There must have been a peculiar meaning in the singular custom existing among the Dutch families of that period, of the father giving a bundle of (joose quills to his son and telling him to give one to each of his male posterity. Watson saw one which had a scroll appended saying, "This quill, given by Petrus Byvanck to James Bogert, in 1789, was a present in 1689 from his grandfather from Holland." As early as 1690 the people of Rye made an effort to procure a schoolmaster, and in many of the towns the proprietors offered the privileges of a school to all who would contribute toward the erection of a school-house. The English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts included the tuition of youth in its programme of proselytism, and established teachers at various points in the county. The best educational advantages were enjoyed by that section of the county formerly a part of Connecticut, as that colony rivaled Massachusetts in its care for the instruction of the young. In New York no provision was made

for a general system of education before the Revolution. Whatever was done for this interest, was done by individuals or religious bodies.

The good people of Westchester were not more free from superstition than their neighbors. In 1672 a number of inhabitants of that locality complained to the Governor and Council that " a witch had come among them from Hartford, where she had been before imprisoned and condemned."' The woman was removed. A similar complaint was also made in 1673 ; " but the Military Governor, Captain Colve, a son of the ocean, not under this land influence perhaps, treated it as idle or superstitious, and so dismissed the suit." A man and his wife, similarly accused, in 1665, had not got off so easily ; they were tried and found guilty.