I asked many questions as to their education and learnt that they are bred up in the strictest piety; the ladies by various schemes and many little compositions of their own endeavour to inculcate the purest principles in their tender minds. They all by turns exercise themselves in the several employments which we saw going forward, that they may have various means of gaining their subsistence in case any accident should deprive them of the power of pursuing any particular part of their business. The ladies watch their geniuses with great care; and breed them up to those things which seem most suitable to the turn of their minds. When any are designed for service, they are taught the business of the place they are best fitted for by coming down to the hall and performing the necessary offices under the direction of the excellent servants there.
A very large kitchen garden belongs to the house, which is divided into as many parts as there are scholars; to weed and keep this in order is made their principal recreation; and by the notice taken of it they are taught to vie with each other which shall best acquit themselves, so that perhaps never was a garden so neat. They likewise have no small share in keeping those at the hall in order; and the grotto and seats are chiefly their workmanship.
I gave them due praise upon their performances at the clergyman's widow's, and delighted two of them very much by my admiration of a little arbour which they had there planted with woodbines and other sweet shrubs. In their own garden they are allowed the indulgence of any little whim which takes not up too much room; and it is pretty to see their little seats, their arbours and beds of flowers, according to their several tastes. As soon as school breaks up, they run with as much eagerness and joy to their garden, as other children do to their childish sports; and their highest pleasure is the approbation their patronesses give their performances. They likewise take it by turns to do the business of the house and emulation excites them to a cleanliness which could not by any other means be preserved.
From this school we went to one instituted for boys, which consisted of about half the number, and most of them small, as they are dismissed to labour as soon as they are able to perform any work, except incapacitated by ill health. This is instituted on much the same principles as the other, and every boy of five years old has his little spade and rake which he is taught to exercise.
We returned from our little tour in time enough for prayers, with minds well prepared for them, by the view of such noble fruits of real piety. Indeed the steward who reads them does it with such extreme propriety and such humble and sincere devotion as is alone sufficient to fix the attention and warm the hearts of his hearers.
After breakfast was over, we got Mrs Maynard to accompany us into the garden, she in complaisance to us abstaining while we were at the hall from her share in the daily visits the ladies pay to their several institutions, and to the poor and sick in their village. Their employments are great, but their days are proportionable; for they are always up by five o'clock, and by their example the people in the village rise equally early; at that hour one sees them all engaged in their several businesses with an assiduity which in other places is not awakened till much later.
I called on Mrs Maynard to continue her task, which without any previous ceremony she did as follows.
THE HISTORY OF Miss SELVYN
Mr Selvyn, the younger brother of an ancient family, whose fortune was inferior to the rank it held in the country where it had long been fixed, was placed in trade in London; but his success not answering his hopes, he gave it up before it was too late to secure himself a small subsistence and retired into the country when Miss Selvyn was about five years old. His wife had been dead two years; thus his little girl's education devolved entirely on himself.