ng 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 acco