In spite of all the old inventories which are being brought to light to show the existence of books and book lovers in the South, the fact remains that the Cavalier was no bookworm. He felt that a boy who had learned to ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth, had received the rudiments at least of education. Whatever he learned more than this was acquired either in the old _field-school_ or more often from a private tutor, usually a clergyman of the Church of England. Some attempts were made by private persons to found public-schools. In 1634, Benjamin Sym devised two hundred acres of land on the Pocosan River, together with the milk and increase of eight cows, for "the maintenance of a learned, honest man, to keep, upon the said ground, a Free-School for the education of the children of Elizabeth City and Kiquotan, from Mary's Mount downward to the Pocosan River." "Richard Russell in his will made July 24th, 1667, and proved December 16th, the same year, now among the records of Lower Norfolk county, declared: 'the other pte of my Estate I give & bequeath One pte of itt unto Six of the poorest mens Children in Eliz: Riv'r, to pay for their Teaching to read & after these six are entred then if Six more comes I give a pte allsoe to Enter them in like manner.'" In spite of private gifts, and individual effort, and public Acts of Assembly, the school system of New England did not and could not thrive at the South, because it was out of harmony with the spirit and institutions of the people. The plantations were so separated that any assembling of the children was difficult, the spirit of caste was too strong to encourage the free mingling of rich and poor, and the traditions of the Cavalier were not traditions of scholarship. The sword, not the pen, had always been the weapon of the gentleman. Montrose, and not Milton, was his hero. When Captain Smith proudly boasted that he did not sit mewed up in a library writing of other men's exploits, but that what his sword did, his pen writ, he expressed the ideal of the Colonial Cavalier. "I observe," quoth Spotswood ironically to the Virginia Burgesses, "that the grand ruling party in your House has not furnished chairmen of two of your standing committees who can spell English or write common-sense, as the grievances under their own hand-writing will manifest." Ebenezer Cook in his "Voyage to Maryland," writes with acrimonious sarcasm of "A reverend judge who, to the shame of all the Bench, could write his name." The jest of the Sot-Weed Factor scarcely outstripped the sober truth, and a century later the general ignorance was almost as dense. Several instances are on record where the servant signed his name and the master made his mark. The cross or other conventional sign was not uncommon, and in general the letters of the names are evolved slowly and painfully, as by men more apt with the gun than with the quill.