I found some histories of education in Pennsylvania, and, shockingly, it is correct that there were not many public schools in even the most settled, prosperous and civilized places in Pennsylvania by 1810. Evidently the citizens massively thought public schools would interfere with their religious freedom. To be sure, back in England, where they'd lived over a hundred years before, schools were generally run by religious institutions. And I thought that Texas was medieval. Many communities here can barely manage street lights and paved roads, and don't even dare to dream of public libraries or health care for the poor - even on the outskirts of its capital city, Austin. Honest, they have big communities in the suburbs of Austin that have unpaved streets with nary a street light, no other public services, and it's a battle to pave the streets, and in some of them, the residents are charged fees to pave a street! Home schooling is popular among some of that element but far from all. Many of them send their children to private religious schools. But they'd all be shocked at the notion there should not be public schools, and more shocked at the notion that kids shouldn't have a basic education. All of New England gave greater priority to the education of their children than this, and most communities had public schools from the first settlement of the colonies. They were Puritans, and they thought children needed to be able to read the Bible. They didn't think everyone could go to Heaven, but everyone had to have a chance, and church maintained the moral fiber, and harmony, of the community. Everyone had to attend church and their children had to attend school. Whatever all of these religious zealots in Pennsylvania were thinking . No accident, I guess, that the Appalachian trail of migration begins in Pennsylvania, and ends in Texas. Pennsylvania was a civilized, sophisticated society, founded on principals of religious liberty and other advanced values, and it's shocking that education of their children could have had such low priority. Of course, now, that is my values. Other, morally superior people might not agree with me. The earliest public schools were specifically aimed at the poor, and one wonders if John Smith wouldn't have had too much pride to apply, if such an option had been available. Now, allegedly, most Presbyterian churches in Pennsylvania had school houses attached to them. Allegedly most churches in Pennsylvania where the Scotch Irish settled had Presbyterian churches. I know that this was not true; actually, the central Presbyterian church bodies had a lot of trouble providing enough clergy for Scotch Irish communities in Pennsylvania to have Presbyterian churches. This was a leading factor in the success of Methodism in this area. However, it does seem that the communities where my Smiths were involved with were luckier. John and Isabella Smith had their little farm in London Britain township. They owned a wagon, and a single horse, and they had seven children, and they attended New London Presbyterian Church. They drove that lot of children 12 miles to church every Sunday. They were poor and busy, and I find it hard to imagine them driving the children to New London all other six days of the week to attend school, but it is worth checking on whether the New London Presbyterian church ran a school. The Smiths were indentured servants of a wealthy Baptist farmer, whose family led and founded both of the two Welsh Baptist churches on the border of Delaware, both in Delaware. The closer of those churches was closer to the Smith home than the Presbyterian church was, so it's worth looking into whether they might have run a school. The Whittens had given the Smiths money to buy their 30 acres on completion of their indentured servitude, though the Whittens owned slaves and the provision for a livelihood was required by law, and the Smiths, who seem to have been on good terms with people around them, may have remained on good terms with the Whittens. My father benefitted from that sort of thing more times than I can count. I rechecked the story of William Smith's childhood. He was born in 1797, his parents lived in northern London Britain township, and he was apprenticed to a mason named Robert Cristy, in Cecil County, Maryland. Robert Cristy/ Cristie, other spellings, of Cecil County Maryland, lived in Fair Hill, Cecil County, "near the Centre School House", died in 1841, and was an elder of the Rock Presbyterian Church. It would have been too far away for William Smith to have lived with his parents while he was apprenticed to this man, and in fact I've got a clear picture of William having had little to do with his parents once he was apprenticed. He did marry a daughter of the family who ran a tavern/ town hall across the street from the Smith farm, but the story I've got is that William as a jaunty young man and virtual stranger happened in there many years later and connected with Mary Dehaven. I don't know at what age William would have been apprenticed. The story I've got here is that he would have been nearly a young man, but if he was young enough conceivably his master sent him to school. Indentured servants were often sent to school with the children of the household. Both families were Presbyterian, and both were devout. Now, his mother, was actually described as slight of form, sprightly of step, and intellectual of feature, by her grandson, who would have known her as an elderly woman when he was a small boy. It could not be more clearly untrue that William Smith never needed no reading, writing or ciphering to be as successful as he was in the fields of endeavor at which he succeeded. And can you imagine that one way or another his mother didn't see that he had altleast the basic education of his day. Only question is, specifically how did she manage that? So how old was that Centre Creek schoolhouse, and did the Rock Presbyterian church have a school?' William's son, my great grandfather, appears to have attended the common schools in his northern Delaware community, then attended a private academy for his secondary education. Later he taught in the common schools in Delaware, and that's certainly where his future wife taught as well. Delaware, poorly organized though it was, seems to have cared enough to educate its children. Honest, I used to have a very good opinion of Pennsylvania. No wonder my father valued ignorance so highly, and suspected books, though his walls were lined with them. I thought it was the Scotch Irish in him! Yours, Dora