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
young lady; for a few months after the episode Madam Coleman wrote:
"Sally won't 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 Barbadoes in the Spring. She is well
and brisk, says her Brother has nothing to do with her as long as her
father is alive." The same lady informs us that Sally's instruction in
writing cost one pound, seven shillings, and four pence, the entrance
fee for dancing lessons, one pound, and the bill for dancing lessons for
four months, two pounds. No doubt it was worth the price; for later
Sally became rather a dashing society belle.

One thing always emphasized in the training of the colonial girl was
manners or etiquette--the art of being a charming hostess. As Mrs. Earle
says, "It is impossible to overestimate the value these laws of
etiquette, these conventions of custom had at a time, when neighborhood
life was the whole outside world." How many, many a "don't" the colonial
miss had dinned into her ears! Hear but a few of them: "Never sit down
at the table till asked, and after the blessing. Ask for nothing; tarry
till it be offered thee