The girls, too, were not without distinction—­she who could spin the greatest number of cuts of cotton, or weave the greatest number of yards of cloth, was most distinguished, and most admired; but especially was she distinguished who could spin and weave the neatest fabric for her own wear, of white cloth with a turkey-red stripe—­cut, and make it fit the labor-rounded person and limbs—­or make, for father’s or brother’s wear, the finest or prettiest piece of jean—­cook the nicest dinners for her beau, or dance the longest without fatigue.

The sexes universally associated at the same school, (a system unfortunately grown out of use,) and grew up together with a perfect knowledge of the disposition, temperament, and general character of each other.  And, as assuredly as the boy is father to the man, the girl is mother to the woman; and these peculiarities were attractive or repulsive as they differed in individuals, and were always an influence in the selection of husbands and wives.  The prejudices of childhood endure through life, particularly those toward persons.  They are universally predicated upon some trait of manner or character, and these, as in the boy perceived, are ever prominent in the man.  So, too, with the girl, and they only grow with the woman.  This is a paramount reason why parties about contracting marriage-alliances should be well aware of whom they are about to select.  The consequence of this intercommunication of the sexes from childhood, in the primitive days of Georgia’s first settlement, was seen in the harmony of families.  In the age which followed, a separation or divorce was as rare as an earthquake; and when occurring, agitated the whole community.  For then a marriage was deemed a life-union, for good or for evil, and was not lightly or inconsiderately entered into.

The separation of the sexes in early youth, and especially at school, destroys or prevents in an eminent degree the restraining influences upon the actions of each other, and that tender desire for the society of each other, which grows from childhood’s associations.  Brought together at school in early life, when the mind and soul are receiving the impressions which endure through life, they naturally form intimacies, and almost always special partialities and preferences.  Each has his or her favorite, these partialities are usually reciprocal, and their consequence is a desire on the part of each to see the other excel.  To accomplish this, children, as well as grown people, will make a greater effort than they will simply to succeed or to gratify a personal ambition to that effect.  Thus they sympathize with and stimulate each other.  Every Georgia boy of fifty years ago, with gray-head and tottering step now, remembers his sweetheart, for whom he carried his hat full of peaches to school, and for whom he made the grape-vine swing, and how at noon he swung her there.

  ’T is bonny May; and I to-day
    Am wrinkled seventy-four,
  Still I enjoy, as when a boy,
    Much that has gone before.