Colleges were founded early in several colonies. Harvard dates from 1638; William and Mary, in Virginia, from 1693; Yale, from 1701; the College of New Jersey, from 1746, its old Nassau Hall, built in 1756 and named in honor of William III. of the House of Nassau, being then the largest structure in British America. The University of Pennsylvania dates from 1753; King's College, now Columbia, from 1754; Rhode Island College, now Brown University, from 1764. Educational facilities in general varied greatly with sections, being miserable in the southern colonies, fair in the central, excellent in the northern. In Virginia, during the period now under our survey, schools were almost unknown. In Maryland, from 1728, a free school was established by law in each county. These were the only such schools in the South before 1770. Philadelphia and New York had good schools by 1700; rural Pennsylvania none of any sort till 1750, then only the poorest. A few New York and New Jersey towns of New 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.