1. Boarding-Schools for Girls
Of schools for girls in the period from 1650 to 1750 we can get only the most scattered bits of information. It is apparent that there were boarding-schools for girls from five to sixteen, and that these schools rapidly increased in number, but of the scope and nature of the instruction we have only the most general ideas. In 1677 there appeared the following advertisement:
In Oxford there is set up a boarding-school for young gentlewomen (by John Waver, Master in the art of dancing) where they may be educated and instructed in the art of dancing, singing, music, writing, and all manner of works.
A more famous school was at Chelsea in Gorges House. Our first knowledge of this boarding-school comes from a play given by the pupils. It was dated 1676 and was entitled "Beauty's Triumph, a masque presented by the scholars of Mr. Jeffrey Banister and Mr. James Hart at their new Boarding-School for young Ladies and Gentlewomen kept in that house which was formerly Sir Arthur Gorges at Chelsey."[377] The "Epilogue—Spoken by a young lady" recounts "the serious things" done in the school, embroidery and modeling in wax being the chief items.
One in rich works with lively colours tells
Lucretia's rape or mourning Philomel's;
Each chaste beholder sighs and drops a tear.
Another's different mind more pleasure takes
In various forms to mould the painted wax;
Such shape, such beauty in each piece is shown,
Nature sits pale, or blushing on her own,
To see her pride by curious art out-done.
Between 1680 and 1690 Purcell's Dido and Æneas was given at this school. D'Urfey's Love for Money; or, the Boarding School (1691) has its scene "Chelsey by the River" and is supposed to refer to this school. It was here that Molly Verney learned to japan. The school maintained its repute under Mr. Portman, and later under Josias Priests.
In 1680 the school was advertised:
Josias Priests, dancing master, that kept a boarding school for gentlewomen in Leicester Field is removed to the great school-house in Chelsea, which was Mr. Portman's, where he did teach, and will continue the said master and others to the improvement of the said school.
Gorges House was demolished in 1726.
Two other notices belong in the reign of Queen Anne. The first one shows the continued popularity of the Hackney schools:
Whereas it is reported that Mrs. Overing who keeps a Boarding School at Bethnal Green near Hackney, is leaving off; this is to give Notice that the said Report is false, if not Malicious. And that she continues to take sober young Gentlewomen to board and teach whatever is necessary to the Accomplishment of that sex.
The second one reads,
Mrs. Elizabeth Tutchin continues to keep her school at Highgate, notwithstanding Reports to the contrary. Where young Gentlewomen may be soberly Educated, and taught all sorts of Learning fit for young Gentlewomen.[378]
In The Levellers a dialogue between two young ladies, we have an account of the education given at most of these schools. One of the young ladies says:
You know my father was a tradesman, and lived very well by his traffick; and I, being beautiful, he thought nature had already given me part of my portion, and therefore he would add a liberal education, that I might be a complete gentlewoman; away he sent me to the boarding school; there I learned to dance and sing; to play on the bass viol, virginals, spinet, and guitar. I learned to make wax work, japan, paint upon glass, to raise paste, make sweetmeats, sauces, and everything that was genteel and fashionable.[379]
One element here indicated seems to have held a fairly permanent place, and that is some trifling form of hand-work. A book published in 1671 gives a hint as to the nature of this work. It is entitled Four hundred new sorts of Birds, Beasts, Flowers, Fruits, Fish, Flyes, Worms, Landskips, Ovals, and Histories, etc. Lively coloured for all sorts of Gentlewomen and School-Mistresses Works. Many of the kinds of work with which women attempted to get rid of their leisure were apparently taught in the schools. All sorts of needlework seem to have been included in the necessary subjects. The interest in samplers is shown by a reference in The Tatler, April 19, 1709, to an "excellent discourse" by "Mrs. Arabella Manly, School-Mistress at Hackney," entitled An Essay on the Invention of Samplers, communicated by Mrs. Judith Bagford with an account of her Collections for the same.[380]
In 1714 a "Venerable Correspondent" wrote to The Spectator that in her day young women "Worked Beds, Chairs, and Hangings," and urged The Spectator to recommend a renewal of these activities. The humorous response is hardly an exaggerated statement of the great pieces of work undertaken by the women of the seventeenth century:
What a delightful Entertainment must it be to the Fair Sex, whom their native Modesty, and the Tenderness of Men towards them, exempts from Publick Business, to pass their hours in imitating Fruits and Flowers, and transplanting all the Beauties of Nature into their own Dress, or raising a new Creation in their Closets and Apartments. How pleasing is the Amusement of walking among the Shades and Groves planted by themselves, in surveying Heroes slain by their Needle, or little Cupids which they have brought into the World without Pain.
This is, methinks, the most proper way wherein a Lady can shew a fine Genius, and I cannot forbear wishing, that several Writers of that Sex had chosen to apply themselves rather to Tapestry than Rhime. Your Pastoral Poetesses may vent their Fancy in Rural Landskips, and place despairing Shepherds under silken Willows, or drown them in a Stream of Mohair.... How memorable would that Matron be, who should have it Inscribed upon her Monument, "That she wrought out the whole Bible in Tapestry, and died in a good old Age, after having covered three hundred Yards of Wall in the Mansion-House."[381]
In the eighteenth century embroidery and tapestry are still an occupation, but other and less tedious works partially supplant them. Pope's Grotto was not an isolated curiosity. The Spectator suggests the part women were taking in the manufacture of grottoes:
There is a very particular kind of Work, which of late several Ladies here in our Kingdom seem very fond of, which seems very well adapted to a Poetical Genius: It is the making of Grottos. I know a Lady who has a very Beautiful one, composed by herself, nor is there one Shell in it not stuck up by her own Hands.[382]
Pope wrote an inscription for a "Grotto of Shells at Crux Easton, the Work of Nine young Ladies." These young ladies were sisters and their grotto was also celebrated by "N. H."[383] In 1735 "S. J." wrote a poem to a Lady to accompany a present of shells and stones for her grotto.[384] In 1746 Mr. Graves congratulated Lady Fane on her "grotto divine" where "miracles are wrought by shells."[385]
Paper-cutting also remained something of an art. Waller had praised a lady who skillfully cut a tree in paper.[386] Cutting silhouettes was one of the diversions of the circle of Dr. Swift, Dr. Delany, and Mr. Sheridan. There is a series of poems, concerning "Dan Jackson's Picture Cut in Silk and Paper," by Lady Betty.[387] The most important cut-paper work on record is Mrs. Delany's herbarium or paper mosaics, but this did not come till the last quarter of the century.[388]
Mrs. Barber's Patch-Work Screen gets its name from another sort of device. Screens were adorned by pasting odds and ends of pictures all over them. Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe wrote to the Duchess of Somerset in 1734: "The screen your Ladyship sent me is a Rareeshew for all the women and children about town who have anything of a nice and elegant taste." The Duchess was at this time doing tent-stitch concerning which Mrs. Rowe wrote:
I am delighted with all your entertainments, except the Tent-stitch; and that I own, I admire, but then 't is as some people admire virtue, only in speculation. It seems to me an ante-diluvian invention, a task for those long-breath'd people, who spent a sort of eternity on earth, compar'd to the short duration of a modern period. However, I am in no pain for your Ladyship: whether your attempt is a chair or a stool, I suppose it will be an hereditary occupation; if you finish the branch of a tree, and Lady ——, a shepherd's crook, the service of your generation is done, and you may contentedly leave the rest to be finished by your children's children.
In 1758 Lady Bute had just completed a carpet concerning which she wrote to her mother, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lady Mary answered:
You need not excuse to me taking notice of your carpet. I think you have great reason to value your-self on the performance, but will have better than I have had if you can persuade anybody else to do so. I could never get people to believe that I set a stitch, when I worked six hours in a day.
Perhaps the most popular of all the arts was japanning. Molly (b. 1675), the daughter of Edmund Verney, was sent at eight to Mrs. Priest's school at Great Chelsey. Her father wrote to her:
I find you have a desire to learn to Jappan, as you call it, and I approve of it; and so I shall of anything that is Good & Virtuous, therefore learn in God's name all Good Things, & I will willingly be at the Charge so farr as I am able—tho' they come from Japan or from never so farr & Looke of an Indian Hue & Odour, for I admire all accomplishments that will render you considerable, and Lovely in the sight of God and man.[389]
The continued favor accorded japanning is shown by a letter from Mrs. Rowe to the Duchess of Somerset in 1734:
My great attainment at present is colouring prints: If Lady —— wants any birds for her new Japan, I have some at her service. Mrs. —— is so inchanted with this new japanning, that she has abandon'd Mr. Baxter, and the Greek Fathers, and employes her time in sticking bears and monkies on all the wooden furniture she can find about the house.
Japanning was taught in most of the schools.
Mrs. Montagu, Queen of the Blue-Stockings, was indefatigable in her devotion to hand-work. Not only was she familiar with every kind of needlework, but she turned in wood and ivory, made shell grottoes, and designed shell frames, and she planned and executed feather hangings for a room. Mrs. Delany is the only lady whose recorded work exceeds that of Mrs. Montagu in amount and variety.
Domestic science was faintly foreshadowed in what were known as "Pastry Schools." The following illustrates the type:
To all young ladies at Edw. Kidder's Pastry School in little Lincoln's Inn Fields are taught all sorts of Pastry and Cookery, Dutch hollow works, and Butter works, on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturday, in the afternoon, and on the same days in the Morning, at his school in Norris Street in St. James's Market, and at his School in St. Martin's Le Grand, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the Afternoons. And at his School at St. Mary Overies Dock, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday Mornings from 9 to 12.[390]
An entertaining passage in Shadwell's The Scowrers (1690) indicates something of the character of a girl's education in the country:
Priscilla. Did she not bestow good breeding upon you there?
Eugenia. Breeding! what, to learn to feed Ducklings, and cram Chickens?
Clara. To see cows milk'd, learn to Churn, and make cheese?
Eugen. To make Clouted cream, and whipt sillabubs?
Clara. To make a Caraway Cake, and raise Py Crust?
Eugen. And to learn the top of your skill in Syrrup, Sweetmeat, Aqua Mirabilis, and Snayl water.
Clara. Or your great Cunning in Cheese cake, several Creams and Almond butter.
Prisc. Ay, ay, and 't were better for all the Gentlemen in England that Wives had no other breeding, but you had Musick and Dancing.
Eugen. Yes, an ignorant, illiterate, hopping Puppy, that rides his Dancing Circuit thirty Miles about, lights off his tyred steed, draws his Kit at a poor Country creature, and gives her a Hich in her Pace, that she shall never recover.
Clara. And for Musick an old hoarse singing man riding ten miles from his Cathedral to Quaver out the Glories of our Birth and State, or it may be a Scotch Song more hideous and barbarous than an Irish Cronan.
Eugen. And another Musick Master from the next town to Teach one to twinkle out Lilly burlero upon an old pair of Virginals, that sound worse than a Tinker's Kettle that cries for his work on.
We happen to have somewhat more definite knowledge of one early eighteenth-century school for girls. Mrs. Hannah Wood, the "Mistress of a College-Boarding School" in Bury, in 1723, was the sister of Mr. D. Bellamy who wrote "Dramatic Entertainments" for the "Annual Public Exercises of the School." These "Entertainments" were published with a dedication to Mrs. Wood, "A Prefatory Essay," and some "Familiar Letters." Mr. Bellamy considers it the particular province of Mrs. Wood "to polish Nature," since she has "a perfect Idea of every Female Accomplishment" and if her young ladies can be "One Virtue the better" through his labors it is ample reward.
Mr. Bellamy's plays were rather elaborately staged. There were "pastoral figure dances" and considerable singing. One character enters "drest like a Gentleman." There is a machine for the descent of Apollo. The dramas performed are carefully adapted to young ladies, "the porcelaine-clay of humankind." Mr. Bellamy examines every word and weighs each thought to see that "The sence is Chast and inoffensive to nicest tast." The first of the plays given is Vanquish'd Love: or, The Jealous Queen, an adaptation of the Rosamund of Addison. The emphasis on warm passions, amorous prayers, guilty fires, rage, jealousy, vengeance, and death, would but doubtfully contribute to the delicate innocence of the young ladies. All is, however, made right by the abrupt and unnatural repentance of King Henry, and his eulogy of the sweets of "Virtuous Love." The second play, Innocence Betray'd; or, The Royal Imposter, was taken from Cowley's Love's Riddle. In the Epilogue a young lady says the auditors may
Wish we had Rehears'd our Spelling Books:
And think our Time had been much better spent
In Cross-Stitch, Irish-Stitch, or at the Tent.
And Mr. Bellamy is quite conscious that some indulgent and timorous parents may censure his designs of teaching young ladies to speak before an audience:
There are too many, I know, are of Opinion, that the Art of Pronunciation is no Female Accomplishment; that the Ladies were design'd by Nature for the Objects of Sight only; and that to encourage them in Dramatic Representations, is to offer Violence to their native Modesty....
'T was an Observation of One of the most learned Prelates of his Age, the late Archbishop of Cambray, That the general Mistake of Parents in the Education of their Daughters, was this: "That they were too solicitous about the Ornament of their Person, and too remiss, if not entirely regardless, of the Endowments of their Mind."
'T is pity methinks that the favourite Works of Nature should be nothing but moving Pictures, and, like Sir Godfrey Kneller's Canvas, as Mr. Dryden expresses it, only Look a Voice; that the Study of the Toilet should be recommended to them, as their most material Accomplishment, whilst the Improvement of their Judgment is neglected as a Trifle, and the early Exercise of their Rational Faculties esteem'd, if not a Crime, an Act of Imprudence and ill Conduct.
In the presentation of the play the young ladies are urged to enter into the characters they have taken, and to remember the reverence and respect they owe their auditors. Under more specific directions Mr. Bellamy says:
In the first place, Ladies, carefully avoid all unnatural Distortions both of your Limbs and Features. Wry mouths, contracted Brows, shrug'd up shoulders, and the like are Farce and Buffoonry, very disagreeable and very ungenteel: Nay, Coughing and Spitting, unless very accidental, are vicious Habits, and ought betimes to be corrected.
Among "Useful Observations" is the following on modulation of the voice:
All Persons Names, viz., I, Thou, He, She, We, Ye, and They, etc. and their following States, Me, Thee, Him, Her, Us, You, and Them, etc. and their Possessives, My, Thy, Our, Yours, Theirs, Mine, Thine, etc. and all Epithets, Adjectives, or Qualities, by which Substantives, Beings, or Things are explain'd and distinguish'd as, Black, White, Good, Bad, Round, Square, and the like, should always be read or spoken with a clear, open, and distinct Voice, as they are for the most part very emphatical, and the Beauty of Expression depends much upon them.
In a letter on "Female Accomplishments" the Virtuous and Fair Antiope in the twenty-second book of Fénelon's Telemachus is set forth as an example of a lady of the first quality. Her silence, modesty, reservedness, gentleness, her assiduous industry in spinning and embroidering, her regularity and order and poise, make her a treasure worthy to be sought in far regions. In the letter on "Innocent Recreations" reading is particularly commended. The "chaste and very useful" collection of books suggested is based on the Postscript to Dr. Hickes's Instructions for the Education of a Daughter, and is as follows:
The whole Duty of Man, The Lady's Calling, The Government of the Tongue, Mr. Nelson's Companion for the Feast and Fasts of the Church of England, Meditations and Soliloquies of St. Augustine, Comber and Bennet on the Liturgy, Mr. Boyle on the Style of the Scriptures. Tillotson's Sermons, Paradise Lost with Addison's judicious and entertaining Remarks, Blackmore's Paraphrase on Job, Cowley's Davideis.
For the gayer part of poetry,
Mr. Waller, Mr. Cowley's Mistress, some pieces of Mr. Prior, particularly his Henry and Emma. Mr. Norris's Miscellany, and Mr. Watts's Horæ Lyricæ. For precepts of Morality I would lay before her Sir Roger L'Estrange's Seneca and his Fables; Mr. Collier's Essays and his Antoninus and some select pieces of the Letters and Spectators.
For history, Lord Clarendon on the Rebellion and Dr. Welwood's Memoirs are suggested.
For novels, the Adventures of Telemachus, translated by Mr. Ozell; and Don Quixot by Mr. Motteux, Mr. Congreve, and others, are the only Pieces that I would offer to her. For Plays, tho' there are too many unfit for a young Lady's Perusal: yet such as Cato, Love and Empire, Tamerlane, the Mourning Bride, the Distress'd Mother, Phædra and Hippolitus, and the Conscious Lovers, with many more, can never be read without Pleasure and Improvement.
Schools for young ladies increased in number during the eighteenth century, especially near London. Malcolm, in 1808, said that even so early as 1759
two or three houses might be seen in almost every village, with the inscription, "Young Ladies boarded and educated," where every description of tradesmen sent their children to be instructed, not in the useful attainments necessary for humble life, but the arts of coquetry and self-consequence—in short, those of a young lady. The person who received the children had then the sounding title of Governess: and French and Dancing-masters prepared the girl for the hour when contempt for her parents' deficiencies was to be substituted for affection and respect. Instead of reading their native language with propriety and just emphasis, it was totally neglected, and in place of nervous sentences and flowing periods, the vulgarisms of low life were continued; while the lady repeated familiar words of the French language with a sound peculiar to Boarding-schools, and quite unintelligible to a native of France: the pleasing labours of the needle were thrown aside, and the young lady soon became an adept in imitating laces and spoiling the beauty of coloured silks.[391]
The Idler in 1750 comments on female education as spoiling girls for service:
Scarcely a wench was to be got for all work, since education had made such numbers of fine ladies that nobody would now accept a lower title than that of waiting-maid, or something that might qualify her to wear laced shoes and long ruffles and to sit at work in the parlor window.