ew England origin had free schools before the
Revolution. Many Southern planters sent their sons to school in England.
In popular education New England led not only the continent but the
world, there being a school-house, often several, in each town. Every
native adult in Massachusetts and Connecticut was able to read and
write. In this matter Rhode Island was far behind its next neighbors.

Newspapers were distributed much as schools were. The first
printing-press was set up at Cambridge in 1639. The first newspaper,
Publick Occurrences Foreign and Domestic, was started in Boston in
1690. The first permanent newspaper, the Boston News Letter, began in
1704, and it had a Boston and a Philadelphia rival in 1719. The Maryland
Gazette was started at Annapolis in 1727, a weekly at Williamsburg, Va.,
in 1736. In 1740 there were eleven newspapers in all in the colonies;
one each in New York, South Carolina, and Virginia (from 1736), three in
Pennsylvania, one of them German, and five in Boston. The Connecticut
Gazette was started at New Haven in 1755; The Summary, at New London in
1758. The Rhode Island Gazette was begun by James Franklin, September
27, 1732, but was not permanent. The Providence Gazette and Country
Journal put forth its first issue October 20, 1762. In 1775, Salem,
Newburyport, and Portsmouth had each its newspaper. The first daily in
the country, the Pennsylvania Packet, began in 1784.

[Illustration: James Logan.]

Other literature of American origin flourished in New England nearly
alone. It consisted of sermons, social and political tracts, poetry,
history, and memoirs. The clergy were the chief but not the sole
authors. Of readers, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston had many.
Much reading matter came from England. Charleston enjoyed a public
library from 1700. About 1750 there were several others. That left to
Philadelphia in 1751, by James Logan, comprised 4,000 volumes.

William and Mary had established a postal system for America, placing
Thomas Neale, Esquire, at its head. The service hardly became a system
till 1738. In ordinary weather a post-rider would receive the
Philadelphia mail at the Susquehannah River on Saturday evening, be at
Annapolis on Monday, reach the Potomac Tuesday night, on Wednesday
arrive at New Post, near Fredericksburg, and by Saturday evening at
Williamsburg, whence, once a month, the mail went still farther south,
to Edenton, N. C. Thus a letter was just a week in t