Unequalled in size, original in design, and rich in execution, these volumes must be seen to be appreciated; then indeed the expressions which Charles I used concerning them, which sound extravagant, can be well understood. Although much faded, and sometimes re-backed and the sides relaid, with the silken ties all gone, enough of their old magnificence still remains to make us feel that we should indeed be proud that English binders could have produced such works.[86]

Aside from these religious schools, which were very small, there were undoubtedly some fashionable boarding-schools, such as Mrs. Salmon's school in Hackney where Katherine Fowler went.[87] Another fully organized private school at Hackney was that kept by Mrs. Perwick in 1643, where as many as eight hundred girls had been educated.[88] The existence of a school for girls in Richmond is shown by a curious document found among a large number of miscellaneous papers in Warwickshire. It is entitled "Account for Peggy's Disbursements since her going to schoole at Richmond, being in Sept. 1646":

s.d.
Payd for a louehood2.6
For carriing the truncke to Queenhive0.8
For carriing it to Hammersmith1.0
Payd for two pair of shoes4.0
Payd for a singing booke1.0
Given to Mrsis Jervoises mayd1.0
Payed for a hairlace and a pair of showstrings1.0
For an inckhorne0.4
For faggots. 2s.8d.; and cleaving of wood, 12d.3.8
For 9li of soape 2s. 4d.; and starch 4d.2.8
For hooks and a bolte for the doore0.9
For sugar and licorich1.4
For silke and thread0.6
For 3li of soape, 11d.; and starch 4d.; and carrying letters 6d.1.9
For 3li of soape, 12d.; and starch 4d.1.4
For sugar, licorich and coultsfoot1.6
For a necklace, 12d.; for a m. of pins, 12d.2.0
For a pair of cands (candles?) 6d.; for muckadine 4d.; for wormsend (worsted), 2d.1.0
For shostrings, 6d.; for going on errands, 6d.1.0
For 3li of soape, 12d.; for starch 4d.; thread and silk 4d.1.8
For a bason, 4d.; for carrying letters, 6d.; for tape 4d.1.2
For soape, 12d.; for starch, 4d.; for going on errands, 6d.1.10
For a pair of pattins, 16d.; for three pair of shoes, 6s.7.4
For callico to line her stockins, 2d.; for showstrings 4d.0.6
For 3li of soape, 12d.; for a pint of white wine 4d.1.4
For ale, 3d.; for 1/2li of sugar, 8d.0.11
For a m. of pins, 12d.; for a corle and one pair of half-handed gloves, 8d.1.8
Given to the writing mr.2.6
For silke, 12d.; for silver for the tooth-pick case, 4d.1.4
For a sampler, 12d.; for thread, needles, paper, pins, and parchment, 30d.3.6
For a pair of shoes, 2s. 2d.; for ribbon, 3d.2.5
For soape, 12d.; for starch, 4d.; for carriing a letter, 4d.1.8
To the waterman bringing the (box?) to Richmond1.0
For shoestrings, 6d.; for purge, 18d.2.0
For bringing the box from Richmond1.0
For a coach from Fleetestreete1.0
For wood to this time15.10
———
Totall of disbursements to this 15th day of Aprill, 1647 is£3. 18. 5 [89]

Peggy's clothing and her board and tuition must have been paid for by her father. The accurate little list represents only her personal and incidental expenses. The writing-master's fee, the purchase of an inkhorn, a singing-book, and materials for a sampler are the only suggestions that Peggy was being educated. But several of the items are indicative of general school conditions. For instance, if a girl had a fire she evidently had to pay extra for it, Peggy's largest single item being for wood, "cleaving of wood," and "faggotts." The next largest sum goes for "soape" and starch. Peggy apparently did her own laundry, or at least bought the materials used; and she bought them in amounts suggestive of disproportionate emphasis on clean linen. In clothing the most surprising purchase is of six pairs of shoes and one pair of "pattins" in six months. It is a pity we have not the letters for the carrying of which Peggy paid ten pence. They might serve to throw light on her expense account.

In May, 1649, Evelyn records in his Diary, "Went to Putney by water, in the barge with divers ladies, to see the schools, or Colleges, of the young gentlewomen." These Putney schools may have been under the charge of Mrs. Makin. In that case they were the forerunners of the more advanced school she established at Tottenham High Cross in 1673.

One interesting point occurs in the foundation of a school for boys by Balthasar Gerbier in 1648. This school was an academy wherein the sons of noble families could be taught classics, mathematics, drawing, painting, carving, music, behavior, etc. The novel element in the school is Gerbier's advertisement December 21, 1649, in which he says that ladies are to be admitted to his lectures.[90]

If girls were educated at all during the period from 1603 to 1660 it must have been, in the main, at home under parents and tutors. But even of such education the records are meager. Little Gidding was practically a home school, but it stands as an isolated attempt. The few little pictures of more secular home education that have been by chance preserved to us indicate no very valuable training. Mrs. Alice Thornton (1626-1707), Lady Anne, daughter of the Earl of Strafford, and Lady Arabella Wentworth, were brought up in Ireland and were given "the best education that Kingdome could afford." They were taught to write and speak French; singing, dancing, playing on the lute and theorboe, and such other accomplishments as "working silkes, gummework, sweetmeats, and other sutable huswifery" such as was necessary for girls of their social position.[91]

We get some further light from autobiographical sketches by the Duchess of Newcastle,[92] Lady Fanshawe,[93] and Mrs. Hutchinson,[94] women whose mature work belongs in the Restoration period or not many years before it, but whose childhood and early youth belong in the period under consideration, and serve in a measure to illustrate its methods. The educational advantages afforded these young daughters of the best families were like those of an eighteenth-century finishing-school, and were far removed from the stern mental discipline in the school of Sir Thomas More.