Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/416

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354
HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
nobility of England—American women at the head. Among many others a reception was given by the Lord Bishop of London at his home, Fulham Palace. In talking with Lady Battersea, daughter of a Rothschild, I caught myself repeatedly addressing her as "Mrs. Battersea," and I said, "I suppose I shock you very much by forgetting your title." She answered emphatically: "Not at all. I like an American to be an American. It is much pleasanter than when they come cringing and crawling and trying to conform to our customs."" When all sorts of notables were giving us receptions, I said to Lady Aberdeen: "If this great Council of Women of ten nations were meeting in Washington, we would be invited to the White House. Can't you contrive an interview with the Queen?"

Miss Anthony then described the reception of the Congress by the Queen at Windsor Castle, the serving of tea in the great Hall of St. George, and all the incidents of that interesting occasion, and concluded: "What I want most to impress upon you is this: If we had represented nothing but ourselves we should have been nowhere. Wendell Phillips said: "When I speak as an individual, I represent only myself, but when I speak for the American Anti-Slavery Society, I represent every one in the country who believes in liberty." It was because Miss Shaw and I represented you and all which makes for liberty that we were so well received; and I want you to feel that all the honors paid to us were paid to you."

A paper to be remembered was that of Mrs. Isabel C. Barrows (Mass.) on Woman's Work in Philanthropy. After tracing the various lines of philanthropic effort in which women had been distinguished, she said in conclusion that no woman who ever had lived had done more in the line of philanthropy than Susan B. Anthony.

Miss Harriet May Mills (N. Y.) gave a fine address on The Winning of Educational Freedom, saying in part:

.... Abigail Adams said of the conditions in the early part of the nineteenth century: "Female education in the best families went no farther than reading, writing and arithmetic and, in some rare instances, music and dancing." A lady living in the first quarter of the century relates that she returned from a school in Charleston, where she had been sent to be "finished off," with little besides a knowledge of sixty different lace stitches. .... The majority of women were content, they asked no change; they took no part in the movement for higher education except to ridicule it. This, like every other battle for freedom which the world has seen, was led by the few brave, strong souls who saw the truth and