I found the following in the Ladies’ Home Journal, November 1913:

Going to the blackboard the teacher wrote this sentence:  ‘‘The horse and the cow was in the stable.”

‘“Now, children,” she said, ‘‘there is some- thing wrong with that sentence.  Who can correct it and tell why it is wrong?”

One small boy waved his hand excitedly and the teacher called upon him.

“It’s wrong,”’ he said with importance.  “It ought to be ‘The cow and the horse was in the stable,’ because ladies always ought to go first.”

©Colcannon Metropolis