“Gentlewomen of eight or nine years old, that can read well, may be instructed in a year or two (according to their parts) in the Latin and French tongues; by such plain and simple Rules, accommodated to the Grammar of the English tongue, that they may easily keep what they have learned, and recover what they shall lose; as those that learn Musick by Notes.
“Those that will bestow longer time may learn the other languages aforementioned, as they please.
“Repositories also for Visibles shall be prepared; by which, from beholding the things, Gentlewomen may learn the Names, Natures, Values, and Use of Herbs, Shrubs, Trees, Mineral-pieces, Metals, and Stones.
“Those that please may learn Limning, Preserving, Pastry, and Cookery.
“Those that will allow longer time may attain some general knowledge in Astronomy, Geography, but especially in Arithmetick and History.
“Those that think one language enough for a Woman, may forbear the Languages, and learn only Experimental Philosophy, and more or fewer of the other things aforementioned, as they incline.
“The Rate certain shall be £20 per annum: But if a competent improvement be made in the Tongues, and the other things aforementioned, as shall be agreed upon, then something more will be expected. But the parents shall judge what shall be deserved by the Undertaker.
“Those that think these Things Improbable, or Impracticable, may have further account every Tuesday, at Mr. Mason’s Coffee-house, in Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange; and Thursdays, at the ‘Bolt and Tun,’ in Fleet Street, between the hours of three and six in the afternoon, by some person whom Mrs. Makin shall appoint.”
Mrs. Makin’s school, under herself and her successors, and her system, adopted by imitators, had good influences in their “little day.” Those influences continued beyond that period in families like that of Mrs. Robinson, where every variety of knowledge was accounted valuable. It was a period when grace of carriage was held by others to be as necessary as a well-stored mind; and very popular in some English households was a little volume from the French, called “The Art of being Easy at all Times and in all Places, written chiefly for the use of a Lady of Quality.”