“ [379] of the First Church in Cambridge, who shall be the visitors of said school for the purpose of seeing that the duties and provisions in this section are duly complied with and performed.” In 1854, the trustees proposed to the city to discontinue the Hopkins School, and, pursuant to the provisions of the statute above recited, to transfer to the city that portion of the income of their fund which had been previously applied to the support of that school; this proposition was accepted by the city, which thereby assumed the obligations above quoted, and the school Committee of that year immediately acted in fulfilment of those obligations, by appointing a Hopkins classical teacher. It is not for us to pass upon the wisdom of the contract thus entered into by the city, but we will ask those who may be inclined to think our High School too much a classical school, whether it can be any less so without a violation of that contract.
It has already been stated that the compensation paid to the pioneer master of the Grammar School was meagre. He probably received about £ 7 10s. per annum from the Hopkins Charity, with a small tuition-fee for each scholar; in addition to which occasional special grants from the town and colony served to eke out a precarious subsistence. His successors for more than a century, received a very moderate stipend. Nov. 9, 1691, ‘it was put to vote, whether there should be given by the town, in common pay, annually, to a schoolmaster, twelve pounds, and it was voted on the affirmative, to teach both Latin and English, and to write and cypher;’ and June 27, 1692, ‘it was voted to pay the schoolmaster twenty pounds per annum in common pay.’ The Grammar School was made a Free School1 May 16, 1737, and, in consideration, it would seem, of the discontinuance of a tuition-fee, the salary of the master was increased. It was then ‘put to vote whether the Grammar School in our town should be a Free School for the year ensuing, and it passed in the affirmative. Also voted, that the sum of forty pounds be paid Mr. Hovey for his service as schoolmaster for the year ensuing. Also voted, that twelve pounds be paid each wing in our town, to defray the charge of their schools in the winter season.’ This
