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