He would have suffered torture rather than caused his mother a single tear; but to yield to the haughty cavalier was impossible.
Public schools were unknown in that day, and what little learning was to be acquired was by private tutors.

Sometimes Price talked of sending the boy to England to school, more to get rid of him than from any real desire to improve his mind.

The mother objected to this.

Then the stepfather tried to effect a compromise by sending him to Harvard College in Massachusetts, for he had relatives in Boston who might keep an eye on the incorrigible youth; but the fond mother clung to her son, and having a fair education herself, Robert and his sister, a pale little creature, whose great dark eyes were like her mother's, became pupils with the mother for teacher.

She was an indulgent preceptress and, for a short season, renounced the pleasures and follies grown so dear to her heart, and devoted herself to the improvement of her children's mind.