ENG 1101 – D376
Ho Yan Lam
September 30, 2015
“Free Schools” – Summary

DeWitt Clinton was the mayor of New York between 1803 and 1815. He believed in equal education opportunity for everyone in different social classes. Giving free education for the entire population would create equality. He criticized Europe’s way of treating their people. The thinks the fundamental error of it is preventing the poor from receiving education. Clinton quoted from Montaigne: “Man differs more from man, than man from beast.” By that he means there’s a bigger gap between men in Europe due to its difference in education level than between a man and a beast. For this error to be corrected, he thinks New England should be more like New York. But he failed to see the cons of New York’s system because “great cities are at all times the nurseries and hot-beds of crime.”