mer, the children were
instructed by females in reading, sewing, and other kinds of work. The
books chiefly made use of were the Bible and Psalter. Those who have had
the advantages of receiving the rudiments of their education at the
schools of the present day, can scarcely form an adequate idea of the
contrast between them, and those of an earlier age; and of the great
improvements which have been made even in the common country schools.
The disadvantages of my early education I have experienced during life;
and, among various others, the acquiring of a very faulty pronunciation;
a habit contracted so early, that I cannot wholly rectify it in later
years."

North and South women complained of the lack of educational advantages.
Madame Schuyler deplored the scarcity of books and of facilities for
womanly education, and spoke with irony of the literary tastes of the
older ladies: "Shakespeare was a questionable author at the Flatts,
where the plays were considered grossly familiar, and by no means to be
compared to 'Cato' which Madame Schuyler greatly admired. The 'Essay on
Man' was also in high esteem with this lady."[73] Many women of the day
realized their lack of systematic training, and keenly regretted the
absence of opportunity to obtain it. Abigail Adams, writing to her
husband on the subject, says, "If you complain of education in sons what
shall I say of daughters who every day experience the want of it? With
regard to the education of my own children I feel myself soon out of my
depth, destitute in every part of education. I most sincerely wish that
some more liberal plan might be laid and executed for the benefit of the
rising generation and that our new Constitution may be distinguished for
encouraging learning and virtue. If we mean to have heroes, statesmen,
and philosophers, we should have learned women. The world perhaps would
laugh at me, but you, I know, have a mind too enlarged and liberal to
disregard sentiment. If as much depends as is allowed upon the early
education of youth and the first principles which are instilled take the
deepest root great benefit must arise from the literary accomplishments
in women."[74]

And again, Hannah Adams' _Memoir_ of 1832 expresses in the following
words the intellectual hunger of the Colonial woman: "I was very
desirous of learning the rudiments of Latin, Greek, geography, and
logic. Some gentlemen who boarded at my father's offered to instruct me
in these bra