Late in summer, after the earlier crops were gathered, the Methodists were wont to congregate in the woods at camp-meetings. These meetings were celebrated with a fervor of religious warmth, and whether by day the white tents and enthusiastic worshipers were splashed and sprinkled with sunlight shot through the canopy of leaves, or lit at night by the lateral glare of the pine-knot torches flaring from a score of scaffolds set on the tree-trunks, the scene was weird and picturesque beyond what the fancy can conjure from the modern fashionable camp-meeting, with its trim cottages and steadily burning lamps and unmoved throng, and one can but think that another fire than that of the old pine torches burned out with them. There were few Episcopalians, though the royal charters had given them two glebe lots, and two for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and there were so few Roman Catholics that no priest of that faith established himself in the State till 1833. In parts of the State there were many Friends, commonly called Quakers, who, by reason of their non-resistant principles, were exempted from military service. The state grants gave in each town two lots of two hundred acres each to the first settled minister of the gospel, of whatever persuasion he might be. The rental of all these grants, except that of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, now goes to the support of public schools, with that of a similar grant originally made for that purpose. The schoolhouse was one of the earliest recognized necessities, when the settlement of the State was fairly established. The pioneers built the schoolhouse of logs, like their dwellings, and its interior was even ruder than that of those. Rough slabs set on legs driven into augur-holes furnished the seats, and the desks, if there were any, were of like fashion. In winter, when the school was largest, if indeed it was held at all in the busier seasons, a great fireplace diffused its fervent heat through half the room, while a chill atmosphere pervaded the far corners. Among such cheerless surroundings many a Vermonter of the old time began his education, which was completed when he had learned to read and write and could cipher to the "rule o' three." Many of the scholars trudged miles through snow and storm to school, and the master, who always boarded around, had his turns of weary plodding with each distant dweller. The boy whose home was far away was in luck when he got the chance of doing chores for his board in some homestead near the schoolhouse. Increase of population and of prosperity brought better schoolhouses, set in districts of narrower bounds.