It was so different in that time for those living on an island group in the middle of the Atlantic. I’ve learned from these letters that there were no schools. The islands are divided into parishes, and each tried to have some sort of teacher available. Usually young men would come out from England and start “schools” in the different areas for boys between the ages of 6 to maybe 12 or 13. They would learn their letters, and simple mathematics, and whatever else the individual young men could teach. Their salaries came from the parents paying a certain amount per student per term. Some years there was a teacher available in a particular parish, sometimes not. For further schooling, a child had to be sent to boarding school in England.
One boy mentioned in the letters, a relative, refused to go to the schoolmaster. No laws required it, and most fathers were away at sea. It was up to the mothers to enforce. No one seemed very concerned about him. He’d change his mind, or his father would make him go when he was home.
If the girls wanted to learn, there were women in the different communities who would give classes in their own homes, a few girls at a time. They also charged for teaching, much less than the boys’ official schoolmaster. One letter mentioned a woman who had to stop teaching classes because her mother couldn’t stand the children’s noise.
Ann Dickinson Sargent 