Old Virginia and her neighbours

246 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.much of Berkeley's way of thinking, for we readthat, " February 21, 1682, John Buekner [was]called before the Lord Culpeper and his council forprinting the laws of 1680 without his excellency'slicense, and he and the printer [were] ordered toenter into bond in £100 not to print anythingthereafter until his majesty's pleasure should beknown." ^ The pleasure of Charles II. was, thatnobody should use a printing-press in Virginia,and so he instructed the next governor, LordHoward, in 1684.The establishment of a system of schools suchas flourished in New England was prevented bythe absence of town life and the long distances betweenplantations. When Berkeley said therewere no free schools in Virginia, he may have hadin mind the contrast with New England. Nosuch schools were founded in Virginia by thePrivate freeschools.^sscmbly, but there were instances offj.gg schools founded by individuals ; as,1636, Captainfor example, the Symms school inMoon's school in 1655, Richard Russell's in 1667,Mr. King's in 1669, the Eaton school some timebefore 1689, and Edward Moseley's in 1721.2Indeed, there was after 1646 ^ a considerableamount of compulsory primary education in Virginia,much more than has been generally supposed,since the records of it have been buried in the^ Hening', ii. 518.2 Virginia Magazine^ i. 326, 348 ; William and Mary CollegeQuarterly, v. 113. Allusion has already been made, on page 5 ofthe present volume, to the school founded by Benjamin Symms,or Symes.8 Hening, i. 336.