per
day. A domestic servant, who was usually female, was paid 40-80s.
a year. Men in the trades objected to competition from lower-paid
women. Aristocratic ladies actively managed their family's
household and estates. The only work available to a high middle-
class woman who was waiting to get married was to be a governess
in another household or a lady-in-waiting to a gentlewoman.
Children often worked; this was recommended so that they were
under the direct supervision of their parents rather than getting
into mischief in the village. The mother typically mingled
severity with gentleness, but the father did not dare to err on
the side of leniency. Discipline was by whipping. Children were
treated as little adults. The lack of a conception of childhood
innocence even extended to the practice of adults to tell bawdy
jokes in their presence or play with their children's genitals.
About 1660, the Royal Society for science was founded by Charles
II, who became its patron. It was formed from a discussion group
of the new experimental philosophy. It included the Baconians
formerly at Oxford and Cambridge, who were ejected at the
Restoration, and a group of Gresham professors of geometry and
astronomy. The Royal Society met at Gresham College. Its goal was
to compare ideas in mathematics and science and identify specific
aims of science. Charles himself had his own laboratory and
dabbled in chemistry and anatomy.
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