The Boarding School; Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils / Consisting of Information, Instruction and Advice, Calculated to Improve the Manners and Form the Character of Young Ladies. To Which Is Added, a Collection of Letters, Written by the Pupils to Their Instructress, Their Friends, and Each Other.

by Hannah Webster Foster

And to the quire celestial Thee resound,

Th’ eternal cause, support, and End of all!”

By this beautiful poem we are allured to the study of nature, and to the contemplation of nature’s God. Our hearts glow with devotion and love to the sovereign Lord and benefactor of the universe; and we are drawn, by the innumerable displays of his goodness, to the practice of virtue and religion.

You may, possibly call me an enthusiast. Be it so. Yet I contend for the honor, but especially for the privilege, of being a cheerful one. For I think we dishonor our heavenly father by attaching any thing gloomy or forbidding to his character. In this participation of divine blessings, let us rather exercise a thankful, and contented disposition.

I remain your’s most affectionately.

CAROLINE LITTLETON.

To Mrs. WILLIAMS.

Boston.

DEAR MADAM,

By her desire in conjunction with my own inclination, I inform you that Harriot Henly, is no more——Yesterday she gave her hand, and renounced her name together; threw aside the sprightly girl we have been so long accustomed to admire, and substituted in her place the dignified and respectable head of a family, in Mrs. Farmington.