Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/319

 Everything came out of the home; but because you began in a cradle is no reason why you should always stay there. Because charity begins at home is no reason why it should stop there, and because woman’s first place is at home is no reason why her last and only place should be there. Civilization has been held back because so many men have inherited the limitations of the female sex. You can not raise public-spirited men from private-spirited mothers, but only from mothers who have been citizens in spite of their disfranchisement. In holding back the mothers of the race, you are keeping back the race.”

At the memorial services loving tributes were paid to the friends of woman suffrage who had passed away during the year. Among these were ex-Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, ex-Governor Oliver Ames (Mass.), Dr. James C. Jackson of Dansville (N.Y.), Dr. Abram W. Lozier of New York City, Thomas Davis, Sarah Wilbur of Rhode Island, Marian Skidmore of Lily Dale, N. Y., and Amelia E. H. Doyon of Madison, Wis., who left $1,000 to the National Association.

Henry B. Blackwell spoke of Theodore D. Weld, the great abolitionist, leader of the movement to found Oberlin, the first co-educational college, and one of the earliest advocates of equal tights for women. He told also of Frederick Douglass, whose last act was to bear his testimony in favor of suffrage for women at the Woman’s Council in Washington on the very day of his death. Mrs. Avery gave a tender eulogy of Theodore Lovett Sewall of Indianapolis, his brilliancy as a conversationalist, his charm as a host, his loyalty as a friend, his beautiful devotion to his wife, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, and his lifelong adherence to the cause of woman.

The loss of Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick came with crushing force, as her services to the association were invaluable. To her most intimate friend, the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, was assigned the duty of speaking a word in her memory, and in broken sentences she said: “TI never knew such earnest purpose and consecration or such a fund of knowledge in any one as Mrs. Dietrick possessed. She never stopped thinking because she had reached the furthest point to which some one else had thought. She was the best antagonist I ever saw; I never knew any one who could differ so intensely, and yet be so perfectly calm and good-tem-