capacity was underrated, thought she would assume the responsibility of giving him for once all the milk he could take. What he did do, so far outmeasured what the doctrinaire said he could do, that the child was happily permitted ever after to decide for himself. The faith of the trusting parents was thus visibly shaken in one theory, and I am happy to add, in due time in many others, regarding the Graham system of dietetics.
CHAPTER XI.
Lucretia Mott.
Eulogy at the Memorial Services75 held in Washington by the National Woman Suffrage Association, January 19, 1881. By Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
On the 3d of January, 1793, the little island of Nantucket, fifteen miles by three and a half, lying far out into the sea on the coast of Massachusetts, welcomed to its solitude a child destined to be one of America's most famous women. This was a fitting birthplace for Lucretia Mott; as the religion and commerce of the island (named for a woman) had been guided by a woman's brain. In 1708 Mary Starbuck, known as "The Great Merchant," a woman of remarkable breadth of intellect, as well as great executive ability, converted the colony to Quakerism, and vindicated woman's right to interest herself in the commerce of the world. Perhaps she, like the good genii of old, brought her gifts to that cradle and breathed into the new life the lofty inspiration that made this woman the prophet and seer she was. Here were the descendants of John Wolman, William Rotch, George Fox, the Macys, the Franklins, the Folgers; and in this pure atmosphere, and from these distinguished ancestors, Lucretia Mott received her inheritance. Her father was an honest, sea-faring Quaker. Her mother belonged to the Folger family, whose culture, genius, common-sense, and thrift culminated in Benjamin Franklin, and later, in Lucretia Mott. The resemblance between her head and that of the philosopher and statesman, was apparent to the most casual observer.
Mrs. Mott says in her diary: "I always loved the good in childhood, and desired to do the right. In those early years I was actively useful to my mother, who, in the absence of my father on his long voyages, was engaged in mercantile business, often going to Boston to purchase goods in exchange for oil and candles, the staple of the island. The exercise of women's talents in this line, as well as the general care which devolved upon them, in the absence of their husbands, tended to develop and strengthen them mentally and physically.
"In 1804 my father's family removed to Boston, and in the public and private schools of that city I mingled with all classes without distinction. It was the custom then to send the children of such families to select schools; but my parents feared that would minister to a feeling of class pride, which they felt was sinful to cultivate in their children. And this I am glad to remember, because it gave me a feeling of sympathy for the patient and struggling poor, which but for this experience I might never have known." Under such humane influences, with such ancestors and associations, in the public schools, in the Friends' meeting, on the adventurous island, and in the suburbs of Boston, the child passed into girlhood, with lessons of industry and self-denial well learned, and with her life all before. She lived in a period when women of genius had vindicated their right to be recognized in art, science, literature, and government, and through many of the great events that have made the United States a Nation. It was such a combination of influences that developed Lucretia Mott into the exceptional woman she was.
In an unlucky hour her father endorsed for a friend, and to save his honor, was compelled to lose his property. It was a blow from which he did not recover, and henceforward much of the support of the family devolved upon the mother, who had remarkable tact, energy, and courage. Both parents were ambitious for their children, and did all they could for their education; that was one thing about which all Quakers were tenacious. In her fourteenth year Lucretia and her elder sister were sent to "The Nine Partners," a Friends boarding-school in Dutchess County, New York, and there pursuing her studies with patient zeal, she remained two years without once going home for a holiday vacation. At fifteen, a teacher having left, Lucretia was made an assistant, and at the end of the second year, was tendered the place of teacher, with the inducement beside, that her services would entitle a younger sister to her education.
Her well-balanced character enabled her to meet with calmness, all life's varied trials, of which she had her full share. As one of eight children in her father's house, with his financial embarrassments, and sudden death: and afterward with five children of her own, and her husband's reverses; Lucretia's heroism and strength of mind were fairly tested. In both of these financial emergencies, she opened a school, and by her success as a teacher, bridged over the chasm.
In her eighteenth year, Lucretia Coffin and James Mott, according to Quaker ceremony, became husband and wife, the result of an attachment formed at boarding-school, which proved to be an exceptionally happy union, and through their long wedded life, of over half a century, they remained ever loyal to one another. James Mott, though a Quaker, was in all personal qualities the very opposite of his wife. He had the cool judgment, she the enkindling enthusiasm. He had the slow, sure movement; she the quick, impulsive energy. He enjoyed nothing more than silence; she nothing more than talking. The one was completely the complement of the other. She possessed a delicate love of fun, and was full of dry humor. Once during a visit from her husband's brother, Richard Mott, of Toledo, Ohio, who like James was a very silent man, she became suddenly aware of their absence and started to look for them. Finding them seated on either side of a large wood fire in the drawing-room, she said, "Oh, I thought you must both be here it was so quiet."
In speaking of them, Robert Collyer says: "If James and Lucretia had gone around the world in search of a mate, I think they would have made the choice which heaven made for them. They had lived together more than forty years when I first knew them. I thought then, as I think now, that it was the most perfect wedded life to be found on earth. They were both of a most beautiful presence. He, large, fair, with kindly blue eyes, and regular features. She, slight, with dark eyes and hair. Both, of the sunniest spirit; both, free to take their own way, as such fine souls always are, and yet their lives were so perfectly one that neither of them led or followed the other, so far as one could observe, by the breadth of a line. He could speak well, in a slow, wise way, when the spirit moved him, and the words were all the choicer because they were so few. But his greatness, for he was a great man, lay still in that fine, silent manhood, which would only break into fluent speech as you sat with him by the bright wood fire in winter, while the good wife went on with her knitting, putting it swiftly down a score of times in an hour, to pound a vagrant spark which had snapped on the carpet, or as we sat under the trees in the summer twilight. Then James Mott would open his heart to those he loved, and touch you with wonder at the depth and beauty of his thoughts; or tell you stories of the city where when a young man he lived, or of the choice humors of ancient Quakers, who went through the world esteeming laughter vain, and yet set the whole world which knew them laughing at their quaint ways and curious fancies."
In his young days, James Mott was a teacher; later on he engaged in the cotton business, but abandoned it when it was becoming remunerative, because of its connection with slave labor. He finally took up the wool business, and retired with a competency some years before his death, which enabled them to take a trip to Europe, and afterward live the life of leisure they desired, indulging their literary tastes. James Mott wrote a very creditable book of their travels, and Lucretia carried enough observations of foreign life in her head to fill folios.
Mrs. Mott was a housekeeper of the old school, in so far as everything from garret to cellar passed under her supervision. She took the entire care of her children, and although with remarkable economy supplying the wants and guarding against the wastes of a large family, she did not allow these necessary cares to absorb all her time and thought, but cultivated the talents entrusted to her in broader interests than family life. She felt
