In an old file of the _Maryland Gazette_ we may read the advertisement of John and Sally Stott, who propose to open a school "where English, arithmetic, book-keeping, mensuration, knitting, sewing and sample-work on cat-gut and muslin are to be taught in an easy and intelligible manner." The charges for schooling were not extravagant. The Reverend Devereux Jarratt taught a "plain school" for the equivalent of about thirty-three dollars a year. A tutor from London received a salary of thirty pounds sterling, and Jonathan Boucher charged for tuition twenty-five pounds a year, "the boy to bring his own bed." Boucher was at one time tutor to Parke Custis, then a somewhat headstrong boy of sixteen. Young Custis wished to travel abroad with his tutor, but Washington wrote to Mr. Boucher: "I can not help giving it as my opinion that his education is by no means ripe enough for a travelling tour. Not that I think his becoming a mere scholar is a desirable education for a gentleman, but I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which all other knowledge is to be built, and in travelling he is to become acquainted with men and things rather than books." Later in the letter he adds: "It is to be expected that every man who travels with a view of observing the laws and customs of other countries should be able to give some description of the situation and government of his own." Boucher took just the opposite ground from his patron. He argued that the best education consisted in mingling with men and seeing the culture of other lands. He lamented the provinciality of Virginia and its lack of intercourse with the great world. "Saving here and there a needy emigrant from Great Britain, an illiterate captain of a ship, or a subaltern merchant, to whom," he asks, "can a Virginia youth apply for a specimen of the manners, etc., of any other people?" The majority of the landed gentry were in sympathy with the views of Boucher rather than with those of Washington. Travel and education abroad, especially in England, were universally desired, and the influence on the colonies was marked, as the lad brought back with him from Oxford the views of the Cavaliers and their descendants, as the ship which bore him brought back the carved furniture, the massive plate, the leather-bound books, the coat of arms, and the panels for the hall fireplace. The record of matriculations at Oxford contains many colonial names. Here is "Henry Fitzhugh, s. William, of Virginia, Gent." (Christ Church) matriculated at the age of fifteen. Christopher and Peter Robinson, and Robert Yates, set down as from "_Insula Virginiæ_," register at Oriel, and Lewis Burwell at Balliol. The average age of matriculation among these colonial youth is eighteen; but boys were often sent to England, or "home," as the colonists delighted to call it, long before they were old enough for University life.