some old heir-looms in the shape of standard books, even if the number was limited to the Bible and dictionary. Many, especially ministers, could display relics of their English ancestors' intelligence in the libraries handed down to them, and the study of their contents was evident in many of the grave correspondences of that early time." To learning, in the ordinary sense of that term, she could make no claim. She did not enjoy an opportunity to acquire even such as there might have been, for the delicate' state of her health forbade the idea of sending her away from home to obtain them. In speaking of her deficiencies, the year before her death, she says: "My early education did not partake of the abundant opportunity which the present day offers, and which even our common country schools now afford. I never was sent to any school, I was always sick." Although Massachusetts ranked then, as it does now, first in point of educational facilities, it is certainly remarkable that its women received such entire neglect. "It is not impossible," says Mr. Adams, "that the early example of Mrs. Hutchison, and the difficulties in which the public exercise of her gifts involved the colony, had established in the public mind a conviction of the danger that may attend the meddling of women with abstruse points of doctrine; and these, however they might confound the strongest intellects, were nevertheless the favorite topics of thought and discussion in that generation."
While the sons of a family received every possible advantage compatible with the means of the father, the
