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PREFACE


This book is an attempt to portray by means of the writings of colonial
days the life of the women of that period,--how they lived, what their
work and their play, what and how they thought and felt, their strength
and their weakness, the joys and the sorrows of their everyday
existence. Through such an attempt perhaps we can more nearly understand
how and why the American woman is what she is to-day.

For a long time to come, one of the principal reasons for the study of
the writings of America will lie, not in their intrinsic merit alone,
but in their revelations of American life, ideals, aspirations, and
social and intellectual endeavors. We Americans need what Professor
Shorey has called "the controlling consciousness of tradition." We have
not sufficiently regarded the bond that connects our present
institutions with their origins in the days of our forefathers. That is
one of the main purposes of this study, and the author believes that
through contributions of such a character he can render the national
intellectual spirit at least as valuable a service as he could through a
study of some legend of ancient Britain or some epic of an extinct race.
As Mr. Percy Boynton has said, "To foster in a whole generation some
clear recognition of other qualities in America than its bigness, and of