sciousness of her responsibility toward her children
is also set forth in this statement: "I am resolved to be a good Mother
to my children, to pray for them, to set them good examples, to give
them good advice, to be careful both in their souls and bodys, to watch
over their tender minds, to carefully root out the first appearing and
budings of vice, and to instill piety.... To spair no paines or trouble
to do them good.... And never omit to encourage every Virtue I may see
dawning in them."[96] That her care brought forth good fruit is
indicated when she spoke, years later, of her boy as "a son who has
lived to near twenty-three years of age without once offending me."

Here and there we thus have directed testimony as to the part taken by
mothers in the mental and spiritual training of children. For instance,
in New York, according to Mrs. Grant, such instruction was left entirely
to the women. "Indeed, it was on the females that the task of religious
instruction generally devolved; and in all cases where the heart is
interested, whoever teaches at the same time learns.... Not only the
training of children, but of plants, such as needed peculiar care or
skill to rear them, was the female province."[97]

In New England, as we have seen, the parental love and care for the
little ones was at least as much a part of the father's domestic
activities as of the mother's; unfortunately the men were in the
majority as writers, and they generally wrote of what they themselves
did for their children. Abigail Adams was one of the exceptional women,
and her letters have many a reference to the training of her famous son.
Writing to him while he was with his father in Europe in 1778, she said:
"My dear Son.... Let me enjoin it upon you to attend constantly and
steadfastly to the precepts and instructions of your father, as you
value the happiness of your mother and your own welfare. His care and
attention to you render many things unnecessary for me to write ... but
the inadvertency and heedlessness of youth require line upon line and
precept upon precept, and, when enforced by the joint efforts of both
parents, will, I hope, have a due influence upon your conduct; for, dear
as you are to me, I would much rather you should have found your grave
in the ocean you have crossed, or that an untimely death crop you in
your infant years, than see you an immoral profligate, or graceless
child...."[98]

Such quotations should prove that