Child Life in Colonial Days

Paper was scarce and too highly prized for children to waste; it was a great burden even to ministers to get what paper they needed for their sermons, and they frequently acquired microscopic hand-writing for economy's sake. To the forest the scholars turned for the ever plentiful birch bark, which formed a delightful substitute to cipher on instead of paper. Among the thrifty Scotch-Irish settlers in New Hampshire and the planters in Maine, sets of arithmetic rules were copied by each child on birch bark and made a substantial text-book. Rolls of birch bark resembling in shape the parchment rolls of the Egyptians and lead plummets seem too ancient in appearance to have been commonly employed in schools within a century in this country.

It has been asserted that school slates were not used till this century. Noah Webster says distinctly in a letter written about the schools of his childhood, that "before the Revolution and for some years after no slates were used in common schools." S. Town, attending school in Belchertown, Massachusetts, in 1785, says that slates were unknown.

I have seen but a single reference to them in America and that is in such an ingenuous schoolboy's letter I will quote it in full:—

"To Mr. Cornelius Ten Broeck

att Albany.

"Stamford, the 13th Day of October, 1752.

"Honored Fethar,

"These fiew Lines comes to let you know that I am in a good State of Health and I hope this may find you also. I have found all the things in my trunk but I must have a pare of Schuse. And mama please to send me some Ches Nutts and some Wall Nutts; you please to send me a Slate, and som pensals, and please to send me some smok befe, and for bringing my trunk ³⁄₉, and for a pare of Schuse 9 shillings. You please to send me a pare of indin's Schuse, You please to send me som dride corn. My Duty to Father and Mother and Sister and to all frinds.

"I am your Dutyfull Son,

"John Ten Broeck.

"Father forgot to send me my Schuse."

In an advertisement of an English bookseller of the year 1737, one James Marshal of the Bible and Sun at Stockton are named Slate Pocket Books, Slates, and Slate Pens. The first slates were frameless, and had a hole pierced at one side on which a pencil could be hung, or by which they could be suspended around the neck. An old gentleman told me that he distinctly recalled the first time he ever saw slates in school. The master brought in a score that had been ordered to supply his pupils. He asked if any scholar had a bit of string. My old gentleman thrust his hand in his pocket and confidingly brought out his best fishing-line. The master took it, calmly cut it into twenty lengths, each long enough to go around the neck of a child and permit the slate when hung on it to lie loosely in front of his chest. It was a bitter blow to the boy to witness the cruel and unexpected severing of his beloved treasure, and he never forgot it.

In England for centuries existed the custom of sending young children to the houses of friends, relatives, or people of some condition and state to be educated. Young boys were placed in noblemen's households to learn carving, singing, and good manners. Young girls went to learn housewifery, needlework, and etiquette. The work of these children in what would to-day be deemed the duties of upper servants was given in payment for their board and tuition. The housemistress gained a large corps of orderly, intelligent servitors; and there was no disgrace in that day in being called a servant. In the time of Henry VII. these customs were universal. The Italian Relation of England, of that date, is most severe upon English parents, saying this putting away of young children, though under the guise of having them taught good manners, was done really through lack of affection, through greediness. The Paston Letters, the Verney Papers, give ample proof that children of good families were thus banished.

A remnant of this custom of the "putting-forth" of children lingered in the colonies. A good education could generally be obtained only in the schools in larger towns, or in the households of learned men. The New England ministers almost universally eked out their meagre incomes by taking young lads into their homes to educate.

When at school in Andover, Josiah Quincy boarded with the minister. The boys, eight in number, slept in a large chamber with four beds, two boys in each. The fare was ample but simple; of beef, pork, plentiful vegetables, badly baked rye and Indian bread. The minister had white bread as the brown bread gave him the heart-burn.

Children went, if possible, to the house of a kinsman. An old letter in the Mather Papers is from Mary Hoar. She writes "To her Esteemed Sister, Mistris Bridget Hoar at Cambridge." One sentence runs thus:—

"I presume our sonn John is left in the hands of a stranger; which may be of some evel consequence if not timely prevented and therefore I doe look upon myself as conserned (soe far as I am capable to diserne ye evel at such a distance) to make my request to you to prevail with my brother to receive him into your own family that he may be under your own ey. And to goe to school in the same town, where you cannot doubtless be destitute of a good schoolmaster, which might be of singular benefit to ye child."

Bridget Hoar was the daughter of Lady Alice Lisle, the martyr, and the wife of Leonard Hoar, president of Harvard College.

Another letter similar in kindly intent is this written to Henry Wolcott, at Windsor, Connecticut;—

"Salem, April ye 6th, 1695.

"Dear Bro^r:

"I cannot but be much concerned for your children's disadvantage in your remote livinge (tho' God has blest you with a good Estate which is likely to descend to them) the want of Education being the grand Calamity of this Country, but you have always Been offered no small advantages, besides their diet free, w^ch I deeme the Leest. I can only Renew the same offer which I have made tenn yeares since and annually, that if you please to send either of your daughters to my House they shall find they are welcome to spend the Summer or a year or as long as you and they please; and they will be equally welcome to my Wife, also I think it may be to your Sons' advantage to hasten downe to the Colledge while our nephew Price is there, and if you have anything by you, that you designe for their Cloathing, let it be made up here; Else it will not be fit for either of them to ware. Also for the next Winter if your Son be minded to Retire for a month or two, as many do in the Dead Season, he may come to my howse, and Mr. Noyes, I am sure, will be very ready to oblige him, with the use of his Library and Stoody, he being Remooved to his own House next weeke, and has a Tenant in one end of it that dresses his Victualls. I shall not Enlarge only to assure you that I shall be happie wherein I may be serviceable to my father's Children and theirs. I am Sir your very Aff. Bro^r & Servant,

"J. Wolcott."

It was the custom of the wealthy planters of the island of Barbadoes to send their children to New England, usually to Boston, to school. At one time a special school flourished there for the education of the sons of these planters. Several volumes of letter books of Hon. Hugh Hall, Judge of the Admiralty, are in the possession of his descendant, Miss Margaret Seymour Hall. He had occasional charge of his younger brothers and sisters, who were sent to Boston from the Barbadoes, and his letters frequently refer to them. Many of these letters are to and from his grandmother, Madam Lydia Coleman, the daughter of the old Indian fighter, Captain Joshua Scottow. She had three husbands,—Colonel Benjamin Gibbs, Attorney General Anthony Checkley, and William Coleman.

Richard Hall came to Boston in 1718. His older brother writes:—

"This Northern Air seems well calculated for Richard's Temperament of body and I am Psuaded he never appeared so Fat and Sanguine while in Barbados. I am taking all Imaginable Care in Placing him at our best Grammar School and have desir'd the Master and Usher to treat him with the highest Tenderness, Intimating he has a Capacity to go thro ye Exercises of ye School & that a Mild and good Natur'd Treatment will best prevail; who have promised me their Pticular favour to him."

A few months later the grandmother writes in various letters:—

"Richard is well in health, and minds his Learning and likes our Cold country better than I do.... I delivered Richard's Master, Mr. Williams, 25 lbs. Cocoa. I spoke with him a little before and asked him what he expected for Richard's schooling. He told me 40 shillings a yeare. As for Richard since I told him I would write to his Father he is more orderly, & he is very hungry, and has grown so much yt all his Clothes is too Little for him. He loves his book and his play too. I hired him to get a Chapter of ye Proverbs & give him a penny every Sabbath day, & promised him 5 shillings when he can say them all by heart. I would do my duty by his soul as well as his body.... I hope he does consider ye many inconveniences yt will attend him if he wont be ruled. He has grown a good boy and minds his School and Lattin and Dancing. He is a brisk Child & grows very Cute and wont wear his new silk coat yt was made for him. He wont wear it every day so yt I don't know what to do with it. It wont make him a jackitt. I would have him a good husbander but he is but a child. For shoes, gloves, hankers & stockens, they ask very deare, 8 shillings for a paire & Richard takes no care of them.... I put him in mind of writing but he tells me he don't know what to write."

Then comes Richard's delightful effusion:—

"Boston, New England, July 1, 1719.

"Honoured Sir:

"I would have wrote now but to tell ye Truth I do not know what to write for I have not had a letter from you since Capt. Beale, and I am very sorry I can't write to you but I thought it my Duty to write these few lines to you to acquaint you of my welfare, and what proficiency I have made in Learning since my Last to you. My Master is very kind to me. I am now in the Second Form, am Learning Castalio and Ovid's Metamorphosis & I hope I shall be fit to go to College in two Years time which I am resolved to do, God willing and by your leave, I shant detain you any longer but only to give my Duty to your good self & Mother & love to my Brothers & Sisters. Please to give my Duty to my God father and to my Uncle & Aunt Adamson & love to Cozen Henry,

"Your dutifull Son,
"Richard Hall."

Soon another letter goes to the father:—

"Richard wears out nigh 12 paire of shoes a year. He brought 12 hankers with him and they have all been lost long ago; and I have bought him 3 or 4 more at a time. His way is to tie knottys at one end & beat ye Boys with them and then to lose them & he cares not a bit what I will say to him."

Mothers and guardians of the present day who have sent boys off to the boarding school with ample store of neatly marked underclothing, stockings, and handkerchiefs, and had them return at the holidays nearly bereft of underwear, bearing stockings with feet existing only in outlines, and possessing but two or three handkerchiefs, these in dingy wads at the bottom of coat-pockets and usually marked with some other scholar's name—such can sympathize with poor, thrifty old lady Coleman, when naughty Richard tied his good new handkerchiefs in knots, beat his companions, and recklessly threw the knotted strings away.

CHAPTER IV

WOMEN TEACHERS AND GIRL SCHOLARS

A godly young Woman of special parts, who was fallen into a sad infirmity, the loss of her understanding and reason, which had been growing upon her divers years by occasion of giving herself wholly to reading and writing and had written many books. Her husbande was loath to grieve hir; but he saw his error when it was too late. For if she had attended to her household affairs, and such things as belong to women, and not gone out of hir way and calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men whose minds are stronger, she had kept hir Wits, and might have improved them usefully and honorably.

     — History of New England. Governor John Winthrop, 1640.

While the education of the sons of the planters in all the colonies was bravely provided and supported, the daughters fared but poorly. The education of a girl in book learning was deemed of vastly less importance than her instruction in household duties. But small arrangement was made in any school for her presence, nor was it thought desirable that she should have any very varied knowledge. That she should read and write was certainly satisfactory, and cipher a little; but many girls got on very well without the ciphering, and many, alas! without the reading and writing.

There had been a time when English girls and English gentlewomen had eagerly studied Latin and Greek; and wise masters, such as Erasmus and Colet and Roger Ascham had told with pride of their intelligent English girl scholars; but all that had passed away with the "good old times." In the seventeenth century English gentlemen looked with marked disfavor on learned women.

Sir Ralph Verney, who adored his own little daughters to the neglect of his sons, and was tender, devoted, and generous to every little girl of his acquaintance, wrote about the year 1690 to a friend:—

"Let not your girle learn Latin or short hand; the difficulty of the first may keep her from that Vice, for soe I must esteem it in a woeman; but the easinesse of the other may bee a prejudice to her; for the pride of taking sermon noates hath made multitudes of woemen most unfortunate. Had St. Paul lived in our Times I am confident hee would have fixt a Shame upon our woemen for writing as well as for speaking in church."

Occasionally an intelligent father would carefully teach his daughters. President Colman of Harvard was such a father. He gave what was called a profound education to his daughter Jane. A letter of his to her, when she was ten years old, is worthy of full quotation:—

"My dear Child:—

"I have this morning your Letter which pleases me very well and gives me hopes of many a pleasant line from you in Time to come if God spare you to me and me to you. I very much long to see your Mother but doubt whether the weather will permit to-day. I pray God to bless you and make you one of his Children. I charge you to pray daily, and read your Bible, and fear to sin. Be very dutiful to your Mother, and respectful to everybody. Be very humble and modest, womanly and discreet. Take care of your health and as you love me do not eat green apples. Drink sparingly of water, except the day be warm. When I last saw you, you were too shamefaced; look people in the face, speak freely and behave decently. I hope to bring Nabby in her grandfather's Chariot to see you. The meanwhile I kiss your dear Mother, and commend her health to the gracious care of God, and you with her to His Grace. Give my service to Mr. A. and family and be sure you never forget the respect they have honoured you with.

"Your loving father.

"Boston, Aug. 1, 1718."

Jonathan Edwards was an only son with ten sisters. In 1711, when he was eight years old, five of these sisters had been born. The father, Timothy Edwards, went as chaplain on an expedition to Canada. His letters home show his care and thought for his children, girls and boy:—

"I desire thee to take care that Jonathan dont lose what he hath learnt, but that as he hath got the accidence and about two sides of Propria quæ maribus by heart, so that he keep what he hath got I would therefore have him say pretty often to the girls. I would also have the girls keep what they have learnt of the Grammar, and get by heart as far as Jonathan hath learnt; he can keep them as far as he had learnt. And would have both him and them keep their writing, and therefore write much oftener than they did when I was at home. I have left paper enough for them which they may use to that end."

Conditions remained the same throughout the century. The wife of President John Adams, born in 1744, the daughter of a New England minister of good family and social position, doubtless had as good an education as any girl of her birth and station. She writes in 1817:—

"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 further than writing and arithmetic; in some few and rare instances music and dancing."

On another occasion she said that female education had been everywhere neglected, and female learning ridiculed, and she speaks of the trifling, narrow, contracted education of American women.

Girls in the other colonies fared no better than New England damsels. The instruction given to girls of Dutch and English parentage in New York was certainly very meagre. Mrs. Anne Grant wrote an interesting account of her childhood in Albany, New York, in a book called Memoir of an American Lady. The date was the first half of the eighteenth century. She said:—

"It was at that time very difficult to procure the means of instruction in those districts; female education was in consequence 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 Calvinistic 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 a few were taught writing."

William Smith wrote in 1756 that the schools in New York then were of the lowest order, the teachers ignorant, and women, especially, ill-educated. It was the same in Virginia. Mary Ball, the mother of George Washington, wrote from her Virginia home when fifteen years old:—

"We have not had a schoolmaster in our neighborhood till now in nearly four years. We have now a young minister living with us who was educated at Oxford, took orders and came over as assistant to Rev. Kemp. The parish is too poor to keep both, and he teaches school for his board. He teaches Sister Susie and me and Madam Carter's boy and two girls. I am now learning pretty fast."

The Catechism of Health, an old-time child's book, thus summarily and definitely sets girls in their proper places:—

"Query: Ought female children to receive the same education as boys and have the same scope for play?

"Answer: In their earlier years there should be no difference. But there are shades of discretion and regards to propriety which judicious and prudent guardians and teachers can discern and can adjust and apply."

We seldom find any recognition of girls as pupils in the early public schools. Sometimes it is evident that they were admitted at times not devoted to the teaching of boys. For instance, in May, 1767, a school was advertised in Providence for teaching writing and arithmetic to "young ladies." But the girls had to go from six to half-past seven in the morning, and half-past four to six in the afternoon. The price for this most inconvenient and ill-timed schooling was two dollars a quarter. It is pathetic to read of a learning-hungry little maid in Hatfield, Massachusetts, who would slip away from her spinning and knitting and sit on the schoolhouse steps to listen with eager envy to the boys as they recited within. When it became popular to have girls attend public schools, an old farmer on a country school committee gave these matter-of-fact objections to the innovation. "In winter it's too far for girls to walk; in summer they ought to stay at home to help in the kitchen."

The first school for girls only, where they were taught in branches not learned in the lower schools, was started in 1780 in Middletown, Connecticut, by a graduate of Yale College named William Woodbridge. Boston girls owed much to a famous teacher, Caleb Bingham, who came to that city in 1784 and advertised to open a school where girls could be taught writing, arithmetic, reading, spelling, and English grammar. His school was eagerly welcomed, and it prospered. He wrote for his girl pupils the famous Young Lady's Accidence, referred to in another chapter, and under his teaching "newspapers were to be introduced in the school at the discretion of the master." This is the first instance—I believe in any country—of the reading of newspapers being ordered by a school committee.

There were always dame-schools, which were attended by small boys and girls. Rev. John Barnard, of Marblehead, Massachusetts, was born in 1681 and was educated in Boston. He wrote in his old age a sketch of his school life. He says:—

"By that time I had a little passed my sixth year I had left my reading school, in the latter part of which my mistress had made me a sort of usher appointing me to teach some children that were older than myself as well as some smaller ones. And in which time I had read my Bible through thrice. My parents thought me to be weakly because of my thin habit and pale countenance."

The penultimate sentence of this account evidently accounts for the ultimate. It also appears that this unnamed school dame practised the monitorial system a century or more before Bell and Lancaster made their claims of inventing it.

The pay of women teachers who taught the dame-schools was meagre in the extreme. The town of Woburn, Massachusetts, reached the lowest ebb of salary. In 1641 a highly respected widow, one Mrs. Walker, kept a school in a room of her own house. The town agreed to pay her ten shillings for the first year; but after deducting seven shillings for taxes, and various small amounts for produce, etc., she received finally from the town one shilling and three pence for her pedagogical work.

Elizabeth Wright was the first teacher in the town of Northfield, Massachusetts. She taught a class of young children at her own house for twenty-two weeks each summer; for this she received fourpence a week for each child. At this time she had four young children of her own. She took all the care of them and did all the work of her household, made shirts for the Indians for eight-pence each, and breeches for Englishmen for one shilling sixpence a pair, and wove much fine linen to order. For the summer school at Franklin, Connecticut, in 1798, "a qualified woman teacher" had but sixty-seven cents a week pay. Men teachers who taught both girls and boys usually had better pay; but Samuel Appleton, in later life the well-known Boston merchant and philanthropist, was my great-grandfather's teacher in the year 1786. His pay was his board, lodging, and washing, and sixty-seven cents per week, and it was deemed liberal and ample.

There were always in the large cities small classes where favored girls could be taught the rudiments of an education, and there were many private teachers who taught young misses. Boston gentlewomen from very early days had a mode of eking out a limited income by taking little girls and young ladies from country homes, especially from the southern colonies and the Barbadoes, to board while they attended these classes and recited to these teachers.

Many honored New England names appear among the advertisements of those desiring boarders. Mrs. Deming wrote to her niece, Anna Green Winslow, telling her of two boarders she had:—

"Had I time and spirits I could acquaint you of an expedition the two sisters made to Dorchester, a walk begun at sunrise last Thursday morning—dress'd in their dammasks, padusoy, gauze, ribbins, flapetts, flowers, new white hats, white shades, and black leather shoes (Paddington's make) and finish'd, journey, garments, orniments and all quite finish'd on Saturday before noon (mud over shoes) never did I behold such destruction in so short a space—bottom of padusoy coat fring'd quite around, besides places worn entire to floss, and besides frays, dammask from shoulders to bottom not lightly soil'd, but as if every part had rub'd tables and chairs that had long been us'd to wax mingl'd with grease.

"I could have cried, for I really pitied em—nothing left fit to be seen. They had leave to go, but it never entered anyone's tho'ts but their own to be dressed in all (even to loading) of their best. What signifies it to worry ourselves about beings that are and will be just so? I can, and do, pity and advise, but I shall get no credit by such-like. The eldest talks much of learning dancing, musick (the spinet and guitar) embroidery, dresden, the French tongue, &c. The younger with an air of her own advis'd the elder when she first mention'd French to learn first to read English and was answer'd, 'Law, so I can well eno' a'ready.' You've heard her do what she calls reading, I believe. Poor Creature! Well! we have a time of it!"

There is a beautifully written letter in existence of Elizabeth Saltonstall, sent to her young daughter Elizabeth on July 26, 1680, when the latter was away from home and attending school. It abruptly begins:—

"Betty:

"Having an opportunity to send to you, I could doe no less than write a few lines to mind you that you carry yourself very respectively and dutyfully to Mrs. Graves as though she were your Mother: and likewise respectively and loveingly to the children, and soberly in words and actions to the servants: and be sure you keep yourself diligently imployed either at home or at school, as Mrs. Graves shall order you. Doe nothing without her leave, and assure yourself it will be a great preservative from falling into evill to keep yourself well imployed. But with all and in the first place make it your dayly work to pray earnestly to God that he would keep you from all manner of evil. Take heed of your discourse at all times that it be not vaine and foolish but know that for every idle word you must certainly give account another day. Be sure to follow your reading, omit it not one day: your father doth propose to send you some coppies that so you may follow your wrighting likewise. I shall say no more at present but only lay a strict charge upon you that you remember and practise what I have minded you of: and as you desire the blessing of God upon you either in soul or body be careful to observe the counsell of your parents and consider that they are the words of your loving and affectionate mother,

"Eliz. Saltonstall.

Present my best respects to Mistris Graves. Your brothers remember their love to you."

Old Madam Coleman, who had somewhat of a handful in her grandson, Richard Hall, during his school days, was given charge of his sister Sarah, in 1719, to care for and guard while she received an education. When Missy arrived from the Barbadoes she was eight years old. She brought with her a maid. The grandmother wrote back cheerfully to the parents that the child was well and brisk, as indeed she was. All the very young gentlemen and young ladies of Boston Brahmin blood paid her visits, and she gave a feast at a child's dancing party with the sweetmeats left over from her sea-store. Her stay in her grandmother's household was surprisingly brief. She left unceremoniously and unbidden with her maid, and went to a Mr. Binning's to board; she sent home word to the Barbadoes that her grandmother made her drink water with her meals. Her brother wrote at once in return to Madam Coleman:—

"We were all persuaded of your tender and hearty affection to my Sister when we recommended her to your parental care. We are sorry to hear of her Independence in removing from under the Benign Influences of your Wing & am surprised she dare do it without our leave or consent or that Mr. Binning receive her at his house before he knew how we were affected to it. We shall now desire Mr. Binning to resign her with her waiting maid to you and in our Letter to him have strictly ordered her to Return to your House. And you may let her know before my Father took his departure for London he desired me peremptorily to enjoin it, and my Mother and myself back it with our Commands, which we hope she wont venture to refuse or disobey."

But no brother could control this spirited young damsel. Three months later a letter from Madam Coleman read thus:—

"Sally wont go to school nor to church and wants a nue muff and a great many other things she don't need. I tell her fine things are cheaper in Barbadoes. She says she will go to Barbados in the Spring. She is well and brisk, says her Brother has nothing to do with her as long as her father is alive."

Hugh Hall wrote in return, saying his daughter ought to have one room to sleep in, and her maid another, that it was not befitting children of their station to drink water, they should have wine and beer. The grandmother was not offended with him or the children, but shielded the boy from rebuke when he was sent from one school to another; said proudly he was "a child of great parts, ye best Dancer of any in town," and could learn as much in an hour as another in three hours. The bill for the dancing lessons still exists. Richard's dancing lessons for a year and a quarter cost seven pounds. Sally's for four months, two pounds. Four months' instruction in writing (and pens, ink, and paper) was one pound seven shillings and four pence. The entrance fee for dancing lessons was a pound apiece. Sally learned "to sew, floure, write, and dance." The brisk child grew up a dashing belle, and married Major John Wentworth, brother of Governor Benning Wentworth. Good Brother Richard writes:—

"I heartily rejoice in Sally's good fortune and hope Molly will have her turn also, but it would not have been fair to let Sally dance barefoot which I hear Molly expected would have been done."

Sister Molly married first Adam Winthrop and then Captain William Wentworth. The two sisters were left widows and lived till great old age in the famous old Wentworth House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, both dying in 1790.

Mistress Agan Blair of Williamsburg, Virginia, married one Colonel John Banister of Petersburg; her letters, even in old age, are full of a charming freedom of description and familiarity of language, even amounting to slang, which are very unusual in correspondence of that day. They are printed in the History of the Blair and Braxton Families. She writes to her sister, Mrs. Braxton, of the latter's little daughter, Betsey, in the year 1769:—

"Betsey is at work for you. I suppose she will tell you to-morrow is Dancing Day, for it is in her Thoughts by Day & her dreams by Night. Mr. Fearson was so surprised to find she knew so much of the Minuet step, and could not help asking if Miss had never been taught. So you will find she is likely to make some progress that way. Mr. Wray by reason of business has but lately taken her in hand tho' he assures me a little practice is all she wants; her Reading I hear twice a day. And when I go out she is consigned over to my Sister Blair: we have had some few Quarrels and one Battle. Betsey and her Cousin Jenny had been fighting for several days successively & was threatened to be whipt for it as often but they did not regard us. Her Mamma & self thought it necessary to let them see we were in earnest—if they have fought since we have never heard of it. She has finish'd her work'd Tucker, but ye weather is so warm that with all ye pains I can take with clean hands and so forth she cannot help dirtying it a little. I do not observe her to be fond of negroes company, nor have I heard lately of any bad words; chief of our Quarrels is for eating of those green Apples in our garden and not keeping the head smooth.... I have had Hair put on Miss Dolly but find it is not in my power of complying with my promise in giving her Silk for a Sacque and Coat. Some of our pretty Gang broke open a Trunk in my Absence and stole several Things of which the Silk makes a part. So imagine Betsey will petition you for some. I am much obliged for the care you have taken to get all my Duds together, I cannot find you have neglected putting up anything for Betsey."

It will readily be seen from all these letters that whether the little girl was taught at home or in a private school, to "sew, floure, write, and dance" were really the chief things she learned, usually the only things, save deportment and elegance of carriage. To attain an erect and dignified bearing growing girls were tortured as in English boarding schools by sitting in stocks, wearing harnesses, and being strapped to backboards. The packthread stays and stiffened coats of "little Miss Custis" were made still more unyielding by metal and wood busks; the latter made of close-grained heavy wood. These were often carved in various designs or with names and verses, or ornamented with drawings in colored inks, and made a favorite gift.

All these constrainments and accessories contributed to a certain thin-chested though erect appearance, which is notable in the portraits of girls and women painted in the past century.

The backboard certainly helped to produce an erect and dignified carriage, and was assisted by the quick, graceful motions used in wool-spinning. The daughter of the Revolutionary patriot General Nathanael Greene stated to her grandchildren that in her girlhood she sat every day with her feet in stocks, strapped to a backboard. She was until the end of her long life a straight-backed elegant dame.

Many of the portraits given in this book plainly show the reign of the backboard. The portrait of Elizabeth Storer, facing page 98, is perhaps the best example. It is authenticated as having been painted by Smibert when the subject was but twelve years old, but she is certainly a most mature-faced child.

Another straight-backed portrait, opposite page 108, is the famous one immortalized in rhyme by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, that of "Dorothy Q.," the daughter of Judge Edmund Quincy. The poet's lines are more simply descriptive than any prose.

It would be no effort of the imagination to stretch the poet's "thirteen summers or less" to thirty summers.

Of associate interest is the portrait of Elizabeth Quincy, her sister, facing page 112. The faces, hair, and dress are similar, but the parrot is replaced by an impossible little dog. Elizabeth is somewhat fairer to look upon. Dorothy is certainly "nothing handsome." On the back of the portrait is written this inscription: "It pleased God to take Out of Life my Honor'd and dearly Belov'd Mother, M^rs Elizabeth Wendell, daughter to Honble Edmund Quincy, Esq^r. March, 1746, aged 39 Years." Her brother Edmund Quincy married her husband's sister Elizabeth (thus the two Elizabeths exchanged surnames), and Dorothy Q. married Edward Jackson.

The desire of girls and women to be ethereal and slender, delicate and shrinking, began over a century ago, but reached a climax in the early years of this century. To effect this, severe measures were taken in girls' schools. Dr. Holmes wrote in jest, but in truth too:—

Though Madam Coleman, a Boston Puritan, told so proudly of her grandchildren's dancing, that accomplishment, or rather integral part of a little lass's education, had not been quietly promoted in that sober city. In early years both magistrates and ministers had declaimed against it.

In 1684 Increase Mather preached a strong sermon against what he termed "Gynecandrical Dancing or that which is commonly called Mixt or Promiscuous Dancing of Men and Women, be they elder or younger Persons together." He called it the great sin of the Daughters of Zion, and he bursts forth:—

"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."

Of course he could not be silent as to the dancings of Miriam and David in the Bible, but disposed of them summarily thus, "Those Instances are not at all to the Purpose." Preaching against dancing was as futile as against wig-wearing; "Horrid Bushes of Vanity" soon decked every head, and gay young feet tripped merrily to the sound of music in every village and town. Dancing could not be repressed in an age when there was so little other excitement, so great physical activity, and so narrow a range of conversation; and after a time "Ordination-balls" were given when a new minister was ordained.

Dancing was a pleasant accomplishment, and a serious one in good society. The regard of it as a formal function is proved by the story the Marquis de Chastellux told of the Philadelphia Assembly. A young lady who was up in a country dance spoke for a moment to a friend and thus forgot her turn. The Master of Ceremonies, Colonel Mitchell, immediately came to her side and said severely: "Give over, Miss. Take care what you are about. Do you think you came here for your pleasure?"

It was a much more varied art than is ordinarily taught to-day. Signor Sodi taught rigadoons and paspies in Philadelphia; John Walsh added the Spanish fandango. Other modish dances were "Allemand vally's, De la cours, Devonshire jiggs, Minuets." Complicated contra-dances were many in number and quaint in name: The Innocent Maid, A Successful Campaign, Priest's House, Clinton's Retreat, Blue Bonnets, The Orange Tree.

A letter from an interesting little child shows that dancing was deemed part of a "liberal education."

"Philadelphia, March 30, 1739.

"Honour'd Sir:

"Since my coming up I have entered with Mr. Hackett to improve my Dancing, and hope to make such Progress therein as may answer to the Expense, and enable me to appear well in any Public Company. The great Desire I have of pleasing you will make me the more Assiduous in my undertaking, and I arrive at any degree of Perfection it must be Attributed to the Liberal Education you bestow on me.

"I am with greatest Respect, Dear Pappa,
"Yr dutiful Daughter,
"Mary Grafton.

"Rchd Grafton, Esq.,
New Castle, Delaware."

We have much contemporary evidence to show that music, as a formulated study, was rarely taught till after the Revolution. But there never was a time in colonial life when music was not loved and clung to with a sentiment that is difficult of explanation, but must not be underrated.

Dr. John Earle gives in his Microcosmographie, the character of a Puritan woman, or a "shee-precise Hypocrite," saying "shee suffers not her daughters to learne on the Virginalls, because of their affinity with the Organs," yet I find Judge Sewall, a true Puritan, taking his wife's virginals to be repaired. I supposed she played psalm tunes on them. Spinets and harpsichords were brought to wealthy citizens. Copies of old-time music show how very elementary were the performances on these instruments. Listeners were profoundly moved at the sound, but it would seem far from inspiring to-day.