classrooms and quarters “to prevent any improper familiarities.” As in Nantucket, however, Quakers viewed entirely distinct spheres for men and women as unnatural. So despite rules discouraging contact, no doubt instituted in part to appease parents, the school’s founders welcomed “innocent & cheerful intercourse” among students under the appropriate supervision.8
The school’s board, made up of male and female members of New York Yearly Meeting, was a Who’s Who of the Quaker elite. Lucretia first met abolitionist Elias Hicks, whose ministry divided the Society of Friends in the 1820s, when she was a student at Nine Partners. Hicks was a founding member of the school committee. Before her disownment in 1802, Hannah Barnard, the “deist” pacifist female preacher, also served on the board, as did her traveling companion Elizabeth Coggeshall. Quaker educators James Mott, Sr., and Joseph Tallcot were longstanding members of the committee, and both served as superintendent of the school.9
Mott, Lucretia’s future grandfather-in-law and the superintendent of Nine Partners during her attendance, profoundly influenced her. Under his direction, the school’s plan called for teachers to be kind and affectionate with their students, using “as little chastisement” as possible. Mott articulated his views for a larger audience in 1816 in Observations on the Education of Children; and Hints to Young People on the Duties of Civil Life. He advised parents to avoid both overindulgence and severity in raising their children. In Mott’s view, “when the dread of punishment predominates, the disposition is generally artful,” a position articulated by critics of slavery as well as opponents of corporal punishment. Instead, he advised parents to treat the child as a companion and to teach by example: “the necessity and propriety of practicing on all occasions, the most scrupulous integrity, liberality, fair dealing, and honour, consistent with the rule of doing unto others, on all occasions as they would be done unto, ought to be early and forcibly inculcated, by precept and example.” Mott extended his insights on childrearing into public life, where he urged young people “to remember others, and fulfill the obligations we are under of doing good.” Like other Quakers, Mott advocated modesty, moderation, and charity, but he also preached democracy. He believed in respecting others by avoiding bigotry and condescension.10
James Mott, Sr.’s egalitarian approach to education was not unusual in the age of revolution. His pamphlet was one entry in a flood of child-rearing tracts published during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Influenced by John Locke and other philosophers, these experts argued that children too had inalienable rights that should not be abused. Instead of physical discipline, they advised parents to use psychology and reason to teach their children the essential values of morality, self-control, and good citizenship. British writer Maria Edgeworth urged parents to practice preventive methods rather than creating unreasonable restrictions. For example, she suggested parents place valuable china and tempting sweets out of reach. Teach habits of obedience, she recommended, by asking children to do things they were already inclined to do. Once children were old enough, parents should use reason. In this way, Edgeworth wrote, “children, who have for many years experienced, that their parents have exacted obedience only to such commands as proved to be ultimately wise and beneficial, will surely be disposed from habit, from gratitude, and yet more from prudence, to consult their parents in all the material actions of their lives.”11 Despite the proliferation of such advice books, Lucretia especially valued Mott’s words. Later, as a new wife and mother, she corresponded regularly with her husband’s grandfather. She read his “instructive” and “useful” book when it was published, and later reread it when she had a house full of young children.12
As Anna Coffin prepared Lucretia and Eliza for the journey to Nine Partners, she followed the school’s guidelines for simplicity. Each girl packed 2 bonnets, 1 cloak, 2 gowns for winter and 2 for summer, 4 handkerchiefs to wear around her neck, 4 shifts, 4 pairs of stockings, and 4 aprons. The girls brought no books or money, as the school discouraged inappropriate reading material and class distinctions among students. The school also advised parents not to demand frequent visits from their children. The school committee regarded such visits as disruptive to the education of their students and potentially dangerous to their model Quaker community. Just a few decades earlier, Quaker reformers had accused parents of encouraging their children’s desire for material rather than spiritual happiness. Indeed, returning students might bring worldly influences, or, alternatively, lose the “polish” that Nine Partners wished to instill. The Coffins carefully followed the school’s instructions; Lucretia and Eliza not only missed the birth of their youngest sister Martha in 1806, they did not go home for two years.13
Nine Partners provided Lucretia and Eliza with a substitute family of like-minded Quakers. Lucretia recognized the school’s reader, Mental Improvement, and the illustration of the slave-ship Brookes, from her school days on Nantucket, but she was also exposed to new ideas. Despite the school committee’s concern that their students read only Quaker authors or the Bible, Susanna Marriott, a British Quaker in charge of the sewing room, introduced Lucretia and her peers to the didactic poetry of William Cowper. Lucretia quoted Cowper’s most famous poem, “The Task,” from memory throughout her life, applying its criticism of blind adherence to social norms to the problem of slavery and women’s rights:
Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone
To reverence what is ancient, and can plead
A course of long observance for its use,
That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Because delivered from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.
Importantly, Cowper also wrote anti-slavery poems, which Marriott, an abolitionist, probably shared with her students. “The Negro’s Complaint” began,
Forced from home and all its pleasures
Afric’s coast I left forlorn
To increase a stranger’s treasures
O’er the raging billows borne.
The image of the African being taken from home for the profit of another appealed to this Nantucket Quaker, who disapproved of the accumulation and display of wealth for its own sake. Another Cowper poem, “Pity for Poor Africans,” reinforced Priscilla Wakefield’s admonition to boycott slave produce:
I pity them greatly, but I must be mum,
For how could we do without sugar and rum?
Especially sugar, so needful we see;
What! Give up our desserts, our coffee, and tea?
Marriott later taught New York suffragist and reformer Emily Howland, who likewise credited Marriott for introducing her to the anti-slavery movement.14
As the founders intended, Lucretia’s instructors taught Quaker doctrines, of which opposition to slavery was one. Students learned how the Society of Friends differed from other Christian denominations:
We decline the use of ordinances, viz. baptism and the sacrament, believing that worship can be acceptably performed in silence; that war and oaths are unlawful; that no human appointment can qualify a person to preach the gospel; and our ministers receive no pay for preaching.
They acknowledged and defended their peculiarities of “plainness of dress, simplicity of language, and avoiding complimentary expressions,” and their belief that all days of the week were equally holy.15
The Society of Friends believed in religious and human progress, and part of this progress was the recognition of slavery as wrong. Students at Nine
