Virginia and the Carolinas the daughters regularly
received instruction, not only in household duties and the supervision
of the multitude of servants, but in music, dancing, drawing, etiquette
and such other branches as might help them to shine in the social life
that was so abundant. Thomas Jefferson has left us some hints as to the
education of aristocratic women in Virginia, in the following letter of
advice to his daughter:

"Dear Patsy:--With respect to the distribution of your time, the
following is what I should approve:

"From 8 to 10, practice music.

"From 10 to 1, dance one day and draw another.

"From 1 to 2, draw on the day you dance, and write a letter next
day.

"From 3 to 4, read French.

"From 4 to 5, exercise yourself in music.

"From 5 till bedtime, read English, write, etc.

"Informe me what books you read, what tunes you learn, and inclose
me your best copy of every lesson in drawing.... Take care that
you never spell a word wrong.... It produces great praise to a
lady to spell well...."[52]

It should be noted, of course, that this message was written in the
later years of the eighteenth century when the French influence in
America was far more prominent than during the seventeenth. Moreover,
Jefferson himself had then been in France some time, and undoubtedly was
permeated with French ideas and ideals. But the established custom
throughout the South, except in Louisiana, demanded that the daughters
of the leading families receive a much more varied form of schooling
than their sisters in most parts of the North were obtaining. While the
sons of wealthy planters were frequently sent to English universities,
the daughters were trained under private tutors, who themselves were
often university graduates, and not infrequently well versed in
languages and literatures. The advice of Philip Fithian to John Peck,
his successor as private instructor in the family of a wealthy
Virginian, may be enlightening as to the character and sincerity of
these colonial teachers of Southern girls:

"The last direction I shall venture to mention on this head, is that you
abstain totally from women. What I would have you understand from this,
is, that by a train of faultless conduct in the whole course of your
tutorship, you make every Lady within the Sphere of your acquaintance,
who is between twelve and forty years of age, so much pleased wit