surveyor, de Brahm, speaks of nine different sects in a town of twelve
thousand inhabitants, and makes this further comment: "Yet are (they)
far from being incouraged or even inclined to that disorder which is so
common among men of contrary religious sentiments in other parts of the
world.... (The) inhabitants (were) from the beginning renound for
concord, compleasance, courteousness and tenderness towards each other,
and more so towards foreigners, without regard or respect of nature and
religion."[37b]

Perhaps, however, by the middle of the eighteenth century religious
sanity had become the rule both North and South; for there are many
evidences at that later period of a trust in the mercy of God and
comfort in His authority. We find Abigail Adams, whose letters cover
the last twenty-five years of the eighteenth century, saying, "That we
rest under the shadow of the Almighty is the consolation to which I
resort and find that comfort which the world cannot give."[38] And
Martha Washington, writing to Governor Trumbull, after the death of her
husband, says: "For myself I have only to bow with humble submission to
the will of that God who giveth and who taketh away, looking forward
with faith and hope to the moment when I shall be again united with the
partner of my life."[39] In the hour when the long struggle for
independence was opening, Mercy Warren could write in all confidence to
her husband, "I somehow or other feel as if all these things were for
the best--as if good would come out of evil--we may be brought low that
our faith may not be in the wisdom of men, but in the protecting
providence of God."[40] Among the Dutch of New York religion, like
eating, drinking and other common things of life, was taken in a rather
matter-of-fact way. Seldom indeed did these citizens of New Amsterdam
become so excited about doctrine as to quarrel over it; they were too
well contented with life as it was to contend over the life to be. Mrs.
Grant in _Memoirs of an American Lady_ has left us many intimate
pictures of the life in the Dutch colony. She and her mother joined her
father in New York in 1758, and through her residence at Claverach,
Albany, and Oswego gained thorough knowledge of the people, their
customs, social life and community ideas and ideals. Of their relation
to church and creed she remarks: "Their religion, then, like their
original national character, had in it little of fervor or enthusiasm;
their manner of performing religious duties regular and decent, but
calm, and to more ardent imaginations might appear mechanical.... If
their piety, however, was without enthusiasm it was also without
bigotry; they wished others to think as they did, without showing rancor
or contempt toward those who did not.... That monster in nature, an
impious woman, was never heard of among them."[41]

Unlike the New England clergyman, the New York parson was almost without
power of any sort, and was at no time considered an authority in
politics, sickness, witchcraft, or domestic affairs. Mrs. Grant was
surprised at his lack of influence, and declared: "The dominees, as
these people call their ministers, contented themselves with preaching
in a sober and moderate strain to the people; and living quietly in the
retirement of their families, were little heard of but in the pulpit;
and they seemed to consider a studious privacy as one of their chief
duties."[42] However, it was only in New England and possibly in
Virginia for a short time, that church and state were one, and this may
account for much of the difference in the attitudes of the preachers. In
New York the church was absolutely separate from the government, and
unless the pastor was a man of exceedingly strong personality, his
influence was never felt outside his congregation.

In conclusion, what may we say as to the general status of the colonial
woman in the church? Only in the Quaker congregation and possibly among
the Methodists in the South did colonial womanhood successfully assert
itself, and take part in the official activities of the institution. In
the Episcopal church of Virginia and the Carolinas, the Catholic Church
of Maryland and Louisiana, and the Dutch church of New York, women were
quiet onlookers, pious, reverent, and meek, freely acknowledging God in
their lives, content to be seen and not heard. In the Puritan assembly,
likewise, they were, on the surface at least, meek, silent, docile; but
their silence was deceiving, and, as shown in the witchcraft
catastrophe, was but the silence of a smouldering volcano. In the
eighteenth century, the womanhood of the land became more assertive, in
religion as in other affairs, and there is no doubt that Mercy Warren,
Eliza Pinckney, Abigail Adams, and others mentioned in these pages were
thinkers whose opinions were respected by both clergy and laymen. The
Puritan preacher did indeed declare against speech by women in the
church, and demanded that if they had any questions, they should ask
their husbands; but there came a time, and that quickly, when the voice
of woman was heard in the blood of Salem's dead.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Reprinted in _English Garner_, Vol. II, p. 429.

[2] Vol. I, p. 101.

[3] Sewall's _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 40.

[4] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 111.

[5] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 167.

[6] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 116.

[7] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 71.

[8] Original Narratives of Early Am. Hist., Narratives of the
Witchcraft Cases. p. 96, 97.

[9] Winthrop: _Hist. of N.E._, Vol. II, p. 36.

[10] Winthrop: _Hist. of N. Eng._, Vol. II, p. 411.

[11] _Child Life in Colonial Days_; P. 238.

[12] _Ibid._

[13] Pp. 137, 185.

[14] _Writings of Col. Byrd_, Ed. Bassett, p. 25.

[15] Winthrop: _History of New England_, Vol. II, pp. 79, 335.

[16] Hutchinson: _History of Massachusetts Bay._ Chapter I.

[17] Fiske: _Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America_, Vol. I, p. 232.

[18] Hutchinson: _History of Massachusetts Bay_, Chapter I.

[19] _History of New England_, Vol. II, p. 397.

[20] _Narratives of Early Maryland_, p. 141.

[21] _Narratives of Witchcraft Cases_, p. 102.

[22] Sewall: _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 103.

[23] _Annals of New England_, Vol. I, p. 579.

[24] _Narratives of Witchcraft Cases_, p. 135.

[25] Page 210.

[26a],[26b] _Narratives of Witchcraft Cases_, p. 38.

[27a],[27b] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 364.

[28] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 364.

[29] _Narratives of Witchcraft Cases_, p. 366.

[30] _Narratives of Witchcraft Cases_, p. 215.

[31] _Narratives of Witchcraft Cases_, p. 159.

[32] Fisher: _Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times_, p. 165.

[33] Fisher: _Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times_, p. 165.

[34] Fisher: _Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times_, p. 171.

[35] Pages 22, 35.

[36] _Institutional History_, Vol. I, p. 29.

[37a],[37b] Ravenel: _Eliza Pinckney_, p. 65.

[38] _Letters_, p. 106.

[39] Wharton: _Martha Washington_, p. 280.

[40] Brown: _Mercy Warren_, p. 96.

[41] _Memoirs of an American Lady_, p. 29.

[42] _Memoirs of an American Lady_, p. 155.




CHAPTER II

COLONIAL WOMAN AND EDUCATION


_I. Feminine Ignorance_

Unfortunately when we attempt to discover just how thorough woman's
mental training was in colonial days we are somewhat handicapped by the
lack of accurate data. Here and there through the early writings we have
only the merest hints as to what girls studied and as to the length of
their schooling. Of course, throughout the world in the seventeenth
century it was not customary to educate women in the sense that men in
the same rank were educated. Her place was in the home and as economic
pressure was not generally such as to force her to make her own living
in shop or factory or office, and as society would have scowled at the
very idea, she naturally prepared only for marriage and home-making.
Very few men of the era, even among philosophers and educational
leaders, ever seemed to think that a woman might be a better mother
through thorough mental training. And the women themselves, in the main,
apparently were not interested.

The result was that there long existed an astonishingly large amount of
illiteracy among them. Through an examination made for the U.S.
Department of Education, it has been found that among women signing
deeds or other legal documents in Massachusetts, from 1653 to 1656, as
high as fifty per cent could not write their name, and were obliged to
sign by means of a cross; while as late as 1697 fully thirty-eight per
cent were as illiterate. In New York fully sixty per cent of the Dutch
women were obliged to make their mark; while in Virginia, where deeds
signed by 3,066 women were examined, seventy-five per cent could not
sign their names. If the condition was so bad among those prosperous
enough to own property, what must it have been among the poor and
so-called lower classes?

We know, of course, that early in the seventeenth century schools
attended by both boys and girls were established in Massachusetts, and
before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth there was at least one public
school for both sexes in Virginia. But for the most part the girls of
early New England appear to have gone to the "dame's school," taught
by some spinster or poverty-stricken widow. We may again turn to
Sewall's _Diary_ for bits of evidence concerning the schooling in the
seventeenth century: "Tuesday, Oct. 16, 1688. Little Hanah going to
School in the morn, being enter'd a little within the Schoolhouse
Lane, is rid over by David Lopez, fell on her back, but I hope little
hurt, save that her Teeth bled a Little; was much frighted; but went
to School."[43] "Friday, Jan. 7th, 1686-7. This day Dame Walker is
taken so ill that she sends home my Daughters, not being able to teach
them."[44] "Wednesday, Jan. 19th, 1686-7. Mr. Stoughton and Dudley and
Capt. Eliot and Self, go to Muddy-River to Andrew Gardner's, where
'tis agreed that £12 only in or as Money, be levyed on the people by a
Rate towards maintaining a School to teach to write and read
English."[45] "Apr. 27, 1691.... This afternoon had Joseph to School
to Capt. Townsend's Mother's, his Cousin Jane accompanying him,
carried his Hornbook."[46]

And what did girls of Puritan days learn in the "dame schools"? Sewall
again may enlighten us in a notation in his _Diary_ for 1696: "Mary goes
to Mrs. Thair's to learn to Read and Knit." More than one hundred years
afterwards (1817), Abigail Adams, writing of her childhood, declared:
"My early education did not partake of the abundant opportunities which
the present days offer, and which even our common country schools now
afford. I never was sent to any school. I was always sick. Female
education, in the best families went no farther than writing and
arithmetic; in some few and rare instances, music and dancing."[47]

The Dutch women of New York, famous for their skill in housekeeping,
probably did not attend school, but received at home what little they
knew of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Mrs. Grant, speaking of
opportunities for female education in New Amsterdam in 1709, makes it
clear that the training of a girl's brain troubled no Hollander's head.
"It was at this time very difficult to procure the means of instruction
in those inland districts; female education, of consequence, was
conducted on a very limited scale; girls learned needlework (in which
they were indeed both skilful and ingenious) from their mothers and
aunts; they were taught too at that period to read, in Dutch, the Bible,
and a few Calvinist tracts of the devotional kind. But in the infancy
of the settlement few girls read English; when they did, they were
thought accomplished; they generally spoke it, however imperfectly, and
few were taught writing. This confined education precluded elegance;
yet, though there was no polish, there was no vulgarity."[48]

The words of the biographer of Catherine Schuyler might truthfully have
been applied to almost any girl in or near the quaint Dutch city:
"Meanwhile [about 1740] the girl [Catherine Schuyler] was perfecting
herself in the arts of housekeeping so dear to the Dutch matron. The
care of the dairy, the poultry, the spinning, the baking, the brewing,
the immaculate cleanliness of the Dutch, were not so much duties as
sacred household rites."[49] So much for womanly education in New
Amsterdam. A thorough training in domestic science, enough arithmetic
for keeping accurate accounts of expenses, and previous little
reading--these were considered ample to set the young woman on the right
path for her vocation as wife and mother.

This high respect for arithmetic was by no means limited to New York.
Ben Franklin, while in London, wrote thus to his daughter: "The more
attentively dutiful and tender you are towards your good mama, the more
you will recommend yourself to me.... Go constantly to church, whoever
preaches. For the rest, I would only recommend to you in my absence, to
acquire those useful accomplishments, arithmetic, and book-keeping. This
you might do with ease, if you would resolve not to see company on the
hours set apart for those studies."[50] In addition, however, Franklin
seems not to have been averse to a girl's receiving some of those social
accomplishments which might add to her graces; for in 1750 he wrote his
mother the following message about this same child: "Sally grows a fine
Girl, and is extreamly industrious with her Needle, and delights in her
Book. She is of a most affectionate Temper, and perfectly dutiful and
obliging to her Parents, and to all. Perhaps I flatter myself too much,
but I have hopes that she will prove an ingenious, sensible, notable,
and worthy Woman, like her Aunt Jenny. She goes now to the
Dancing-School..."[51]


_II. Woman's Education in the South_

It is to be expected that there was much more of this training in social
accomplishments in the South than in the North. Among the "first
families," in Virginia and the Carolinas the daughters regularly
received instruction, not only in household duties and the supervision
of the multitude of servants, but in music, dancing, drawing, etiquette
and such other branches as might help them to shine in the social life
that was so abundant. Thomas Jefferson has left us some hints as to the
education of aristocratic women in Virginia, in the following letter of
advice to his daughter:

"Dear Patsy:--With respect to the distribution of your time, the
following is what I should approve:

"From 8 to 10, practice music.

"From 10 to 1, dance one day and draw another.

"From 1 to 2, draw on the day you dance, and write a letter next
day.

"From 3 to 4, read French.

"From 4 to 5, exercise yourself in music.

"From 5 till bedtime, read English, write, etc.

"Informe me what books you read, what tunes you learn, and inclose
me your best copy of every lesson in drawing.... Take care that
you never spell a word wrong.... It produces great praise to a
lady to spell well...."[52]

It should be noted, of course, that this message was written in the
later years of the eighteenth century when the French influence in
America was far more prominent than during the seventeenth. Moreover,
Jefferson himself had then been in France some time, and undoubtedly was
permeated with French ideas and ideals. But the established custom
throughout the South, except in Louisiana, demanded that the daughters
of the leading families receive a much more varied form of schooling
than their sisters in most parts of the North were obtaining. While the
sons of wealthy planters were frequently sent to English universities,
the daughters were trained under private tutors, who themselves were
often university graduates, and not infrequently well versed in
languages and literatures. The advice of Philip Fithian to John Peck,
his successor as private instructor in the family of a wealthy
Virginian, may be enlightening as to the character and sincerity of
these colonial teachers of Southern girls:

"The last direction I shall venture to mention on this head, is that you
abstain totally from women. What I would have you understand from this,
is, that by a train of faultless conduct in the whole course of your
tutorship, you make every Lady within the Sphere of your acquaintance,
who is between twelve and forty years of age, so much pleased with your
person, & so satisfied as to your ability in the capacity of a Teacher;
& in short, fully convinced, that, from a principle of Duty, you have
both, by night and by day endeavoured to acquit yourself honourably, in
the Character of a Tutor; & that this account, you have their free and
hearty consent, without making any manner of demand upon you, either to
stay longer in the Country with them, which they would choose, or
whenever your business calls you away, that they may not have it in
their Power either by charms or Justice to detain you, and when you must
leave them, have their sincere wishes & constant prayrs for Length of
days & much prosperity."[53]

We have little or no evidence concerning the education of women
belonging to the Southern laboring class, except the investigation of
court papers mentioned above, showing the lamentable amount of
illiteracy. In fact, so little was written by Southern women, high or
low, of the colonial period that it is practically impossible to state
anything positive about their intellectual training. It is a safe
conjecture, however, that the schooling of the average woman in the
South was not equal to that of the average women of Massachusetts, but
was probably fully equal to that of the Dutch women of New York. And yet
we must not think that efforts in education in the southern colonies
were lacking. As Dr. Lyon G. Tyler has said; "Under the conditions of
Virginia society, no developed educational system was possible, but it
is wrong to suppose that there was none. The parish institutions
introduced from England included educational beginnings; every minister
had a school, and it was the duty of the vestry to see that all poor
children could read and write. The county courts supervised the
vestries, and held a yearly 'orphans court,' which looked after the
material and educational welfare of all orphans."[54]

Indeed the interest in education during the seventeenth century, in
Virginia at least, seems to have been general. Repeatedly in examining
wills of the period we may find this interest expressed and explicit
directions given for educating not only the boys, but the girls. Bruce
in his valuable work, _Institutional History of Virginia in the
Seventeenth Century_, cites a number of such cases in which provisions
were made for the training of daughters of other female relatives.

"In 1657, Clement Thresh, of Rappahannock, in his will declared that all
his estate should be responsible for the outlay made necessary in
providing, during three years, instruction for his step-daughter, who,
being then thirteen years of age, had, no doubt, already been going to
school for some length of time. The manner of completing her education
(which, it seems, was to be prolonged to her sixteenth year) was perhaps
the usual one for girls at this period:--she was to be taught at a Mrs.
Peacock's, very probably by Mrs. Peacock herself, who may have been the
mistress of a small school; for it was ordered in the will, that if she
died, the step-daughter was to attend the same school as Thomas
Goodrich's children."[55] "Robert Gascoigne provided that his wife
should ... keep their daughter Bridget in school, until she could both
read and sew with an equal degree of skill."[56] "The indentures of Ann
Andrewes, who lived in Surry ... required her master to teach her, not
only how to sew and 'such things as were fitt for women to know,' but
also how to read and apparently also how to write." ... "In 1691 a girl
was bound out to Captain William Crafford ... under indentures which
required him to teach her how to spin, sew and read...."[57]

But, as shown in previous pages, female illiteracy in the South, at
least during the seventeenth century, was surprisingly great. No doubt,
in the eighteenth century, as the country became more thickly settled,
education became more general, but for a long time the women dragged
behind the men in plain reading and writing. Bruce declares: "There are
numerous evidences that illiteracy prevailed to a greater extent than
among persons of the opposite sex.... Among the entire female population
of the colony, without embracing the slaves, only one woman of every
three was able to sign her name in full, as compared with at least three
of every five persons of the opposite sex."[58]


_III. Brilliant Exceptions_

In the middle colonies, as in New England, schools for all classes were
established at an early date. Thus, the first school in Pennsylvania was
opened in 1683, only one year after the founding of Philadelphia, and
apparently very few children in that city were without schooling of some
sort. As is commonly agreed, more emphasis was placed on education in
New England than in any of the other colonies. A large number of the men
who established the Northern colonies were university graduates,
naturally interested in education, and the founding of Harvard, sixteen
years after the landing at Plymouth, proves this interest. Moreover, it
was considered essential that every man, woman, and child should be able
to read the Bible, and for this reason, if for no other, general
education would have been encouraged. As Moses Coit Tyler has declared,
"Theirs was a social structure with its corner stone resting on a book."
However true this may be, we are not warranted in assuming that the
women of the better classes in Massachusetts were any more thoroughly
educated, according to the standards of the time, than the women of the
better classes in other colonies. We do indeed find more New England
women writing; for here lived the first female poet in America, and the
first woman preacher, and thinkers of the Mercy Warren type who show in
their diaries and letters a keen and intelligent interest in public
affairs.

It seems due, however, more to circumstances that such women as Mercy
Warren and Abigail Adams wrote much, while their sisters to the South
remained comparatively silent. The husband of each of these two colonial
dames was absent a great deal and these men were, therefore, the
recipients of many charming letters now made public; while the wife of
the better class planter in Virginia and the Carolinas had a husband who
seldom strayed long from the plantation. Eliza Pinckney's letters rival
in interest those of any American woman of the period, and if her
husband had been a man as prominent in war and political affairs as John
Adams, her letters would no doubt be considered today highly valuable.
True, Martha Washington was in a position to leave many interesting
written comments; for she was for many years close to the very center
and origin of the most exciting events; but she was more of a quiet
housewife than a woman who enjoyed the discussion of political events,
and, besides, with a certain inborn reserve and reticence she took pains
to destroy much of the private correspondence between her husband and
herself. Perhaps, with the small amount of evidence at hand we can never
say definitely in what particular colonies the women of the higher
classes were most highly educated; apparently very few of them were in
danger of receiving an over-dose of mental stimulation.

A few women, however, were genuinely interested in cultural study, and
that too in subjects of an unusual character. Hear what Eliza Pinckney
says in her letters:

"I have got no further than the first volm of Virgil, but was most
agreeably disappointed to find myself instructed in agriculture as well
as entertained by his charming penn, for I am persuaded tho' he wrote
for Italy it will in many Instances suit Carolina."[59] "If you will not
laugh too immoderately at mee I'll Trust you with a Secrett. I have made
two wills already! I know I have done no harm, for I con'd my lesson
very perfectly, and know how to convey by will, Estates, Real and
Personal, and never forgett in its proper place, him and his heirs
forever.... But after all what can I do if a poor Creature lies a-dying,
and their family takes it into their head that I can serve them. I can't
refuse; butt when they are well, and able to employ a Lawyer, I always
shall."[60]

And again she gives this glimpse of another study: "I am a very Dunce,
for I have not acquired ye writing shorthand yet with any degree of
swiftness." That she had made some study of philosophy also is evident
in this comment in a letter written after a prolonged absence from her
plantation home for the purpose of attending some social function: "I
began to consider what attraction there was in this place that used so
agreeably to soothe my pensive humour, and made me indifferent to
everything the gay world could boast; but I found the change not in the
place but in myself.... and I was forced to consult Mr. Locke over and
over, to see wherein personal Identity consisted, and if I was the very
same Selfe."[61]

Locke's philosophical theory is surely rather solid material, a kind
indeed which probably not many college women of the twentieth century
are familiar with. Add to these various intellectual pursuits of hers
the highly thorough study she made of agriculture, her genuinely
scientific experiments in the rotation and selection of crops, and her
practical and successful management of three large plantations, and we
may well conclude that here was a colonial woman with a mind of her own,
and a mind fit for something besides feminine trifles and graces.

Jane Turell, a resident of Boston during the first half of the
eighteenth century, was another whose interest in literature and other
branches of higher education was certainly not common to the women of
the period. Hear the narrative of the rather astonishing list of studies
she undertook, and the zeal with which she pursued her research:

"Before she had seen eighteen, she had read, and 'in some
measure' digested all the English poetry and polite pieces in
prose, printed and manuscripts, in her father's well furnished
library.... She had indeed such a thirst after knowledge that the
leisure of the day did not suffice, but she spent whole nights in
reading...."

"I find she was sometimes fired with a laudable ambition of
raising the honor of her sex, who are therefore under obligations
to her; and all will be ready to own she had a fine genius, and
is to be placed among those who have excelled."

"...What greatly contributed to increase her knowledge, in
divinity, history, physic, controversy, as well as poetry, was
her attentive hearing most that I read upon those heads through
the long evenings of the winters as we sat together."[62]

Mrs. Adams was still another example of that rare womanliness which
could combine with practical domestic ability a taste for high
intellectual pursuits. During the Revolutionary days in the hour of
deepest anxiety for the welfare of her husband and of her country, she
wrote to Mr. Adams: "I have taken a great fondness for reading Rollin's
_Ancient History_ since you left me. I am determined to go through with
it, if possible, in these days of solitude."[63] And again in a letter
written on December 5, 1773, to Mercy Warren, she says: "I send with
this the first volume of Molière and should be glad of your opinion of
the plays. I cannot be brought to like them. There seems to me to be a
general want of spirit. At the close of every one, I have felt
disappointed. There are no characters but what appear unfinished; and he
seems to have ridiculed vice without engaging us to virtue.... There is
one negative virtue of which he is possessed, I mean that of decency....
I fear I shall incur the charge of vanity by thus criticising an author
who has met with so much applause.... I should not have done it, if we
had not conversed about it before."[64]

Evidently, at least a few of those colonial dames who are popularly
supposed to have stayed at home and "tended their knitting" were
interested in and enthusiastically conversed about some rather classic
authors and rather deep questions. Mrs. Grant has told us of the aunt of
General Philip Schuyler, a woman of great force of character and
magnetic personality: "She was a great manager of her time and always
contrived to create leisure hours for reading; for that kind of
conversation which is properly styled gossiping she had the utmost
contempt.... Questions in religion and morality, too weighty for table
talk, were leisurely and coolly discussed [In the garden]."[65]

Again, Mrs. Grant pays tribute to her mental ability as well as to her
intelligent interest in vital questions of the hour, in the following
statement: "She clearly foresaw that no mode of taxation could be
invented to which they would easily submit; and that the defense of the
continent from enemies and keeping the necessary military force to
protect the weak and awe the turbulent would be a perpetual drain of men
and money to Great Britain, still increasing with the increased
population."[66]

There were indeed brilliant minds among the women of colonial days; but
for the most part the women of the period were content with a rather
small amount of intellectual training and did not seek to gain that
leadership so commonly sought by women of the twentieth century.
Practically the only view ahead was that of the home and domestic life,
and the whole tendency of education for woman was, therefore, toward the
decidedly practical.


_IV. Practical Education_

These brilliant women, like their sisters of less ability, had no
radical ideas about what they considered should be the fundamental
principles in female education; they one and all stood for sound
training in domestic arts and home making. Abigail Adams, whose tact,
thrift and genuine womanliness was largely responsible for her husband's
career, expressed herself in no uncertain terms concerning the duties of
woman: "I consider it as an indispensable requisite that every American
wife should herself know how to order and regulate her family; how to
govern her domestics and train up her children. For this purpose the
All-wise Creator made woman an help-meet for man and she who fails in
these duties does not answer the end of her creation."[67]

Indeed, it would appear that most, if not all, of the women of colonial
days agreed with the sentiment of Ben Franklin who spoke with warm
praise of a printer's wife who, after the death of her husband, took
charge of his business "with such success that she not only brought up
reputably a family of children, but at the expiration of the term was
able to purchase of me the printing house and establish her son in
it."[68] And, according to this practical man, her success was due
largely to the fact that as a native of Holland she had been taught "the
knowledge of accounts." "I mention this affair chiefly for the sake of
recommending that branch of education for our young females as likely to
be of more use to them and their children in case of widowhood than
either music or dancing, by preserving them from losses by imposition of
crafty men, and enabling them to continue perhaps a profitable
mercantile house with establish'd correspondence, till a son is grown up
fit to undertake and go on with it."[69]

And Mrs. Franklin, like her husband and Mrs. Adams, had no doubt of the
necessity of a thorough knowledge of household duties for every woman
who expected to marry. In 1757 she wrote to her sister-in-law in regard
to the proposed marriage of her nephew: "I think Miss Betsey a very
agreeable, sweet-tempered, good girl who has had a housewifely
education, and will make to a good husband a very good wife."

With these fundamentals in female education settled, some of the
colonists, at least, were very willing that the girls should learn some
of the intellectual "frills" and fads that might add to feminine grace
or possibly be of use in future emergencies. Franklin, for instance,
seemed anxious that Sally should learn her French and music. Writing to
his wife in 1758, he stated: "I hope Sally applies herself closely to
her French and musick, and that I shall find she has made great
Proficiency. Sally's last letter to her Brother is the best wrote that
of late I have seen of hers. I only wish she was a little more careful
of her spelling. I hope she continues to love going to Church, and would
have her read over and over again the _Whole Duty of Man_ and the Lady's
Library."[70] And again in 1772 we find him writing this advice to Sally
after her marriage to Mr. Bache: "I have advis'd him to settle down to
Business in Philadelphia where he will always be with you.... and I
think that in keeping a store, if it be where you dwell, you can be
serviceable as your mother was to me. For you are not deficient in
Capacity and I hope are not too proud.... You might easily learn
Accounts and you can copy Letters, or write them very well upon
Occasion. By Industry and Frugality you may get forward in the World,
being both of you yet young."[71]


_V. Educational Frills_

Toward the latter part of the eighteenth century that once-popular
institution, the boarding school for girls, became firmly established,
and many were the young "females" who suffered as did Oliver Wendell
Holmes' dear old aunt:

"They braced my aunt against a board,
To make her straight and tall;
They laced her up, they starved her down,
To make her light, and small;
They pinched her feet, they singed her hair,
They screwed it up with pins;--
Oh, never mortal suffered more
In penance for her sins."

One of the best known of these seminaries was that conducted by Susanna
Rowson, author of the once-famous novel _Charlotte Temple_. A letter
from a colonial miss of fourteen years, Eliza Southgate, who attended
this school, may be enlightening:

"Hon. Father:

"I am again placed at school under the tuition of an amiable
lady, so mild, so good, no one can help loving her; she treats
all her scholars with such tenderness as would win the affection
of the most savage brute. I learn Embroiderey and Geography at
present, and wish your permission to learn Musick.... I have
described one of the blessings of creation in Mrs. Rowson, and
now I will describe Mrs. Lyman as the reverse: she is the worst
woman I ever knew of or that I ever saw, nobody knows what I
suffered from the treatment of that woman."[72]

The Moravian seminaries of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and of North
Carolina were highly popular training places for girls; for in these
orderly institutions the students were sure to gain not only instruction
in graceful social accomplishments and a thorough knowledge of
housekeeping, but the rare habit of doing all things with regularity,
neatness, decorum, and quietness. The writer of the above letter has
also described one of these Pennsylvania schools with its prim teachers
and commendable mingling of the practical and the artistic. "The first
was merely a _sewing school_, little children and a pretty single
spinster about 30, her white skirt, white short tight waistcoat, nice
handkerchief pinned outside, a muslin apron and a close cap, of the most
singular form you can imagine. I can't describe it. The hair is all put
out of sight, turned back, and no border to the cap, very unbecoming and
very singular, tied under the chin with a pink ribbon--blue for the
married, white for the widows. Here was a Piano forte and another sister
teaching a little girl music. We went thro' all the different school
rooms, some misses of sixteen, their teachers were very agreeable and
easy, and in every room was a Piano."

It was a notable fact that dancing was taught in nearly all of these
institutes. In spite of Puritanical training, in spite of the
thunder-bolts of colonial preachers, the tide of public opinion could
not be stayed, and the girls _would_ learn the waltz and the prim
minuet. Times had indeed changed since the day when Cotton Mather so
sternly spoke his opinion on such an ungodly performance: "Who were the
Inventors of Petulant Dancings? Learned men have well observed that the
Devil was the First Inventor of the impleaded Dances, and the Gentiles
who worshipped him the first Practitioners of this Art."

Colonial school girls may have been meek and lowly in the seventeenth
century--the words of Winthrop and the Mathers rather indicate that
they were--but not so in the eighteenth. Some of them showed an
independence of spirit not at all agreeing with popular ideas of the
demure maid of olden days. Sarah Hall, for instance, whose parents lived
in Barbadoes, was sent to her grandmother, Madam Coleman of Boston, to
attend school. She arrived with her maid in 1719 and soon scandalized
her stately grandmother by abruptly leaving the house and engaging board
and lodging at a neighboring residence. At her brother's command she
returned; but even a brother's authority failed to control the spirited