AN ADDRESS, TO THE BENEFACTORS AND FRIENDS OF THE FREE SCHOOL SOCIETY OF NEW=YORK, DELIVERED ON THE OPENING OF THAT INSTITUTION, IN THEIR NEW AND SPACIOUS BUILDING, ON THE ELEVENTH OF THE TWELFTH MONTH (DECEMBER) 1809. PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES. BY DE WITT CLINTON, MAYOR OF THE CITY OF NEW-YORK, AND PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY.
New York: Printed and Sold by Collins and Perkins, 1810. 20pp. Disbound; title leaf detached but present. Light wear. Good+
"In early nineteenth-century New York City, free primary education was largely the province of church-run charity schools. For families of means there was also the option of private schools maintained by individual teachers. While these two poles covered most of the city's children, some worried that certain poor youngsters were falling through the cracks. Thus in 1805 a group of residents led by Mayor DeWitt Clinton formed the New York Free School Society to establish schools open to all at no charge. The Society aimed both to educate and 'to inculcate the sublime truths of religion and morality contained in the Holy Scriptures' in an ecumenical way. The New York legislature incorporated the group but did not provide funding, so the Society depended on subscriptions by individual members" [online Philanthropy Roundtable web article on the New York Free School Society].
"An important description of early free elementary education. Clinton explains at length the Joseph Lancaster system for teaching poor children employed by the Free School Society, and he defends Lancaster against Dr. Bell's claims of having originated the sand-slate-copy book method of teaching reading and writing, Clinton describes other schools in New York and neighboring states founded on the methods of the Free School Society, including one in New York City for French refugees from Santo Domingo. Lancaster's book is found among the advertisements on the last two pages" [Ken Nebenzahl's description, catalogue 13, no. 140.]
AI 19789 [3]. Sabin 13724n. Item #41204
Price: $275.00