Urged thereto by the founder of the independence of the Netherlands, William the Silent, Prince of Orange, the states-general had adopted in the sixteenth century the system of universal education, which, in our days, the New England States claim as their creation. Hence we find schools mentioned and schoolmasters at work from the beginning of the New Netherland; and though at first no classics were taught, even at so early a date as 1663 we read of a government schoolmaster who taught Greek and Latin. The assembly of New York passed, in 1702, an act for the encouragement of a free grammar school, and favored generally the primary education of the children of their constituents. New Jersey did not lag in the good work. In 1765 she had 192 churches of all denominations except the Roman Catholic, and we may safely suppose that a school was connected with nearly every church. The Moravians of Pennsylvania imitated the example set to them at home, and established boarding-schools at Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Litiz. The small number of schools among the “Dissenters,” as the Rev. Samuel Johnson calls all non-Episcopalians, induced him, however, to say, in 1759, that “ministers and schools are much wanted in Pennsylvania.” CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION. I. THE MANUSCRIPT SOURCES OF NEW YORK HISTORY. (_By Mr. Fernow._)—New York has taken the lead among the American States in the extent of the printed records of her history.[492] In the archives at Albany there are certain manuscript documents illustrating the period now under consideration deserving mention. “When first his Royall Highnesse, the Duke of York, took possession of this Province [New York], he ... gave him [Gov^r Nicolls] certain Laws, by which the Province was to be governed.” Several copies of these, _Duke’s Laws_ (1674), were made, and they were sent to the different districts, Long Island, Delaware, the Esopus, and Albany, into which the province was then divided.[493] The so-called _Dongan’s Laws_ (1683 and 1684) make a manuscript volume, containing the laws enacted by the first general assembly of the province during the years 1683 and 1684. It has upon its original parchment cover a second title, evidently written at a later date: “The Duke of York’s Charter of Liberty & Priviledges to the Inhabitants of New York, anno 1683, with Acts of Assembly of that year & the year 1684.” The laws are mainly a reënactment of the Duke’s Laws, and are now deposited in the State library. They have never been printed. The _Original Colonial Laws_ (1684-1775) make nineteen volumes of manuscripts, now in the office of the secretary of state at Albany, of which such as had not in the mean time expired by their own limitation were printed in 1694,[494] 1710, and 1726, by William Bradford; in 1719 by Baskett; in 1762 by Livingston and Smith; in 1768 by Parker, and in 1773 by Van Schaack. The Bradford edition of 1710 contains also the journal of the general assembly, etc.