Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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It appears that this school be one of the first to be a finishin’ off establishments, to separate the maids from maidens, that is be those from being a cook and those that tell the cook to fry. Fulham and Chelsea and Hackney attracted the clients from the middling sought that did not want their beloved beauties to end up scrubbing others dirty linen but air that of the uppers groups.
They were being taught the graceful ways of life like catching the eyes of waistrels from the upper branches of English Society by sashayin’ across the reed covered ambulacrum, fiddling and spouting good christian chant. [John Evelyn is quoted in writing of his 12 year old wife “women were not born to read Authors and censure the learned” fortunatly for said wife, Sir John had his daughter exposed to the French tongue and ritin’s and along with the Italian versions.
A more learned view of brainwashing, be had from Liza Picard, Pages 188/189. this is the beginning of the emancipation of girls, whom at this time had a literacy rate of 30%. Even Lady Mary Wortly Montegue, 30 years later, had to sneak into Papa’s Library to teach herself Latin and Greek. Girls were to be seen and seduced, and not to have opinions.