Page 9 - TRINITY 1959

TW O HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS

IFFIAM HUDDLESTON, the son of an taught to write in “a plain and legible Hand,”
W army officer under Charles I, arrived in and acquired as much skill in “Arithmetick” as
New York from Cumberlandshire, England, in was necessary to fit them for useful employment.
1689. Consequently, when in 1709 he applied to The new Charity School was set up with two
the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the purposes in mind : to combat the “Visible decay
Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) in England for of Religion” and the “monstrous increase of
funds to start a Charity School, he was able to Deism, Prophaneness, and Vice,” and “to en­
claim twenty years’ experience in teaching the courage the instruction and better education of
Catechism to the poor of the small settlement on children and youth as well Indian as English” in
the tip of Manhattan. In this year, Huddleston the City. It must be pointed out, however, that
was able formally to found the Charity School this was a “Charity School,” which differed from
of the City of New York with forty pupils. the traditional English Grammar School in that
These young scholars, whose number by 1716 the former was concerned with rescuing the
increased to fifty, attended school in the belfry masses and making them obedient, while the lat­
of Trinity Church and were taught under the ter concentrated on training a select group from
auspices of the Venerable Society for the Propa­ more privileged families.
gation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in ac­ Admittance of female pupils most probably
cordance with the “Christian Principles” of the began in 1712. By 1716 there were six girls in
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. attendance at the School. It was not until the
They were instructed in reading the Holy Scrip­ administration of the fourth Head Master (as
tures and other pious and useful books for the it was then spelled), Joseph Hildreth, that Mrs.
purpose of “informing their Understandings” Ann Wyley was added to the faculty and “nee­
and regulating their manners. They were also dlework” was added to the curriculum.
obliged to learn the Church Catechism, were It was under Thomas Noxon, who followed

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