are to report an amended bill at the next
session." * No such bill appears to have passed; the whole measure
was virtually defeated by simple non-enforcement, and the law was repealed at the February session, 1803.
Providence was the only town which had ever carried it into effect.
But as the Providence schools have been sustained ever since under the
organization then begun, and as the whole State was afterwards brought
under a system essentially identical with that proposed by Mr. Howland, lie may justly be called the founder of the school system of the
State. Indeed it was the opinion of that high authority, Henry Barnard,
when he took charge of the public schools forty years later, that if a
competent officer had been at once appointed, at the time of the passage
of the act of 1800, to explain its provisions, meet objections, urge ad* Newport JMercury, June 23, 1801.