more ably fulfill their role as a "moral mother" (Bloch, 118). Smith continued to educate her children in secular as well as spiritual matters. Dr. John Stafford of Palmyra, New York interviewed in 1880, remembered that Smith "had a great deal of faith that their children were going to do something great" and also recalled that Smith taught her ten children from the Bible. (Although Smith gave birth to eleven children, their first died shortly after childbirth in 1797.) Stafford did not comment on the spiritual precepts they thus garnered but rather on the children's educational achievements. Joseph Jr. had been "quite illiterate," he said, but "after they began to have school at their house, he improved greatly" (Vogel 2:122). Smith's ambitions for, and faith in, her children's abilities were not unusual for a mother of that time. Linda Kerber tells how the republican mother was to "encourage in her sons civic interest and participation. She was to educate her children and guide them in the paths of morality and virtue" (283). Nancy Woloch, notes that ministers, after "discarding predestination as an axiom, now suggested that mothers, not God, were responsible for their children's souls" (121). Smith took such responsibilities seriously in her own family. William Smith later affirmed that his mother was a very pious woman and much interested in the welfare of her children, both here and hereafter: "She prevailed on us to attend the meetings [the Methodist revival being preached by George Lane], and almost the whole family became interested in the matter and seekers after truth. ... My mother continued her importunities and exertions to interest us in the importance of seeking for the salvation of our immortal souls, until almost all of the family became either converted or seriously inclined" (Vogel 1:494–95). Smith's piety and principles were major moral influence in her children's lives, but she was also concerned about her husband's spiritual well-being. New England ministers declared that a wife's conversion could also help her perform "her great task of bringing men back to God" (Welter, 162). Various publications of the early nineteenth century pointed out:Religion or piety was the core of women's virtue, the source of her strength. Religion belonged to woman by divine right, a gift of God and nature. This "peculiar susceptibility" to religion was given her for a reason: "the vestal flame of piety, lighted tip by Heaven in the