CHAPTER XXVI.

Education-Free schools-Schools in San Francisco-Cost of School Department-Chinese schools-Indian slaves-National education -Agricultural colleges-State university-Agricultural societiesReform, deaf, dumb, and blind schools-Newspapers-BooksLibraries-Literature-Protective and benevolent societies-Religion-Prisons and crimes-Asylums-Governors of CaliforniaLaws-Lawyers-Doctors-Divines.

THE American pioneers of California, although far from the seat of civilization, had not forgotten the early precepts of their ancestors, that the foundations of American freedom were laid upon the universal intelligence of the people; so that, in the moulding of the new State from the crude fragments of a Spanish semicivilization into well-ordered and active progress, and building up the pillars of the new nation on the Pacific, the spirit and genius of ripest progress are visible, and most effectually woven into the fabric of the organic law of the State.

The free school system, established by law in 1851, has extended to every county, village, and town in California; and the neat school-house in the remote interior, on every hillside and valley, with efficient teachers, trained in the Normal school of the State, affords ample facilities to every child, regardless of race, color, or birthplace, to obtain a free education. In all the departments of public education, California is second to no State in the Union. At the heads of the educational departments, generally, are found men of character and culture, and the teachers, as a class, are equally competent as the teachers in any of the At

lantic States; and the school buildings generally are large, elegant, and comfortable, and, in San Francisco, are not surpassed in capacity and appointments in any city in the Union.

In the public institutions of the State not only are the ordinary branches of an English education taught, but in the cities cosmopolitan schools are maintained, where foreign languages form a part of the instruction.

Besides the other educational institutions maintained by the State is a university, established at Oakland, where a full college course is afforded free to all who choose to enter. There is also a law and medical school attached to this institution. A State Normat school, with all the modern improvements, and of most spacious and elegant dimensions, recently built at the beautiful city of San José, fifty miles south of San Francisco, educates and graduates, as professional teachers, those of both sexes who enroll themselves for that profession. There is also a reform school at San Francisco; and an educational institution for deaf, dumb, and blind (the only one west of the Rocky mountains) a short distance from Oakland.

San Francisco, the great metropolis of the Pacific coast, with its 149,473 inhabitants, (1870,) has become famous for its public school institutions; and at the present period presents a striking illustration of the progressive genius of the cosmopolitan population of that youthful but expanding city.

Prior to the occupation of California by the Americans, not a school existed in the whole country, except those maintained by the Jesuits for the conversion of the Indians; but no sooner had the stars and stripes floated over the land than institutions of free education

and free worship clustered around the dwellings of the pioneer.

The first American school established in San Francisco was a private one, opened in April, 1847, by Mr. Marsten, who is entitled to the honor of being the first "Yankee school-master" on the Pacific coast. The school was opened in a little shanty, to twenty or thirty pupils. In the fall of 1847, the citizens of San Francisco organized a public school and erected a small one-story school-house.

This humble building subsequently served for a church for the first preaching of the Protestant religion in California, the first theatre, court-house, stationhouse, &c.

On the 3d of April, 1848, the Rev. Thomas Douglas opened a private school; organized, however, as a`public school. The summer of 1848 found Douglas' school closed, and all the pupils large enough to travel, parents, and teacher on the march to the gold-fields of the rivers and gulches of the foot-hills of the Sierras. On the 23d of April, 1849, the Rev. Albert Williams opened a select school, which he taught for a few months only; and, in October following, Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Pelton opened a private school, which, in April, 1850, was made a public school, and Mr. Pelton and his wife were employed by the common council of the city, at a monthly salary of five hundred dollars. From this period forward to the present time, San Francisco has gone steadily onward in her public schools, until her beautiful school edifices adorn every hill-side and look out upon the placid waters of the Pacific ocean from every quarter.

On the 30th of June, 1870, there were 45,617 chil