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cation. In these schools many of our most excellent citizens
received all the scholastic training which they ever pos-
sessed, and in them was laid the foundation of much ripe
scholarship. Many were of excellent character, and their
teachers men of acquirements. I may be permitted to refer
particularly to a school taught by a Mr. Sullivan, in St.
Michael's and to the school in Oxford Neck, under a Mr.
Emmons. When these schools were under enlightened su-
pervision, as was the case of the last mentioned school, great
pains was taken to secure good teachers, and to introduce ap-
proved methods of instruction. The patrons of the Oxford
Neck school, after employing a very competent teacher, at
their own expense, sent him to Philadelphia to study the
system then in vogue, and after his return supplied him with
the necessary apparatus for teaching according to this sys-
tem. These private schools, upon the establishment of
a local system, merged into public free schools, and many, or
all of them continued to receive private support in addition
to the public donation.

The first authentic record we have of the establishment of
a school to be supported, or aided by the public funds, is in
the "Proprietary Act" of October 26th, 1723, by which
the Reverend Henry Nicholls, Colonel Mathew Tilghman
Ward, Robert Ungle, Esq., Mr. Robert Goldsborough, Mr.
William Clayton, Mr. John Oldham, and Mr. Thomas Boz-
man were appointed visitors of a school "to be erected at
the most convenient place as near the centre of the County
as may be." Provision was made for the support of this
and similar schools in all the other Counties of the State,
and it would appear that funds, at the time of the passage
of the act, had already accumulated in the treasury of the
State, which were ordered to be divided. A course of study
was presented, and many details of the management of the
school. This school had able and competent teachers, the
name of one of whom has reached us, that of Mr. George
Rule, who yet has decendants in this County, and heirs of
his honorable reputation, if not of his name. The precise
location of this school I have not yet been able to discover,
but a gentleman, versed in our local history, Mr. J. B. Kerr,
informs me that it was where the waters of Miles River and
Third Haven most nearly approach each other, namely, upon
the land of Mr. James Ridgeway. How long this school
continued in operation is not known, but in the year 1782, by
an actof Assembly, power was given to the visitors to sell
the land, the house having previously been burned down,
and to transfer the proceeds to Washington College, Keat
County.

I should not omit in this brief survey of schools, to men-
tion that Talbot County claims to hare had the first abso-
lutely free school within the State. In or about the year