two young ladies, who had attended the private instruction of a neighboring clergyman.

In 1779, two students of Yale College, during a long vacation, after the British troops invaded New Haven, had each a class of young ladies, who were taught arithmetic, geography, composition, &c., for the term of one quarter.

One of these students, (Rev. William Woodbridge,) during his senior year in college, in the severe winter of 1779-80, kept a young ladies' school in New Haven, consisting of about twenty-five scholars, in which he taught grammar, geography, composition, and the elements of rhetoric. The success of this school was such as to encourage a similar school in another place, and with about the same number of scholars. These attempts led to the opening of a similar school in Newburyport, which was supported two quarters only. Before that period the Moravians had opened a school for females in Bethlehem. This place has been long celebrated for its numbers, and continues to enjoy a high reputation, notwithstanding its many rivals. Full to overflowing, when they could accommodate no more, they opened other branches in other places, which I can not enumerate.

In 1780, in Philadelphia, for the first time in my life, I heard a class of young ladies parse English. After the success of the Moravians in female education, the attention of gentlemen of reputation and influence was turned to the subject. Drs. Morgan, Rush, (the great advocate of education,) with others, whom I can not name, instituted an academy for females in Philadelphia. Their atten, tion, influence, and fostering care were successful, and from them sprang all the following and celebrated schools in that city. I have seen a pamphlet of about one hundred pages, entitled the "Rise and Progress of the Female Academy in Philadelphia," to which I must refer for farther and more particular information.

About the year 1785, young ladies were taught in the higher branches of education by Dr. Dwight, in his Academy at Greenfield, in the State of Connecticut, and his influence was exerted with great effect, in improving the state of female education.

In the year 1789, a Female Academy was opened in Medford, within five miles of Boston, so far as I am informed, the first establishment of the kind in New England. This was the resort of scholars from all the Eastern States. The place was delightful and airy, containing ample and commodious buildings, and fruit gardens of about five acres.

Here the school flourished in numbers for seven years, until the estate was divided and sold, and its removal became necessary. Seven years of experiment, however, had evinced the practicability of the plan. Schools upon a similar plan, and female high schools, in which the arts and sciences are taught, were soon multiplied, and a new order of things arose upon the female world.

[In a subsequent communication "Senex" thus resumes the subject.]

You inquire how so many of the females of New England, during the latter part of the last century, acquired that firmness, and energy, and excellence of character for which they have been so justly distinguished, while their advantages of school education were so limited.

The only answer to this question must be founded on the fact, that it is not the amount of knowledge, but the nature of that knowledge, and still more, the manner in which it is used, and the surrounding influences and habits, which

form the character. Natural logic-the self-taught art of thinking-was the guard and guide of the female mind. The first of Watts' five methods of mental improvement, "The attentive notice of every instructive object and occurrence," was not then in circulation, but was exemplified in practice. Newspapers were taken and read in perhaps half a dozen families, in the most populous villages and towns. Books, though scarce, were found in some families, and freely lent; and in place of a flood of books, many of which are trifling or pernicious, there were a few, of the best character. They were thoroughly read, and talked of, and digested. In town and village libraries, there were some useful histories, natural and political. Milton, Watts' Lyric Poems, Young's Night Thoughts, Hervey's Meditations, the Tattler, and Addison's Spectator, were not scarce, though not generally diffused. Pamela, Clarissa Harlow, and an abridgement of Grandison, were in a few hands, and eagerly read; and the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, was the chief work of this kind for the young.

But the daily, attentive study of the Holy Scriptures, the great source of all wisdom and discretion, was deemed indispensable in those days, when every child had a Bible, and was accustomed to read a portion of the lesson at morning prayers. This study, with the use of Watts' Psalms (a book which, with all the defects it may have, contains a rich treasure of poetry and thought, as well as piety,) at home, at church, and in singing schools, I regard as having furnished, more than all other books and instructions, the means of mental improvement, for forty years of the last century.

But when were found the hours for mental improvement? Time will always be found, for that which engages the affections. If the spinning day's work was one and a half, or two runs, early rising, and quick movements at the wheel, dispatched the task. The time was redeemed. Often was the book laid within reach of the eye that occasionally glanced upon it for a minute or two, while knitting or sewing.

In the families of educated men, social intercourse became an important means of education to the daughters. The parents spent their evenings at home. In almost every town, there were one or more collegiate students, or men of professional and liberal education. Many taught in the common schools, and "boarded round" in families. The conversation of such persons was then highly appreciated, listened to, repeated and remembered. These circumstances afforded considerable aid to the cause of female education; for here, as in other cases, the means more scantily provided, were more carefully improved.

The mind is formed by the current of its leading thoughts, as the intervale, by that of its river. At that period, the social, domestic and sacred virtues were the general standard of female merit, in place of learning and accomplishments. Throughout the wisdom of Solomon, the domestic virtues are extolled; and among the ancients, the companions of kings and princes, without these accomplishments, were thought unqualified for their station. The daughters of New England studied the economics of the Proverbs. Nine tenths of all the cloths in use were of domestic manufacture. So late as the eight years' Revolutionary war, when hand-cards only were used in carding wool, all, or nearly all, the clothing for the New England troops, was manufactured by the patient, laborious industry, of our mothers and daughters. This was done in addition to all family clothing, bedding and hosiery. If they had a calico, worsted, or

still more rarely, a silk gown, it was paid for in the produce of the dairy, or in home-made cloth. A wedding-gown often lasted until the daughter was ready to wear it on the like occasion.

But the wise and prudent mother in New England educated her daughters most by her own counsels and example, to virtue, and respectability. "Her mouth was opened with wisdom, and on her tongue was the law of kindness." Example, however,-practical example, led the way, and was accompanied by parental counsel. The father did not fail to enforce the counsels of maternal wisdom, by saying, "Be sure, my child, to obey your mother." An eagle eye of watchful care, like the nightly moonbeams, spread its influence over all their steps, and the public eye and opinion were two faithful sentinels, who never slept on the watch. Under such restraints and by such means were female virtues reared and guarded, and that sterling energy of character, of which you speak, was formed. Family government then was general. family worship among the serious and moral; who kept the Sabbath, and attended public worship so generally, that if one was absent, the conclusion was, that he was either out of town, or sick. The Revolution, however, changed the New England habits and manners surprisingly, and deplorably.

So was

After the close of the Revolution, in 1783, females over ten years of age, in populous towns, were sometimes, though rarely, placed in the common schools, and taught to write a good hand, compose a little, cipher, and know something of history. The cause of female education was thus considerably advanced. Young women became ambitious to qualify themselves for school-keeping during the summer season, when sons were in the field.

When, at length, academies were opened for female improvement in the higher branches, a general excitement appeared in parents, and an emulation in daughters to attend them. Many attended such a school one or two quarters, others a year, some few longer. From these short periods of attendance for instruction in elementary branches, arose higher improvements. The love of reading and habits of application became fashionable; and fashion we know is the mistress of the world.

When the instruction of females in any of the departments of science was first proposed, it excited ridicule. The man who devoted his time and heart to the work was regarded as an Enthusiast. The cry was-" What need is there of learning how far off the sun is, when it is near enough to warm us ?"— "What, will the teacher learn his pupils to make Almanacs ?"—"When girls become scholars, who is to make the puddings and the pies ?" But these narrow prejudices have almost passed away. Many have since become equally enthusiasts on this subject, and the results of an improved system of female education have not disappointed their hopes or mine. By a true discipline of mind, and application to the solid branches of knowledge, our well educated females have become more agreeable companions, more useful members of society, and more skillful and faithful teachers, without disqualifying themselves for domestic avocations. On the contrary, they have been better prepared by these means, to promote their own happiness, as well as that of others; whether the scene of their labors was the nursery, the kitchen, the parlor, or the wider sphere of public and extensive plans of benevolence; and at no period of history, perhaps, have the sex exerted a holier or happier influence upon society.

College Life under President Wheelock.*

DR. WHEELOCK located his college in Hanover in 1769. In 1770, his family, his servants, his laborers, and scholars, numbering seventy, with cattle and carts, furniture and clothing, with books and implements of husbandry and the arts, make their way wearily and slowly, to the spot where now the college buildings stand. Trees were felled and made into log-houses,—some half a dozen, -with one large enough for the college dormitories and a recitation room. Grounds were cleared; roads were built; Mink brook was made to run a corn and saw-mill; chapel exercises were conducted at times in the open air, classes formed and instructed, and the first commencement made to come off in 1771, and a master's degree conferred upon four young men.

Dr. Wheelock had seen sixty winters, but never such an one as he endured in that of 1770-71. The storms and snows and cold came direct from the north pole. Snow-shoes and buskins, mittens and hand-sleds, were often the only locomotive means of access to the outside world, and supplies must come from the nearest log-house farmers, or, when teams could conquer snows five feet deep, from river towns far down toward the sea. But there was wood enough, and fires enough, and pine knots enough, and enough 'bean porridge hot and bean porridge cold,' to keep the school and college up to studies, to their recitations and their lectures.

Dr. Wheelock was intensely busy; his bow was never unbent. He was president of the college and preceptor of the school; his eye located the site of the future college building, laid out the present beautiful park around which the officers of the college and men of business should dwell. He located the roads, superintended the clearing of the lands, and the building of the bridges and mills. Hear what he says of his family and operations his third year:— 'For six months in the year I have thirty to forty laborers, beside men in the mills, kitchen, wash-house, &c.; the last year about eighty students, dependent and independent, beside my family, consequently large. I have seven yoke of oxen, twenty cows; have cleared and fenced fifteen acres of wheat, and have twenty acres of corn: have cleared pasturing, sowed hay-seed, and girdled all the growth on five hundred acres. I have inclosed with a fence about two thousand acres of this wilderness, to restrain my cattle and horses. A little more than three years ago there was nothing here but a horrible wilderness; now eleven comfortable dwelling-houses, beside the students' house, barns, malt and brew-house, shops, &c. I live in my little storehouse;-my family is much straighted, but can not afford to build for myself.'

In his Narrative for 1773, under date of October 15, Dr. Wheelock says:'To give a more clear view and conception of my situation, exercises, and labors in this new world, I shall give an account of this day, not because there is any thing special, more than has been common to every day, but because I know now what is actually before me.

'Three men are employed in clearing land at Landaff, to prevent the forfeiture of that town; one man is supposed to be now returning with stores from Norwich, in Conn., two hundred miles distant, with a team of six oxen, with whom I expect one or two teams more, which are to be procured there; three labor

* Judge Crosby's First Half Century of Dartmouth College. An address before the alumni in 1875. Hanover, 1876.

ers at the mills, repairing some breaches, and fitting for use; fourteen employed about my house to prepare for my removal there; two employed in the college kitchen; three digging cellar for the new college; five gathering in the Indian harvest; four receiving and counting brick which I bought at Lyme; several at Plainfield, digging and preparing limestone to be burnt for a tryal, whether a supply can be got there for the new college,-all necessary, and neither can be with prudence omitted.'

On the same day, and daily, he attended chapel services, instructed a class, and directed the studies and counseled three tutors of the college, as he could not maintain professors; also, looked after Moor's school, under college students. He was the magistrate of the whole neighborhood, but evidently had little business in this line, as he says he 'is blessed with a peaceable family, diligent and orderly students, and faithful laborers. I have not heard a profane word spoken by one of my number, nor have I reason to think there has been one for three years past, nor do profane persons expect to be employed in my service, or allowed to continue here. I have found nothing more necessary to maintain good order and regularity than to show what is the law and mind of Christ, what will please God and what will not.' 'My government is parental.' He says,— 'A number of students have done much to lessen their expenses the last year by turning a necessary diversion to agreeable manual labor, and many will probably do so for years to come.'

College Funds.

The name 'Dartmouth' brought no money to the college. Lord Dartmouth's money was in the school, and the English and Scotch friends looked after the school and were jealous of the college. The doctor now put his foot into a financial desert, as forbidding as the wilderness he had chosen for his college. Gov. Benning Wentworth gave five hundred acres of land in Hanover, where the college is located, and probably the same reserved to him in the charter of the town. Gov. John Wentworth gave four hundred acres. Other land owners gave lands to encourage the president to locate there, and the farmers in all that region subscribed labor, materials, and food; some subscribers, however, failed to make good their promises, from alledged inability. Collections of money were made from individuals far and near. John Phillips gave, in 1770, $3,333, and afterward founded the Phillips Professorship of Theology. The State gave £100 for Dr. Wheelock's support, and £500 in 1773 toward the new college building, and afterward built the medical college.

Studies in 1790.

The students are divided into four classes. The freshmen study the learned languages, the rules of speaking and writing, and the elements of mathematics. The sophomores attend to the languages, geography, logic, and mathematics. The junior sophisters, beside the languages, enter on natural and moral philosophy and composition.

The senior class compose in English and Latin; study metaphysics, the elements of natural and political law.

The books used by the students are Lowth's English Grammar, Perry's Dictionary, Pike's Arithmetic, Guthrie's Geography, Ward's Mathematics, Atkinson's Epitome, Hammond's Algebra, Martin's and Enfield's Natural Philosophy, Ferguson's Astronomy, Locke's Essay, Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, and Burlemaqui's Natural and Political Law.-Belknap's Hist. of N. H. p. 296.