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,