But in whatever period, from whatever point of view, Miss Carter presents us with a career almost unexampled in the annals of learned ladies. She chose learning young and pursued it undeviatingly, with no hesitancies and no retrospective regrets. There were no disapproving friends or relatives to interpose obstacles in her path. Few girls, even to-day, could have greater freedom in the determination of their own hours, occupations, and pleasures. Her father, though disheartened by her slow progress, was her faithful teacher. Even her stepmother aided and abetted her extravagant devotion to study. She was allowed to determine the momentous question of marriage entirely according to her own inclinations. Her published work met with immediate praise. She was but twenty-two when Johnson published epigrams in Greek and Latin in her honor, and said she should be praised in as many languages as Lewis the Grand. And by middle life she had achieved independence, money, and fame. Nor was her career merely an external success brilliantly masking unsatisfied inner desires. On the contrary, to the end her eighty-nine years seemed rich and gracious to her. She did not covet other women's lovers or husbands or children or homes. She set possible honors lightly aside. When her friends were urging upon her a place at court, she dreamed that she had cut off her head for the greater convenience of curling her hair, and she declared this dream symbolic of the fatal cost at which honors were often bought. Her joys were of an unambitious, quiet, perennial sort. She loved nature in all its moods of storm and shine. Her genius for friendship nearly equaled the "Matchless Orinda's." She loved reading and had many books. She enjoyed reflection and had many hours of happy solitude. She was domestic in her tastes and found herself loved and needed in her father's home. She had a sound, sweet, sensible, modest nature that not only disarmed criticism, but preserved her from any undue or arrogant emphasis on her position as the most distinguished literary woman of her time. And she had an unfailing sense of humor that sent an undercurrent of enjoyment through even the prosaic and dreary parts of life. CHAPTER III EDUCATION 1. BOARDING-SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS Of schools for girls in the period from 1650 to 1750 we can get only the most scattered bits of information. It is apparent that there were boarding-schools for girls from five to sixteen, and that these schools rapidly increased in number, but of the scope and nature of the instruction we have only the most general ideas. In 1677 there appeared the following advertisement: In Oxford there is set up a boarding-school for young gentlewomen (by John Waver, Master in the art of dancing) where they may be educated and instructed in the art of dancing, singing, music, writing, and all manner of works.