Chapter 2

That the welfare, if not the pleasure, of their children lay very close to the hearts of the Pilgrims, we cannot doubt. Governor Bradford left an account of the motives for the emigration from Holland to the new world, and in a few sentences therein he gives one of the deepest reasons of all--the intense yearning for the true well-being of the children; we can read between the lines the stern and silent love of those noble men, love seldom expressed but ever present, and the rigid sense of duty, duty to be fulfilled as well as exacted. Bradford wrote thus of the Pilgrims:

"As necessitie was a taskmaster over them, so they were forced to be such, not only to their servants, but in a sorte, to their dearest children; the which, as it did not a little wound ye tender harts of many a loving father and mother, so it produced likewise sundrie sad and sorrowful effects. For many of their children, that were of best dispositions and gracious inclinations, haveing lernde to bear ye yoake in their youth, and willing to bear parte of their parents burden, were, often times so oppressed with their hevie labours, that though their minds were free and willing, yet their bodies bowed under ye weight of ye same, and become decreped in their early youth; the vigor of nature being consumed in ye very budd as it were. But that which was more lamentable and of all sorrowes most heavie to be borne, was, that many of their children, by these occasions, and ye great licentiousness of youth in ye countrie, and ye manifold temptations of the place, were drawn away by evill examples into extravagante and dangerous courses, getting ye raines off their neks and departing from their parents. Some became souldiers, others took upon them for viages by sea, and other some worse courses, tending to disolutenes and the danger of their soules, to ye great greef of their parents and dishonor of God. So that they saw their posteritie would be in danger to degenerate and be corrupted."

Though Judge Sewall could control and restrain his children, his power waxed weak over his backsliding and pleasure-seeking grandchildren, and they annoyed him sorely. Sam Hirst, the son of poor timid Betty, lived with his grandfather for a time, and on April 1st, 1719, the Judge wrote:

"In the morning I dehorted Sam Hirst and Grindall Rawson from playing Idle tricks because 'twas first of April: They were the greatest fools that did so. N. E. Men came hither to avoid anniversary days, the keeping of them such as the 25th of Decr. How displeasing must it be to God the giver of our Time to keep anniversary days to play the fool with ourselves and others."

Ten years earlier the Judge had written to the Boston schoolmaster, begging him to "insinuate into the Scholars the Defiling and Provoking nature of such a Foolish Practice" as playing tricks on April first.

Sam was but a sad losel, and vexed him in other and more serious matters. On March 15th, 1725, the Judge wrote:

"Sam Hirst got up betime in the morning, and took Ben Swett with him and went into the Comon to play Wicket. Went before anybody was up, left the door open: Sam came not to prayer at which I was much displeased."

Two days later he writes thus peremptorily of his grandson:

"Did the like again, but took not Ben with him. I told him he could not lodge here practicing thus. So he log'd elsewhere."

Though Boston boys played "wicket" on Boston Common, I fancy the young Puritans had, as a rule, few games, and were allowed few amusements. They apparently brought over some English pastimes with them, for in 1657 it was found necessary to pass this law in Boston:

"Forasmuch as sundry complaints are made that several persons have received hurt by boys and young men playing at football in the streets, these therefore are to enjoin that none be found at that game in any of the streets, lanes or enclosures of this town under the penalty of twenty shillings for every such offence."

One needless piece of cruelty which was exercised toward boys by Puritan lawgivers is shown by one of the enjoined duties of the tithingman. He was ordered to keep all boys from swimming in the water. I do not doubt that the boys swam, since each tithingman had ten families under his charge; but of course they could not swim as often nor as long as they wished. From the brother sport of winter, skating, they were not debarred; and they went on thin ice, and fell through and were drowned, just as country boys are nowadays. Judge Sewall wrote on November 30th, 1696:

"Many scholars go in the afternoon to Scate on Fresh Pond. Wm. Maxwell and John Eyre fall in, are drowned."

In the _New England Weekly Journal_ of January 15th, 1728, we read:

"On Monday last Two Young Persons who were Brothers, viz Mr. George and Nathan Howell diverting themselves by Skating at the bottom of the Common, the Ice breaking under them they were both drowned;"

and in the same journal of two weeks later date we find record of another death by drowning.

"A young man, viz, Mr. Comfort Foster, skating on the ice from Squantum Point to Dorchester, fell into the Water & was drown'd. He was about 16 or 18 years of age."

Advertisements of "Mens and Boys Scates" appear in the _Boston Gazette_, of 1749, and the _Boston Evening Post_, of 1758. The February _News Letter_, of 1769, has a notice of the sale of "Best Holland Scates of Different Sizes."

In the list of goods on board a prize taken by a privateersman in 1712 were "Boxes of Toys." Higginson, writing to his brother in 1695, told him that "toys would sell if in small quantity." In exceeding small quantity one would fancy. In 1743 the _Boston News Letter_ advertised "English and Dutch Toys for Children." Not until October, 1771, on the lists of the Boston shop-keepers, who seemed to advertise and to sell every known article of dry goods, hardware, house furnishing, ornament, dress and food, came that single but pleasure-filled item "Boys Marbles." "Battledores and Shuttles" appeared in 1761. I know that no little maids could ever have lived without dolls, not even the serious-minded daughters of the Pilgrims; but the only dolls that were advertised in colonial newspapers were the "London drest babys" of milliners and mantua-makers, that were sent over to serve as fashion plates for modish New England dames. A few century-old dolls still survive Revolutionary times, wooden-faced monstrosities, shapeless and mean, but doubtless well-beloved and cherished in the days of their youth.

As years rolled by and eighteenth century frivolity and worldliness took the place of Puritan sobriety and religion, New England children shared with their elders in that growing love of amusement, which found but few and inadequate methods of expression in the lives of either old or young. In the year 1771 there was sent from Nova Scotia a young miss of New England parentage--Anna Green Winslow--to live with her aunt and receive a "finishing" in Boston schools. For the edification of her parents and her own practice in penmanship, this bright little maid kept a diary, of which portions have been preserved, and which I do not hesitate to say is the most sprightly record of the daily life of a girl of her age that I have ever read. There is not a dull word in it, and every page has some statement of historical value. She was twelve years old shortly after the diary was begun, and she then had a "coming-out party"--she became a "miss in her teens." To this rout only young ladies of her own age and in the most elegant Boston society were invited--no rough Boston boys. Miss Anna has written for us more than one prim and quaint little picture of similar parties--here is one of her clear and stiff little descriptions; and a graphic account also of the evening dress of a young girl at that time.

"I have now the pleasure to give you the result Viz; a very genteel well regulated assembly which we had at Mr. Soleys last evening, Miss Soley being mistress of the ceremony. Miss Soley desired me to assist Miss Hannah in making out a list of guests which I did. Sometime since I wrote all the invitation cards. There was a large company assembled in a large handsome upper room in the new end of the house. We had two fiddles and I had the honor to open the diversion of the evening in a minuet with Miss Soley. Here follows a list of the company as we form'd for country-dancing. Miss Soley and Miss Anna Green Winslow; Miss Calif and Miss Scott; Miss Williams and Miss McLarth; Miss Codman and Miss Winslow; Miss Ives and Miss Coffin; Miss Scollay and Miss Bella Coffin; Miss Waldo and Miss Quinsey; Miss Glover and Miss Draper; Miss Hubbard and Miss Cregur (usually pronounced Kicker) and two Miss Sheafs were invited but were sick or sorry and beg'd to be excused.

"There was a little Miss Russel and little ones of the family present who could not dance. As spectators there were Mr. & Mrs. Deming, Mr. & Mrs. Sweetser, Mr. and Mrs. Soley, Mr. & Mrs. Claney, Mrs. Draper, Miss Orice, Miss Hannah--our treat was nuts, raisins, cakes, Wine, punch hot and cold all in great plenty. We had a very agreeable evening from 5 to 10 o'clock. For variety we woo'd a widow, hunted the whistle, threaded the needle, & while the company was collecting we diverted ourselves with playing of pawns--_no rudeness_ Mamma I assure you. Aunt Deming desires you would particularly observe that the elderly part of the Company were _Spectators only_, that they mixed not in either of the above-described scenes.

"I was dressed in my yelloe coat, black bib and apron, black feathers on my head, my paste comb and all my paste garnet marquasett & jet pins, together with my silver plume--my locket, rings, black collar round my neck, black mitts and yards of blue ribbon (black and blue is high tast) striped tucker & ruffles (not my best) and my silk shoes completed my dress."

How clear the picture: can you not see it--the low raftered chamber softly alight with candles on mantel-tree and in sconces; the two fiddles soberly squeaking: the rows of demure little Boston maids, all of New England Brahmin blood, in high rolls, with nodding plumes and sparkling combs, with ruffles and mitts, little miniatures of their elegant mammas, soberly walking and curtseying through the stately minuet "with no rudeness I can assure you;" and discreetly partaking of hot and cold punch afterward.

There came at this time to another lady in this Boston court circle a grandchild eight years of age, from the Barbadoes, to also attend Boston schools. Missy left her grandmother's house in high dudgeon because she could not have wine at all her meals. And her parents upheld her, saying she had been brought up a lady and must have wine when she wished it. Evidently Cobbett's statement of the free drinking of wine, cider, and beer by American children was true--as Anna Green Winslow's "treat" would also show.

Though Puritan children had few recreations and amusements, they must have enjoyed a very cheerful, happy home life. Large families abounded. Cotton Mather says:

"One woman had not less than twenty-two children, and another had no less than twenty-three children by one husband whereof nineteen lived to mans estate, and a third who was mother to seven and twenty children."

Sir William Phips was one of twenty-six children, all with the same mother. Printer Green had thirty children. The Rev. John Sherman, of Watertown, had twenty-six children by two wives--twenty by his last wife. The Rev. Samuel Willard, first minister to Groton, had twenty children, and his father had seventeen children. Benjamin Franklin was one of a family of seventeen. Charles Francis Adams has told us of the fruitful vines of old Braintree.

The little Puritans rejoiced in some very singular names, the offspring of Roger Clap being good examples: Experience, Waitstill, Preserved, Hopestill, Wait, Thanks, Desire, Unite, and Supply.

Of the food given Puritan children we know but little. In an old almanac of the eighteenth century I find a few sentences of advice as to the "Easy Rearing of Children." The writer urges that boys as soon as they can run alone go without hats to harden them, and if possible sleep without night-caps, as soon as they have any hair. He advises always to wet children's feet in cold water and thus make them (the feet) tough, and also to have children wear thin-soled shoes "that the wet may come freely in." He says young children should never be allowed to drink cold drinks, but should always have their beer a little heated; that it is "best to feed them on Milk, Pottage, Flummery, Bread, and Cheese, and not let them drink their beer till they have first eaten a piece of Brown Bread." Fancy a young child nowadays making a meal of brown bread and cheese with warm beer! He suggests that they drink but little wine or liquor, and sleep on quilts instead of feathers. In such ways were reared our Revolutionary heroes.

Of the dazzling and beautiful array in our modern confectioners' shops little Priscilla and Hate-Evil could never have dreamed, even in visions. A few comfit-makers made "Lemon Pil Candy, Angelica Candy, Candy'd Eryngo Root & Carroway Comfits;" and a few sweetmeats came to port in foreign vessels, "Sugar'd Corrinder Seeds," "Glaz'd Almonds," and strings of rock-candy. Whole jars of the latter adamantine, crystalline, saccharine delight graced the shelves of many a colonial cupboard. And I suppose favored Salem children, the happy sons and daughters of opulent epicurean Salem shipowners, had even in colonial days Black Jacks and Salem Gibraltars. The first-named dainties, though dearly loved by Salem lads and lasses, always bore--indeed, do still bear--too strong a flavor of liquorice, too haunting a medicinal suggestion to be loved by other children of the Puritans. As an instance, on a large scale, of the retributive fate that always pursues the candy-eating wight, I state that the good ship Ann and Hope brought into Providence one hundred years ago, as part of her cargo, eight boxes of sweetmeats and twenty tubs of sugar candy, and on the succeeding voyage sternly fetched no sweets, but brought instead forty-eight boxes of rhubarb.

The children doubtless had prunes, figs, "courance," and I know they had "Raisins of the Sun" and "Bloom Raisins" galore. Advertisements of all these fruits appear in the earliest newspapers. Though "China Oranges" were frequently given to and by Judge Sewall, I have not found them advertised for sale till Revolutionary times, and I fancy few children had then tasted them. The native and domestic fruits were plentiful, but many of them were poor. The apples and pears and Kentish cherries were better than the peaches and grapes. The children gathered the summer berries in season, and the autumn's plentiful and spicy store of boxberries, checkerberries, teaberries or gingerbread berries with October's brown nuts. There were gingerbread and "cacks" even in the earliest days; but they were not sold in unlimited numbers. The omnipotent hand of Puritan law laid its firm hold on their manufacture. Judge Sewall often speaks, however, of Banbury cakes and Meers cakes; Meer was a celebrated Boston baker and confectioner. The colonists had also egg cakes and marchepanes and maccaroons.

There were children's books in those early days; not numerous, however, nor varied was the assortment from which Puritan youth in New England could choose. Here is the advertisement of one:

"Small book in easey verse Very Suitable for children, entitled The Prodigal Daughter or the Disobedient Lady Reclaimed: adorned with curious cuts, Price Sixpence."

Somehow, from the suggestion of the title we should hardly fancy this to be an edifying book for children. John Cotton supplied them with

"Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in Either England: Drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments for their Souls Nourishment. But may be of like Use to Any Children."

Another book was published in many editions and sold in large numbers, and much extolled by contemporary ministers. It was entitled:

"A Token for Children. Being the exact account of the Conversion & Holy & Exemplary Lives of several Young Children by James Janeway."

To it was added by Cotton Mather:

"Some examples of Children in whom the fear of God was remarkably Budding before they died; in several parts of New England."

Cotton Mather also wrote: "Good Lessons for Children, in Verse." Other books were, "A Looking Glasse for Children," "The life of Elizabeth Butcher, in the Early Piety series;" "The life of Mary Paddock, who died at the age of nine;" "The Childs new Plaything" (which was a primer); "Divine Songs in Easy Language;" and "Praise out of the Mouth of Babes;" "A Particular Account of some Extraordinary Pious Motions and devout Exercises observed of late in many Children in Siberia." Also accounts of pious motions of children in Silesia and of Jewish children in Berlin. One oasis appeared in the desert waste--after the first quarter of the eighteenth century Puritan children had Mother Goose.

By 1787, in Isaiah Thomas' list of "books Suitable for Children of all ages," we find less serious books. "Tom Jones Abridged," "Peregrine Pickle Abridged," "Vice in its Proper Shape," "The Sugar Plumb," "Bag of Nuts Ready Crack'd," "Jacky Dandy," "History of Billy and Polly Friendly." Among the "Chapman's Books for the Edification and Amusement of young Men and Women who are not able to Purchase those of a Higher Price" are, "The Amours and Adventures of Two English Gentlemen in Italy," "Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony," "The Lovers Secretary," and "Laugh and be Fat." Another advertisement of about the same date contained, among the books for misses, "The Masqued Wedding," "The Elopement," "The Passionate Lovers," "Sketches of the History and Importance of the Fair Sex," "Original Love Letters," and "Six Dialogues of Young Misses Relating to Matrimony;" thus showing that love-stories were not abhorred by the descendants of the Puritans.

In such an exceptional plantation as New England, a colony peopled not by the commonplace and average Englishmen of the day, but by men of special intelligence, and almost universally of good education, it was inevitable that early and profound attention should be paid to the establishment of schools. Cotton Mather said in 1685, in his sermon before the Governor and his Council, "the Youth in this country are verie Sharp and early Ripe in their Capacities." So quickly had New England air developed the typical New England traits. And the early schoolmasters, too, may be thanked for their scholars' early ripeness and sharpness.

At an early age both girls and boys were sent to dame-schools, where, if girls were not taught much book-learning, they were carefully instructed in all housewifely arts. They learned to cook; and to spin and weave and knit, not only for home wear but for the shops; even little children could spin coarse tow string and knit coarse socks for shop-keepers. Fine knitting was well paid for, and was a matter of much pride to the knitter, and many curious and elaborate stitches were known; the herring-bone and the fox- and geese-patterns being prime favorites. Initials were knit into mittens and stockings; one clever young miss of Shelburne, N. H., could knit the alphabet and a verse of poetry into a single pair of mittens. Fine embroidery was to New England women and girls a delight. The Indians at an early day called the English women "lazie Squaes" when they saw the latter embroidering coifs instead of digging in the fields. Mr. Brownell, the Boston schoolmaster in 1716, taught "Young Gentle Women and Children all sorts of Fine Works as Feather works, Filigree, and Painting on Glass, Embroidering a new Way, Turkey-work for Handkerchiefs two new Ways, fine new Fashion purses, flourishing and plain Work." We find a Newport dame teaching "Sewing, Marking, Queen Stitch and Knitting," and a Boston shopkeeper taking children and young ladies to board and be taught "Dresden and Embroidery on gauze, Tent Stitch and all sorts of Colour'd Work." Crewels, embroidery, silks, and chenilles appear frequently in early newspapers. Many of the fruits of these careful lessons of colonial childhood remain to us; quaint samplers, bed hangings, petticoats and pockets, and frail lace veils and scarfs. Miss Susan Hayes Ward has resuscitated from these old embroideries a curious stitch used to great effect on many of them, and employed also on ancient Persian embroideries, and she points out that the designs are Persian also. This stitch was not known in the modern English needlework schools; but just as good old Elizabethan words and phrases are still used in New England, though obsolete in England, so this curious old stitch has lived in the colony when lost in the mother country; or, it may be possible, since it is found so frequently in the vicinity of Plymouth, that the Pilgrims obtained both stitch and designs in Holland, whose greater commerce with the Orient may have supplied to deft English fingers the Persian pattern.

Other accomplishments were taught to girls; "cutting of Escutcheons" and paper flowers--"Papyrotamia" it was ambitiously called--and painting on velvet; and quilt-piecing in a hundred different and difficult designs. They also learned to make bone lace with pillow and bobbins.

The boys were thrust at once into that iron-handed but wholly wise grasp--the Latin Grammar. The minds trained in earliest youth in that study, as it was then taught, have made their deep and noble impress on this nation. The study of mathematics was, until well into this century, a hopeless maze to many youthful minds. Doubtless the Puritans learned multiplication tables and may have found them, as did Marjorie Fleming, "a horrible and wretched plaege," though no pious little New Englanders would have dared to say as she did, "You cant conceive it the most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7, it is what nature itself can't endure."

Great attention was paid to penmanship. Spelling was nought if the "wrighting" were only fair and flowing. I have never read any criticism of teachers by either parents or town officers save on the one question of writing. How deeply children were versed or grounded in the knowledge of the proper use of "Simme colings nots of interiogations peorids and commoes," I do not know. A boundless freedom apparently was given, as was also in orthography--if we judge from the letters of the times, where "horrid false spells," as Cotton Mather called them, abound.

It is natural to dwell on the religious teaching of Puritan children, because so much of their education had a religious element in it. They must have felt, like Tony Lumpkin, "tired of having good dinged into 'em." Their primers taught religious rhymes; they read from the Bible, the Catechism, the Psalm Book, and that lurid rhymed horror "The Day of Doom;" they parsed, too, from these universal books. How did they parse these lines from the Bay Psalm Book?

"And sayd He would not them waste; had not Moses stood (whom he chose) 'fore him i' th' breach; to turn his wrath lest that he should waste those."

Their "horn books"--

"books of stature small Which with pellucid horn secured are To save from fingers wet the letters fair,"