“I have got no further than the first volm of Virgil, but was most agreeably disappointed to find myself instructed in agriculture as well as entertained by his charming penn, for I am persuaded tho’ he wrote for Italy it will in many Instances suit Carolina."[59] “If you will not laugh too immoderately at mee I’ll Trust you with a Secrett.  I have made two wills already!  I know I have done no harm, for I con’d my lesson very perfectly, and know how to convey by will, Estates, Real and Personal, and never forgett in its proper place, him and his heirs forever....  But after all what can I do if a poor Creature lies a-dying, and their family takes it into their head that I can serve them.  I can’t refuse; butt when they are well, and able to employ a Lawyer, I always shall."[60]

And again she gives this glimpse of another study:  “I am a very Dunce, for I have not acquired ye writing shorthand yet with any degree of swiftness.”  That she had made some study of philosophy also is evident in this comment in a letter written after a prolonged absence from her plantation home for the purpose of attending some social function:  “I began to consider what attraction there was in this place that used so agreeably to soothe my pensive humour, and made me indifferent to everything the gay world could boast; but I found the change not in the place but in myself.... and I was forced to consult Mr. Locke over and over, to see wherein personal Identity consisted, and if I was the very same Selfe."[61]

Locke’s philosophical theory is surely rather solid material, a kind indeed which probably not many college women of the twentieth century are familiar with.  Add to these various intellectual pursuits of hers the highly thorough study she made of agriculture, her genuinely scientific experiments in the rotation and selection of crops, and her practical and successful management of three large plantations, and we may well conclude that here was a colonial woman with a mind of her own, and a mind fit for something besides feminine trifles and graces.

Jane Turell, a resident of Boston during the first half of the eighteenth century, was another whose interest in literature and other branches of higher education was certainly not common to the women of the period.  Hear the narrative of the rather astonishing list of studies she undertook, and the zeal with which she pursued her research: 

“Before she had seen eighteen, she had read, and ’in some measure’ digested all the English poetry and polite pieces in prose, printed and manuscripts, in her father’s well furnished library....  She had indeed such a thirst after knowledge that the leisure of the day did not suffice, but she spent whole nights in reading....”

“I find she was sometimes fired with a laudable ambition of raising the honor of her sex, who are therefore under obligations to her; and all will be ready to own she had a fine genius,