Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
To the Young Ladies of America, the followingsheets are affectionately inscribed.
Convinced of the many advantages of a good education,and the importance of improving those advantages;or of counterbalancing the want of them byexerting the mental powers which nature has bestowed;sensible, too, that the foundation of a useful and happylife must be laid in youth, and that much depends onthe early infusion of virtuous principles into the docilemind, the author has employed a part of her leisurehours in collecting and arranging her ideas on the subjectof female deportment.
How far she has succeeded in her design, the voiceof a candid public will pronounce.
On the delightful margin of the Merrimac,in one of the most pleasant and beautiful situations,which that fertile and healthful part ofAmerica affords, lived Mrs. Williams, the virtuousrelict of a respectable clergyman.
She had two daughters, lovely and promisingas ever parent could boast.
Mrs. Williams’ circumstances were easy.She possessed a little patrimony, to which sheretired, after her husband’s decease; but adesire of preserving this for her children, anda wish to promote their advantage and enlargetheir society, induced her to open a BoardingSchool.
As she had an eye, no less to the socialpleasure, than to the pecuniary profit of theundertaking, she admitted only seven, at atime, to the privilege of her tuition.
These were all young ladies, who had previouslyreceived the first rudiments of learning,and been initiated into the polite accomplishments,which embellish virtue and softenthe cares of human life. They had generally6lived in the metropolis, and had acquired thegraces of a fashionable deportment; but theypossessed different tempers and disposi