Another father makes this entry in his diary about his four-year-old daughter: "I took my little daughter Katy into my study and then I told my child I am to dye shortly and shee must, when I am dead, remember Everything I now said to unto her. I sett before her the sinful Condition of her nature, and I charged her to pray in Secret Places every Day. That God for the sake of Jesus Christ would give her a New Heart. I gave her to understand that when I am taken from her she must look to meet with more humbling Afflictions than she does now she has a Tender Father to provide for her."[383]
These two quotations are from the diaries of educated men, the first being from Judge Sewall and the second from Cotton Mather. It is hard for us now to see any reason for such a talk as Cotton Mather gave a child of four, especially as he lived for thirty years afterward and died long after this little girl died.
The religious books of Puritan New England children were of a remarkable character. Mrs. Earle gives the following in reference to one of the most popular and widely read books:
"Young babes chide their parents for too infrequent praying, and have ecstacies of delight when they can pray ad infitum. One child two years old was able 'savingly to understand the mysteries of Redemption'; another of the same age was a 'dear lover of faithful ministers.' Anne Greenwich, who died when five years old, 'discoursed most astonishingly of great mysteries'; Daniel Bradley, who had an 'Impression and inquisitiveness of the State of Souls after Death,' when three years old; Elizabeth Butcher, who, 'when two and a half years old, as she lay in the Cradle would ask herself the Question What is my corrupt Nature: and would answer herself It is empty of Grace, bent unto Sin, and only to Sin, and that Continually,' were among the distressing examples."[384]
The following is an extract from a letter written about 1638 by a Puritan boy of twelve years of age and well displays the tendency toward religious fears as found in the young people of that period:
"Though I am thus well in body yet I question whether my soul doth prosper as my body doth, for I perceive yet to this very day, little growth in grace; and this makes me question whether grace be in my heart or no. I feel also daily great unwillingness to good duties, and the great ruling of sin in my heart; and that God is angry with me and gives me no answers to my prayers; but many times he even throws them down as dust in my face; and he does not grant my continued request for the spiritual blessing of the softening of my hard heart. And in all this I could yet take some comfort but that it makes me to wonder what God's secret decree concerning me may be: for I doubt whether even God is wont to deny grace and mercy to his chosen (though uncalled) when they seek unto him by prayer for it; and, therefore, seeing he doth thus deny it to me, I think that the reason of it is most like to be because I belong not unto the election of grace. I desire that you would let me have your prayers as I doubt not but I have them, and rest
"Your Son, Samuel Mather."[385]
As was given under the discussion of infancy, the Puritan babe had to be taken to the meeting-house on the Sunday following its birth to be baptized, even in the most bitter weather. One record is given of the baptism of an infant but four days old and this during the first part of February. In one diary there is given about a day in January so bad that but few women could get out to meeting, and yet a babe was taken to the meeting-house and baptized. It must be considered, too, that this occurred in a building that never had had a fire in it nor was there fire on that day. It is difficult for us at this day to hold even in imagination the carrying of the young babe by the midwife through the snow and the wind, and the cold of a New England January, the taking him to the altar and placing him in the arms of his father, the throwing the icy cold water over the child, and the shuddering of the child; yet worse, for this baptism might have been an immersion in the cold water after the ice had been broken, for at least one minister did practice infant immersion.
Education.
The second form of schools was the parochial organization of the middle colonies of New Netherlands and Pennsylvania. In these colonies there arose a school in connection with a church and, unlike the education of the South, which was along secondary training, the work of this parochial school was chiefly in elementary education. In New Netherlands, as in Holland, the church was connected with the state and there was but one church, the Dutch Reformed, and the civil and religious authorities jointly controlled and directed the education. In Pennsylvania, however, religious and civil freedom had been granted from the very first and there had come into the colony people of different nationalities and of different religions, and education came to be established with the different religious bodies and each religious sect had its own distinctive parochial school alongside its own church. There also were some attempts at higher and secondary education. Among the schools started was the Penn Charter School, which was originally organized by the Friends in 1689, and there were higher schools of other denominations. When New Netherlands fell into the hands of the English, there came about in New York conditions somewhat similar to those in Virginia and a number of secondary schools were organized.