. Speak not. Bite not thy bread but break it.
Take salt only with a clean knife. Dip not the meat in the same. Hold
not thy knife upright but sloping, and lay it down at the right hand of
plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is
eating. When moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not,
wriggle not.... Smell not of thy Meat; make not a noise with thy Tongue,
Mouth, Lips, or Breath in Thy Eating and Drinking.... When any speak to
thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavour to help
him out if he tell it not right. Snigger not; never question the Truth
of it."

Girls were early taught these forms, and in addition received not only
advice but mechanical aid to insure their standing erect and sitting
upright. The average child of to-day would rebel most vigorously against
such contrivances, and justly; for in a few American schools, as in
English institutions, young ladies were literally tortured through
sitting in stocks, being strapped to backboards, and wearing stiffened
coats and stays re-inforced with strips of wood and metal. Such methods
undoubtedly made the colonial dame erect and perhaps stately in
appearance, but they contributed a certain artificial, thin-chested
structure that the healthy girl of to-day would abhor.

As we have seen, however, some women of the day contrived to pick up
unusual bits of knowledge, or made surprising expeditions into the realm
of literature and philosophy. Samuel Peters, writing in his _General
History of Connecticut_ in 1781, declared of their accomplishments:
"The women of Connecticut are strictly virtuous and to be compared to
the prude rather than the European polite lady. They are not permitted
to read plays; cannot converse about whist, quadrille or operas; but
will freely talk upon the subjects of history, geography, and
mathematics. They are great casuists and polemical divines; and I have
known not a few of them so well schooled in Greek and Latin as often to
put to the blush learned gentlemen." And yet Hannah Adams, writing in
her _Memoir_ in 1832, had this to say of educational opportunities in
Connecticut during the latter half of the eighteenth century: "My health
did not even admit of attending school with the children in the
neighborhood where I resided. The country schools, at that time, were
kept but a few months in the year, and all that was then taught in them
was reading, writing, and arithmetic. In the sum