It is said that Sparks manipulated Washington’s correspondence by striking out every reflection made against the New England people and by suppressing many letters. Both of these charges the author believes to be true from his own observation. It has also been charged that in other instances, Sparks made such interpolations of his own as entirely to change the original meaning, but of this the writer has no personal knowledge. That the full significance and effect of the spirit of unfairness pervading these writers of history, may be fully appreciated by the reader, it must be borne in mind that they had access at one time to an immense mass of material which was not available outside of New England. Moreover, the New England authorities were in such frequent communication with all other portions of the country, that the mass of correspondence, thus gained and preserved, offered the means of doing fullest justice to the other Colonies, which were afterwards found to be themselves often without proof necessary to establish their just claims. The following examples are now offered as evidences of one-sided history making: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL One of the first claims made to the credit of New England was the early attention paid to public education. It is strictly true that, next to building a meeting house in a new settlement, a school was put up. But thorough investigation of this subject furnishes evidence that the chief purpose, at least, of these schools was to fit young men for the ministry and that they were not based, either in scope or object, upon the plan of the public school of the present day. The evidence of this lies in the fact that Latin, Greek and Hebrew were chiefly taught, as though to aid the study of the Scriptures in the original texts, and although boys and girls were doubtless also taught at these schools, to a limited number, previous to the Revolution, the salary of the schoolmaster was as a rule, if indeed the rule were not without exception, paid by division among the pupils themselves and not by the town. The famous Latin School of Boston, which is often held up to our admiration as the beginning of the public school system, was chiefly noted for its Latin course, and each scholar paid about five dollars a term.