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CHAPTER III. THE COMMON SCHOOLS     Prior to the act of 1834 an education in the county of Cambria was to be gained only by attending private schools, which belonged to the masters who taught them, church schools or under a tutor.     The first school in the county is said to be one opened in 1800 by Rev. D. A. Gallitzin, in connection with his church at Loretto. The teacher was a Mr. O'Connor, who was succeeded by James Leavy in 1806. The second one is claimed to have been opened at Beulah in 1802 by the Rev. Henry George, a Baptist minister, and the third in Johnstown in 1805, as elsewhere noted. Tradition records that James Maloy taught the first school in Ebensburg in 1810. John Thomas, born in Ireland in 1794, opened a subscription school in the village of Munster in 1825. He received $1.50 per quarter for each pupil and boarded among the patrons, some of his scholars coming six miles to attend the school.     The first academy in the county, established in Ebensburg by the Act of March 27, 1819, was under the direction of fourteen trustees. This board of control consisted of Protestant and Roman Catholic ministers and laymen, who were: Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, George Roberts, Abraham Hildebrand, James C. Maguire, John Murray, Moses Canan, James Maloy, Charles B. Seally, John Agnew, William O'Keefe, Cornelius McDonald, Richard McGuire and Samuel McAnulty. The charter provided that the state should pay $1,000 per annum for its maintenance, in consideration whereof five poor children were to be taught free of charge for a period of two years, so long as it would continue.     The first effort which might be classed as one toward free common schools was the Act of 1809; however, its basic principle was so objectionable that it was known as the “Pauper School Act.” Under the authority of this act the children of poor parents might be sent to any school, the tuition for which the county commissioners were authorized to pay out of the public treasury, if the parent made affidavit that he was too poor to pay

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