Excerpt from A History of Public Education in Rhode Island, From 1636 to 1876 Roger Williams, after returning in 1654 from a two years' visit in England, wrote thus of some of his employments while in that country: "It pleased the Lord to call me for some time, and with some persons, to practice the Hebrew, the Greek, Latin, French and Dutch. The secretary of the council (Mr. Milton) for my Dutch I read him, read me many more languages. I taught two young gentlemen, a parliament man's sons, as we teach our children English, by words, phrases and constant talk." In these brief sentences we see the founder of Rhode Island as a scholar, a teacher, and the friend of Milton. It will always seem a surprising thing that the colony founded by such a man should not have established for itself, like the adjoining colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut, a system of common schools. Yet nothing is plainer than the reasons which led to this; and they cannot be more clearly stated than they were given a quarter of a century ago by Hon. E. R. Potter, a man who has rendered this State almost equal service in law and in education: - "One of the first things which strikes an observer in considering the early history of Rhode Island, is, that the population was not homogeneous. Massachusetts was settled by colonies from one people, and all actuated by the same notions of religious and civil government, and of a similar religious creed. Connecticut was an offshoot from Massachusetts, and the same principles and ideas had a controlling influence in its settlement. "Rhode Island, on the contrary, was settled by men of all religious views and opinions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.