Granting, however, full measure of praise to New England and with no desire to minimize the credit due her for her work in this cause, it is still in order for us to ask when has credit ever been given by any writer to South Carolina for the establishment in Charleston, about twenty years before the founding of the Latin School in Boston, of the first school approaching in character the public schools of to-day? The accompanying illustration is taken from a volume of the _Charleston Gazette_ for the year 1743, once owned by the author but now in the possession of the Lenox Library of this city, showing the fac-simile of an account for building a negro free school house. Some years ago the author had in his possession a memorandum which stated that this school house, built in 1742–3, was the second which had been erected by the city of Charleston for the education of negro children, whose parents indeed represented the only portion of the community unable to educate itself. In these schools the pupils received gratuitous instruction and were obliged to attend regularly until the age of twelve years. If the difference in money value, then and now, be considered, it will be found that the cost of this building could not have fallen much below five thousand dollars. It is evident, therefore, that the first public school, in the accepted sense, existed in Charleston, at least as early as 1743, and not in New England. THE BOSTON MASSACRE The impartial student is fully impressed with the fact that, as his investigations approach the period just preceding the American Revolution, the claims of the New England people become more prominent. Here again, if the writers of our histories and especially of our school books have not given undue credit to those who were the chief actors in New England at this period, they have at least uniformly failed to do full justice to those who were quite as active in the cause in other colonies. [Illustration: Account of Negro School-House Cost ] Resistance to the Stamp Act had been quite general throughout the country and the Sons of Liberty in New York were particularly vigilant in seeing that the Non-importation Act was fully observed, although many of the merchants did not sympathize with the move. British soldiers were stationed in all the larger towns and they, taking their cue from those in authority, showed their enmity towards the people on all occasions. Particularly marked was this condition of affairs in the city of New York.