"I have this morning your Letter which pleases me very well and gives me hopes of many a pleasant line from you in Time to come if God spare you to me and me to you. I very much long to see your Mother but doubt whether the weather will permit to-day. I pray God to bless you and make you one of his Children. I charge you to pray daily, and read your Bible, and fear to sin. Be very dutiful to your Mother, and respectful to everybody. Be very humble and modest, womanly and discreet. Take care of your health and as you love me do not eat green apples. Drink sparingly of water, except the day be warm. When I last saw you, you were too shamefaced; look people in the face, speak freely and behave decently. I hope to bring Nabby in her grandfather's Chariot to see you. The meanwhile I kiss your dear Mother, and commend her health to the gracious care of God, and you with her to His Grace. Give my service to Mr. A. and family and be sure you never forget the respect they have honoured you with. "Your loving father. "BOSTON, Aug. 1, 1718." Jonathan Edwards was an only son with ten sisters. In 1711, when he was eight years old, five of these sisters had been born. The father, Timothy Edwards, went as chaplain on an expedition to Canada. His letters home show his care and thought for his children, girls and boy:-- "I desire thee to take care that Jonathan dont lose what he hath learnt, but that as he hath got the accidence and about two sides of Propria quæ maribus by heart, so that he keep what he hath got I would therefore have him say pretty often to the girls. I would also have the girls keep what they have learnt of the Grammar, and get by heart as far as Jonathan hath learnt; he can keep them as far as he had learnt. And would have both him and them keep their writing, and therefore write much oftener than they did when I was at home. I have left paper enough for them which they may use to that end." Conditions remained the same throughout the century. The wife of President John Adams, born in 1744, the daughter of a New England minister of good family and social position, doubtless had as good an education as any girl of her birth and station. She writes in 1817:-- "My early education did not partake of the abundant opportunities which the present days offer, and which even our common country schools now afford. I never was sent to any school. I was always sick. Female education, in the best families, went no further than writing and arithmetic; in some few and rare instances music and dancing." On another occasion she said that female education had been everywhere neglected, and female learning ridiculed, and she speaks of the trifling, narrow, contracted education of American women.