20 Caroline Lncretia Hcrschel. [1767. 



her desire for better instruction. The parents had 

 never agreed on the subject. " When I had left 

 school," she writes, 



" My father wished to give me something like a polished 

 education, but my mother was particularly determined that 

 it should be a rough, but at the same time a useful one ; and 

 nothing farther she thought was necessary but to send me 

 two or three months to a sempstress to be taught to make 

 household linen. Having added this accomplishment to 

 my former ingenuities, I never afterwards could find leisure 

 for thinking of anything but to contrive and make for the 

 family in all imaginable forms whatever was wanting, and 

 thus I learned to make bags and sword-knots long before I 



knew how to make caps and furbelows 



My mother would not consent to my being taught French, 

 and my brother Dietrich was even denied a dancing-master, 

 because she would not permit my learning along with him, 

 though the entrance had been paid for us both ; so ah 1 my 

 father could do for me was to indulge me (and please him- 

 self) sometimes with a short lesson on the violin, when my 

 mother was either in good humour or out of the way. 

 Though I have often felt myself exceedingly at a loss for 

 the want of those few accomplishments of which I was thus, 

 by an erroneous though well-meant opinion of my mother, 

 deprived, I could not help thinking but that she had cause 

 for wishing me not to know more than was necessary for 

 being useful in the family ; for it was her certain belief that 

 my brother William would have returned to his country, and 

 my eldest brother not have looked so high, if they had had 

 a little less learning. 



.:####* 



But sometimes I found it scarcely possible to get through 

 with the work required, and felt very unhappy that 



