Child Life in Colonial Days

								

The colonial laws plainly show this increased valuation, and the
child responded to this regard of him by a growing sense of his own
importance, which in time has produced "Young America."
It is my hope that children as well as grown folk will find in
these pages much to interest them in the accounts of the life of
children of olden times. I have had this end constantly in my mind,
though I have made no attempt, nor had I any intent, to write in
a style for the perusal of children; for I have not found that
intelligent children care much or long for such books, except in the
very rare cases of the few great books that have been written for
children, and which are loved and read as much by the old as by the
young.
As our tired century has grown gray it has developed an interest in
things youthful,--in the beginnings of things. Its attitude is akin
to that of an old man, still in health and clear-headed, but weary;
who has lived through his scores of crowded years of action, toil,
and strife, and seeks in the last days of his life a serene and
peaceful harbor,--the companionship of little children. There is
something of mystery, too, in "the turn of the century" something
which then makes our gaze retrospective and comparative rather than
inquisitive into the future. Hence this year of our Lord MDCCCXCIX
has been the allotted day and hour for the writing of this book.
There has been a trend of destiny which has brought not only a book
on oldtime child life, and that book at this century end, but has
included the fate that it should be written by Alice Morse Earle.
Kismet!

Contents

                                           Page


I. Babyhood                                 1


II. Children's Dress                       34


III. Schools and School Life               63


IV. Women Teachers and Girl Scholars       90


V. Hornbook and Primer                    117


VI. School-books                          133


VII. Penmanship and Letters               150


VIII. Diaries and Commonplace Books       163


IX. Childish Precocity                    176


X. Oldtime Discipline                     191


XI. Manners and Courtesy                  211


XII. Religious Thought and Training       227


XIII. Religious Books                     248


XIV. Story and Picture Books              264


XV. Children's Diligence                  305


XVI. Needlecraft and Decorative Arts      321


XVII. Games and Pastimes                  342


XVIII. Children's Toys                    361


XIX. Flower Lore of Children              377

List of Illustrations

  John Quincy, One Year and a Half Old, 1690. Owned

      by Hon. Charles Francis Adams, Boston, Mass.

                                                   Frontispiece_



                                                             Page


Miniature, Governor Edward Winslow, Six Years Old,