[Footnote _Do._, William Nelson to Col.

George Nicholas, Caroline, Va., December 29, 1794.] Virginia and Kentucky.
In many ways the life of the Kentuckians was most like that of the Virginia gentry, though it had peculiar features of its own.

Judged by Puritan standards, it seemed free enough; and it is rather curious to find Virginia fathers anxious to send their sons out to Kentucky so that they could get away from what they termed "the constant round of dissipation, the scenes of idleness, which boys are perpetually engaged in" in Virginia.

One Virginia gentleman of note, in writing to a prominent Kentuckian to whom he wished to send his son, dwelt upon his desire to get him away from a place where boys of his age spent most of the time galloping wherever they wished, mounted on blooded horses.
Kentucky hardly seemed a place to which a parent would send a son if he wished him to avoid the temptations of horse flesh; but this particular Virginian at least tried to provide against this, as he informed his correspondent that he should send his son out to Kentucky mounted on an "indifferent Nag," which was to be used only as a means of locomotion for the journey, and was then immediately to be sold.

[Footnote: _Do_., William Nelson to Nicholas, November 9, 1792.] Education.
The gentry strove hard to secure a good education for their children, and in Kentucky, as in Tennessee, made every effort to bring about the building of academies where their boys and girls could be well taught.
If this was not possible, they strove to find some teacher capable of taking a class to which he could teach Latin and mathematics; a teacher who should also "prepare his pupils for becoming useful members of society and patriotic citizens." [Footnote: Shelby MSS., letter of Toulmin, January 7, 1794; Blount MSS., January 6, 1792, etc.] Where possible the leading families sent their sons to some Eastern college, Princeton being naturally the favorite institution of learning with people who dwelt in communities where the Presbyterians took the lead in social standing and cultivation.