<<

THE UNCOMMON EDUCATION OF

Penny Pagliaro

Historians of the women's rights movement in the wandering with a rushlight in the caves of the United States inevitably begin their accounts with earth."1 one of three significant events. Most often, they focus on the Seneca Falls (N.Y.) Convention of Despite Lucretia Mott's electrifying effect on 1848 whose now-famous Declaration of twenty-five-year-old Stanton, and countless others Sentiments trumpeted the first American call for wrestling with the dilemmas of the age, little women's rights. Of the four women who organized attention has been given to Lucretia Mott's life the Convention, one was a spirited Quaker beyond her early and continued commitment to minister named Lucretia Mott. Some historians the Abolition Movement and her profound step back further to the Anti- influence upon (who Convention of 1840. There the American women would later become the foremost spokeswoman for delegates, led by Lucretia Mott, were refused the women's rights movement). admission because of their sex. An occasional Part of the reason for this lack of attention rests women's historian, seeking longer roots, will point with Lucretia Mott herself. She was an activist, out that at the Anti-Slavery not a philosopher; her skill lay not in writing, but Convention of 1833, a woman dared to challenge in speaking. Thus the remnants of her life are popular cQstom and speak in public. That speaker most often reflected in the words of others. Just was Lucretia Mott. how Lucretia Mott came to be a nationally-known Lucretia Coffin Mott was a woman whose public figure is left to the imagination; her biographers career spanned more than fifty of America's most do little more than hint at the character of her energetic and dangerous years. Her contributions preparation. Inquiries into her formal education to the women's rights movement, especially in the are virtually non-existent. early and hesitant period between 1848 and 1860, For historians of education, the puzzle were critical to its success. This veteran reformer surrounding Lucretia Mott's education and, and public speaker provided counsel, direction, indeed, the education of other women reformers, and support to the rising generation of women's poses intriguing questions. At a time when female rights advocates. Young Elizabeth Cady Stanton, education remained, at best, an afterthought, how who first met Lucretia Mott in 1840, recalled: were nineteenth-century women prepared to assume positions of responsibility in national "It seemed to me like meeting a being from organizations? Were schools anywhere in the some larger planet, to find a woman who dared United States doing more than a cursory job of to question the opinions of Popes, Kings, training their female students? How did women Synods, Parliaments, with the same freedom secluded from public life leap the barricades of that she would criticize an editorial in the custom and enter into the nation-shaking London Times, recognizing no higher authority campaigns for social reform? An examination of than the judgments of a pure-minded, educated Lucretia Mott's early life seems to suggest one set woman. When I first heard from the lips of of answers. Lucretia Mott that I had the same right to think From the middle of the 1970s, it may be difficult for myself that Luther, Calvin, and John Knox to imagine just how monumental a task it was for had ... I felt at once a new-born sense of a woman in the second quarter of the nineteenth dignity and freedom; it was like suddenly century to undertake a public career. It ~imply coming into the. rays of the noon-day sun, after was not done. Woman was invisible in public life.

16 She had no voice, no vote, no legal existence. The If each person were equal before God, that planet of her life revolved around a masculine meant noble and commoner, male and female, sun, held in orbit by rigid social custom and slave and master, alike. No signs of secular rank religious prohibitions. Through meager schooling, would be recognized, no hats removed in the she acquired only those skills necessary to presence of nobles, no flattering forms of address maintain her course. Beyond her orbit, there was employed. Instead, adopted the "plain endless void; or, so it seemed. speech," using the singular pronoun ''thee" to all This generally-accepted concept of woman's persons regardless of rank, anticipating the later proper place received an early rejection by one adaptation of the plural "you" to both singular important Protestant group: the Religious Society and plural subjects. This ''witness," as the of Friends, commonly called Quakers. Lucretia uncustomary Quaker practices came to be called, Coffin Mott, born into a Quaker family in 1793, carried an additional benefit to women. Like men, was raised on Nantucket Island, a whaling women were addressed with their whole name, or community where Quaker philosophy simply as "Friend." Hope Elizabeth Luder points predominated. Like several leaders of the women's out that, when titles were omitted, the distinction rights movement, she absorbed the values of her of marital status implied in the use of "Miss" or family's Quaker faith and remained committed to "Mrs." was swept away.3 Quaker belief in the its principles throughout her life. equality of persons cast early suspicion on the In order to understand the background of the practice of slave-holding, and the subsequent early abolition and women's rights activists - effort of Quakers in the anti-slavery movement is women like Susan B. Anthony, Foster, perhaps their most widely-recognized Sarah and Angelina Grimke, and others less achievement. well-known - it is important to understand the If personal revelation were a possibility to all basic beliefs of Quakerism for those beliefs did who genuinely sought it, women as well as men much to establish a standard of woman's potential were equally likely to receive God's call to the for the women's rights movement. ministry. Of the original sixty-six "Publishers of Philosophically, Quakerism challenged the the Truth" who traveled the roads of in Calvinist doctrine of by asserting that the 1650s preaching the faith, twelve were women. there was ''that of God in every one."2 Elitism and One of the twelve was whose clerical hierarchy were discarded, and individuals spiritual guidance and organizational skills assumed responsibility for their own salvation, gained·for her the title, "The Mother of standing equally before God. The authority of the Quakerism." Following 's lead, clergy was denounced because Quakers were Margaret Fell took upon herself the task of convinced that each individual was eligible for defending the right of women to public ministry. personal revelation, the divine "leadings of the In 1667, she published a treatise which argued the Holy Spirit," and that the ministry should not be right of women to preach their faith, one of the limited to an elite few. earliest European claims for women's rights.4 George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, began Her efforts also included the establishment of his ministry in the north of England in 1652. women's meetings for business at which the Puritan officials quickly denounced him as a secular affairs of Quakerdom were managed. heretic, and he spent the rest of his life in and out Men's business meetings, held monthly in each of England's prisons. His message struck a local district, and quarterly and yearly in responsive chord among the farmers and artisans successively larger geographic areas, were already of the countryside, however, and his fame and being established. The women's meetings ideas soon spread throughout England. Casting paralleled the men's and took on special aside the traditional forms of worship, Fox's responsibilities considered suitable, such as relief converts sat in quiet, unstructured gatherings of the poor and imprisoned, the education of where the "Spirit of the Lord" caused them to children, and the training and employment of tremble, hence the name, Quaker. Quaker young women. These were among the The revolutionary ideas of Fox had many earliest organizations to provide European women implications. If there were ''that of God in every with an opportunity to govern their own business one", then wars were not simply undesirable, they affairs and to develop their skill in public were sacrilegious. Pacifism was a practical speaking and administration. consequence. In the centuries that followed, monthly,

17 quarterly and yearly meetings in Europe and meeting for worship was required and students America would prove to be the training ground for were often privileged to hear the words of the countless Quaker leaders, male and female alike. unsalaried traveling ministers - male and female For the young woman with religious commitment - who kept the scattered Quaker settlements and ability, the opportunity for public united in spirit. achievement and recognition within the Quaker The Quaker school on Nantucket required its community was, by comparison with other boys and girls to attend school all day, Christian faiths at that time, infinite. Whether in year-round.6 When the Coffin family moved from supervision and administration, or in the ministry, Nantucket to in 1804, Lucretia discovered or both, women found opportunity for public that girls received quite a different sort of service offered nowhere else. treatment in the Boston public school she These opportunities could not have prepared attended. Although boys were afforded a Quaker women for entry into the year-round education, girls were allowed to attend nineteenth-century reform movements, however, only "from the 20th of April to the 20th of 7 without one additional option: the option of October... ." Beyond that, George Martin points non-conformity. Quakerism glorified and out, the number of hours girls spent in school encouraged action for the sake of principle. The were very few. heroes and heroines of the faith were those like "The boys were sent home an hour earlier in the Mary Dyer, whose persistent refusal to obey forenoon and afternoon, and the girls came in; law prohibiting Quaker meetings or the girls came an hour in the morning, before resulted in her public hanging on Boston the boys, and on Thursday afternoon (the boys' Common. , a Quaker teacher, wrote holiday); this only during the summer months, so passionately of the injustice of slavery that so tender was the consideration for what, in the Quakers everywhere took up the anti-slavery language of the time, was called 'the female cause. Defiance of injustice came to be an integral health.,,, part of the Quaker culture and those who suffered at the hands of the world could expect praise from According to Martin, the curriculum for girls in the close-knit, supportive Quaker community, so public school was quite narrow, and it was long as individual dissent conformed to Quaker " . . . the more ambitious girls [who] worked their doctrine. way a little into arithmetic and geography and grammar."" Given a philosophy of spiritual equality and an Not only did the public school system limit the expectation of full and principled participation by opportunities for girls to study, its textbooks men and women in , a policy of established the "modest, meek and silent'' woman educational parity for boys and girls followed. as the ideal. Ruth Miller Elson, in her definitive Stressing first the religious and then the practical analysis of nineteenth-century American aspects of education, Quakers offered a schoolbooks, notes that". . . schoolbooks, except substantially equal curriculum to both sexes. By those few specifically designed for female the end of the eighteenth century, the concern of education, are addressed to boys. In the minds of Quaker primary schools everywhere was to provide most schoolbook authors 'the child' is male.... " a "guarded religious education" to all children. Women as portrayed in the texts were adjuncts of The four R's - reading, writing, arithmetic, and males; whether they were father, brother, husband, religion - were taught, ''with emphasis on 9 5 or son, males dominated and females submitted. Religion." Deference was paid to the separate Elson argues persuasively that textbooks were tasks performed by males and females, and thus one of the major tools of social control in Quaker girls, like their non-Quaker cousins American education. When one compares the elsewhere, learned the art of needlework while commonly-used nineteenth-century texts with the Quaker boys undertook special instruction in textbooks used in Quaker schools, a distinction agricultural skills. In scholastic matters, however, becomes clear. Quaker-authored texts consistently their curriculae were, apparently, the same. reflected the philosophy of the Quaker faith. In Thus, Lucretia Coffin, enrolled in a Quaker non-Quaker texts, not only the role of women but primary school on Nantucket, would have received the relationships of human beings generally were a solid grounding in the rudiments of learning portrayed in un-Friendly terms. Stated simply, war and, at the same time, an equally solid grounding was glorified, Negroes vilified, and women in the rudiments of Quakerism. Attendance at nullified.10

18 Obviously the preparation given girls in public implied not only literature, but history and schools was inappropriate to the demands of geography as well. In addition, there may have Quaker life. Lucretia Coffin apparently attended been some science classes. In their efforts to only one six-month session in the Boston public provide a useful education to Quaker children, the school. Her parents, convinced of the importance Friends had been eager to adopt the practical of female education, enrolled both Lucretia and sciences into their curriculae. Botany, astronomy, her sister, Elizabeth, in Nine Partners Boarding and "natural philosophy" were included in the School, a Quaker school near Poughkeepsie, New academic programs of advanced students at about , in 1806. this time. Nine Partners School was one of several It is worth noting that one of Lucretia's teachers boarding schools which sprang into existence at was Susan Marriott, "an Englishwoman of the end of the eighteenth century.11 Quakers who uncommon acquirements," who prodded her valued Quaker education believed that the rural students to a complete awareness of the subtleties boarding school, secluded from the temptations of of English grammar. Apparently there were oral urban life, would foster the proper development of presentations in her classes because she was their children and serve to protect the Quaker "very critical of their pronunciation and their culture. Nine Partners had been founded with the choice of language, and .made a nice help of a Quaker minister named , one discrimination between words.''15 This strongly of the most vigorous defenders of the anti-slavery suggests that Lucretia Coffin had a chance to cause. Hicks took an active interest in Nine study a kind of informal public speaking with Partners, believing that it was more important for Susan Marriott. Quaker children to "be brought up and educated Although consistent with the role of women in in the fear of the Lord" than they "should make the Society of Friends, such a thing was unheard great advancement in scholastic science, or obtain of outside the Society. Women simply did not the riches and popularity of the world; all of speak in public, and as late as 1833, Lucretia Mott which were of momentary duration."11 In Hick's had to contend with men who had never heard a view, education should prepare children to live a woman speak at a public meeting, "turning to see simple Quaker life, withdrawn from the concerns what woman there was who knew what the word of the world, intent upon the will of God. 'transpose' meant. . . ." 16 Hick's ascetic philosophy was somewhat bal­ It was at Nine Partners that Lucretia Coffin anced by the academic goals of James Mott, Sr., became committed to the anti-slavery cause. First the school's resident superintendent and Quaker textbooks described the plight of the slave grandfather of Lucretia's future husband. Mott and vividly conveyed the wretchedness of the believed that education should appeal to and "middle passage," the journey by ship from Africa develop reason and independent judgment. Before to the slave markets. Before she left Nine Partners, coming to Nine Partners, Mott had gone so far as Lucretia Coffin was fully aware of a great wrong to to recruit Yale graduates to teach at the family be righted. school he had established near his At age fifteen, Lucretia Coffin was asked to join home. 13 At a time when Quakers viewed higher the Nine Partners faculty as an assistant to education, especially of the Puritan stamp, with Deborah Rogers, one of the experienced teachers. great suspicion, Mott's choice of teachers The following year, Lucretia was hired as a demonstrates both his concern for solid academic regular faculty member. During these two years, training and his independence of mind. Lucretia Coffin came face to face with the For Nine Partners, Mott sought the most difference between the theory of sexual equality qualified - albeit Quaker - teachers, and the within the Religious Society of Friends, and its curriculum aimed at providing "a thorough application. Years later, she recalled: academic course.'' The school advertised its beginning studies as "Reading, Writing & "Leaming that the charge for the tuition of girls Accounts together with English Grammar, ... was the same as that for boys, and then when Branches of the Mathematics, ... and Business they became teachers women received only half and Domestic Employment." If parents so desired, as much for their services, the injustice of this they could arrange for their children to study "the distinction was so apparent, that I early more advanced branches of Literature," at an extra resolved to claim for myself all that an impartial charge. 14 This ambiguous phrase seems to have Creator had bestowed.''17

19 Lucretia Mon

In point of fact, Lucretia Mott erred on the side of in motion a chain of thought that eventually led to generosity with regard to the percentage of salary her vigorous defense of women's rights. paid the women teachers. Otelia Cromwell reports In the years following her Nine Partners that the superintendent received an annual salary education, Lucretia Coffin married James Mott, Jr., of £150, the novice teacher of the boys (Lucretia's settled in Philadelphia, raised her family, and future husband), £100, but Deborah Rogers, the continued to study independently. Her religious seasoned master teacher, received only £20.18 commitment was recognized in 1821, when The injustice of Deborah Rogers' lower pay 28-year-old Lucretia Mott was recorded a minister appeared even greater, set as it was against the of the Society of Friends. By 1830, she had been avowed Quaker theory of equality between the chosen (that is, presiding officer) of her sexes. It is precisely this contrast which struck Women's , a position she held for a Lucretia Coffin. Had the discrimination in pay total of five years, providing leadership for nearly been consistent with a general attitude of women's six thousand Quaker women. Her public ministry inferiority, she probably would have given it no grew to include more frequent and wide-ranging thought. Most women of her time did just that. travel; between 1828 and 1840, Lucretia Mott Lucretia's early exposure to Quaker theory and the repeatedly journeyed through and New achievements of Quaker women, her later Jersey, as well as and Maryland, to experience of the limitations placed on the meet and speak to Friends, following the tradition females of Boston, and now her confrontation with established over 150 years earlier by Margaret Fell discrimination in the Society of Friends itself set and others.

20 In all her work - writing, meeting, presiding, Footnotes speaking, guiding - Lucretia Mott's administrative judgment and organizational 'Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Matilda abilities were strengthened at every tum. Having Joslyn Gage, eds. History of Woman Suffrage, 3 Vols., 2nd Ed. (1889; Reprint New York 1970), I., p. 422. committed herself to the anti-slavery cause, 'George Fox. The Journal of George Fox, John Nlckalls, ed. Lucretia Mott was one of the first women to join (1694; Revised Cambridge 1952), p. 263. William Lloyd Garrison in public defense of the 'Hope Elizabeth Luder. Women and Quakerism (Wallingford, slave; her efforts on behalf of the abolition Pennsylvania 1974), p. 10. movement continued unabated from 1833 to the •Margaret Fell. Women Speaking, Justified, Proved And Allowed Of By The Scriptures, All Such As Speak By The Spirit end of the Civil War. Her reform activities And Power Of The Lord Jesus (London 1667). increased to encompass woman's rights, peace, "Thomas Woody. Quaker Education in the Colony and State temperance, and many others. With success and of New Jersey (1923; Reprint New York 1969), p. 328. wider recognition came a habit of confidence and •zora Klaln. Educational Activities of Quakers self-assurance. By 1840, Lucretia Mott would be (Philadelphia 1928), pp. 116-119. 'Town Meeting, Proceedings, 16 October 1789. Boston one of a handful of American women who could Records, XXXI, 208-210, quoted in Daniel Calhoun, ed., The claim comparable achievements. It was these Educating of Americans: A Documentary History (Boston achievements which lent order and strength to the 1969), p. 113. rising women's movement. "George H. Manin. The Evoludon of the Massachusetts Public School System (New York 1923), p. 130. In addition to ministerial and reform activities, 'Ruth Miller Elson. Guardians of Tradition: American her influence and untiring efforts supported the Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century (Lincoln, Nebraska establishment of educational facilities for girls, 1964), pp. 302-303. from Quaker primary schools to Swarthmore '"Ibid., pp. 322-334, 87-88 and 302-312, respectively. "Other Friends' boarding schools In 1806 were located In College, the first Quaker college to admit women. Wilmington, Delaware; Duck Creek Meeting, Virginia; Fair She also aided in the establishment of the Hill, Maryland, and Westtown, Pennsylvania. See J. William Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia, the Frost, The Quaker Family ln Colonial America (New York first school to offer a regular medical education 1973), p. 103. for women. '*Elias Hicks. Journal of the Life and Religious Labors of Elias Hicks, Written by Himself (New York 1832), p. 281, Lucretia Mott carried from her own uncommon quoted in Bliss Forbush, Elias Hicks: Quaker Liberal (New education a belief that the education of girls and York 1956), p. 133. Hicks' name would later be linked with the boys should not differ. Asserting, "mind has no first traumatic schism to afflict Quakerism. 1 sex," she continued to work for the improvement 2Thomas C. Cornell. Adam and Anne Mon: Their Ancestors and Their Descendants (Poughkeepsie, N.Y. 1890), p. 68. of the human condition. It was out of her own 140tella Cromwell. Lucretia Mon (1958; Reprint New York Quaker experience of woman's abilities and her 1971), p. 16. belief in the dignity of the human spirit that "Anna Davis Hallowell. James and Lucretia Mott: Life and Lucretia Mott spoke in 1849. In defending the Leners (Boston, 1884), p. 37. 1•/b/d., p. 115. rights of women, she said, "lbld., p. 38. '"Cromwell, op. clr., p . 18. "Let woman then go on - not asking favors, but ''From "A Discourse on Woman," delivered December 17, claiming as a right the removal of all 1849. Hallowell, op. cit., p. 505. hindrances to her elevation in the scale of being - let her receive encouragement for the proper Penny Pagllaro received her B.A. ln English from Earlham cultivation of all her powers, so that she may College, a Quaker school ln Richmond, , and an M.Ed. enter profitably into the active business of life ln Educational Foundations from the University of Hawall. Her interests in Women 's History and Education grew during the ... coveting earnestly the best gifts, let her four years she served as a Counselor with Continuing strive to occupy such walks in society as will Education for Women, University of Hawail. Ms. Pagliaro also befit her true dignity in all the relations of pursues an interest ln quality children's llrerature. Her first life."19 book, 1 Like Poems and Poems Like Me, ls scheduled for publication in April 1977. In this plea, and throughout her life, Lucretia Coffin Mott asked no more for other women than she had come to expect for herself. Within her Quaker experience, she had found acceptance as a woman and opportunity as a gifted individual. Her principles, shaped by Quakerism, would accept nothing less for other human beings.

21