Educational Toy
Digital History ID 4216

Date:1745

Annotation: In a letter written to Mrs. Bartlett, Eliza Lucas Pinckney asks her friend to buy her son a learning toy.

Document: Since Mr. P's [Pinckney] last to Mr. B. [Bartlett] Heaven has blest us with a son, and a fine boy it is. May he inherit all his father's virtues, his good Sense, his sincere and generous mind, with all his sweetness of disposition. Shall I give you the trouble my dear Madam to buy him the new toy (a description of which I incase) to teach him according to Mr. Lock's [the philosopher John Locke] method (which I have carefully studied) to play himself into learning. Mr. Pinckney himself has been contriving a set of toys to teach him his letters by the time he can speak, you perceive we begin by times for he is not yet four months old.

Source: The Letterbook of Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1972). Edited by Elise Pinckney, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.