The educational facilities include five high schools, 17 grammar, 17 primary, five for indi vidual work, 10 ungraded for backward chil dren, five open air, 12 evening, 28 training schools, 38 kindergartens, with 1,010 teachers and 212 evening teachers. The cost of main tenance is about $1,600,000 annually. The at tendance in public schools is 34,814, and in 13 parochial schools 6,156 and 599 in 12 private schools. The evening school enrolment is 6,538.
History.— Providence was founded by that great apostle of religious liberty for the New World, Roger Williams, who arrived from Eng land in Massachusetts Bay Colony in February 1631. He was well received by the Puritans as a °godly minister) but because of his boldness in announcing his views regarding the power of magistrates in religious matters he was forced to seek refuge with the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Subsequently he went to Salem, where his convictions regarding religious free dom incurred the displeasure of the General Court, and in January 1636 he was ordered to return to England; he refused and fled into the wilderness. Accompanied by five other men from Salem he had no fixed abode for weeks, but in June 1636 he began a settlement at a point north of the present site of Saint John's Church in Providence. Williams obtained a grant to lands covering what is now part of Rhode Island west of Narragansett Bay, from the Indians, the earliest deed on record being 'a memorandum dated 24 March 1637. In 1640 articles of agreement were adopted by the set tlers as the basis of the town government, all affairs being regulated by a monthly town meet ing. A royal charter was obtained in 1644 uniting various settlements about the bay, as °Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in New England.* Providence being on the mainland and more exposed to the attacks of Indians, grew less rapidly than Newport on the island of Rhode Island, and in 1676 was nearly deserted. Less favorably situated for shipping than Newport, Providence grew but slowly; in 1730 the population of Providence, which in cluded four settlements, was 3,916. In 1750 the population of Newport was twice that of Prov idence, and 1774 the population of the town of Providence proper was but 4,321, though by this time the population of Providence County was greater than that of Newport County. The first notice of a schoolhouse in the town records appears in 1752. A charter for a col lege was granted in 1764, and Piovidence County raising the most money, the first build ing was erected at Providence in 1770. This was the beginning of Brown University. Prov
idence was one of the first towns in America to have a public library, a set of books having been bought by subscription before 1754 by a company formed for that purpose. During the whole of the 18th century Providence was a quiet community, where people lived simply with few amusements. The first theatrical per formance was given by an English company in 1762. The first fire engine was purchased about 1755. The first advertisement of a regular stage line to Boston appears 1767; the stage made weekly trips. The first public market-house was erected in 1773. In the disputes with England that preceded the outbreak of the Revolution Providence took a considerable part. The first overt act of resistance to England was the de struction of the armed schooner Gaspee in 1772. During the Revolution Newport was occupied by the British from 1776 to 1779, and the com merce of Providence was almost cut off by the British fleet, though a number of privateers hailing from Providence preyed on English commerce. After the Revolution Commerce slowly moved again, trade being with Europe, China and Central and South American ports. In 1801 a fire destroyed property valued at $300,000, and in 1815 a great gale wrecked many vessels and did damage to the amount of $1,000, 000. From this time on the growth of Provi dence was steady if not rapid, the population about doubling every.20 years. Government by town meeting proving inadequate to meet the public needs, a city charter was adopted in 1831. The history of Providence during the 19th cen tury is largely that of the industrial progress of the nation. The government is vested in a mayor and bicameral council. The latter elects several of the administrative officers. Con nected with the suburban but separate munic ipalities of Cranston, Pawtucket, Warwick and East Providence, there is in a comparatively small area an aggregate civic population of over half a million, to which the city of Providence contributes 263,218.
Bayles, of dence County (New York 1891) ; Greene, A. W., (The Providence Plantations for Two Hundred and Fifty Years) (Providence 1886) ; for early history a brief historical sketch in Vol. XVIII of the Tenth United States census; the (Early Records of the Town of Providence' (15 vols., Providence 1892-99) ; Kirk, William (ed.), (Chicago 1912) ; Powell, L. P., (Historic Towns of New England' (New York 1898) ; Stokes, H. K., (Finances and Administra tion of Providence, 1636-1901' (Baltimore 1903).