The history of the "age of legal consent" has an importance which through prudery and a wilful ignorance of facts the public has never fully realised. I shall have considerable to say of it later. It will suffice for the moment to remark that until the decade preceding 1898 the old Common Law period of ten, sometimes twelve, years was the basis of "age of consent" legislation in most States and in the Territories under the jurisdiction of the national government. In 1885 the age in Delaware was _seven_.
[Sidenote: The beginnings of higher education for women.]
The Puritans, burning with an unquenchable zeal for liberty, fled to America in order to build a land of freedom and strike off the shackles of despotism. After they were comfortably settled, they forthwith proceeded, with fine humour, to expel mistress Anne Hutchinson for venturing to speak in public, to hang superfluous old women for being witches, and to refuse women the right to an education. In 1684, when a question arose about admitting girls to the Hopkins School of New Haven, it was decided that "all girls be excluded as improper and inconsistent with such a grammar school as ye law enjoins and as in the Designs of this settlement." "But," remarks Professor Thomas, "certain small girls whose manners seem to have been neglected and who had the natural curiosity of their sex, sat on the schoolhouse steps and heard the boys recite, or learned to read and construe sentences from their brothers at home, and were occasionally admitted to school."
In the course of the next century the world moved a little; and in 1789, when the public school system was established in Boston, girls were admitted from April to October; but until 1825 they were allowed to attend primary schools only. In 1790 Gloucester voted that "two hours, or a proportional part of that time, be devoted to the instruction of females." In 1793 Plymouth accorded girls one hour of instruction daily.
The first female seminary in the United States was opened by the Moravians in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1749. It was unique. In 1803, of 48 academies or higher schools fitting for college in Massachusetts, only three were for girls, although a few others admitted both boys and girls.