Early Quaker education in Pennsylvania

by Thomas Woody

ORGANIZATION

London advices on education

The machinery of organization which had any connection with the direction of the school system has already been frequently referred to. It is the same organization which was discussed in [Chapter II].[780] It has further been pointed out that one of the functions of the head of this organization, the yearly or general assembly, was to issue advices for the direction of the lower units. These advices began very early, so far as they are concerned with education. In 1692 London Yearly Meeting warned all others to be careful of a “Christian care in the education of their children,”[781] and followed it successively each year with more suggestions.[782] These advices all found their way to the Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia and Burlington, and the similarity between the advices of the two meetings is striking but not surprising.

London advices summarized

It may be convenient for the reader if some of the chief recommendations of the London Advices are stated briefly, that the likeness of the two may be noted later when we examine those of Philadelphia. They are:

1. Education is to be useful and practical.[783]

2. The major emphasis is placed on Christian and moral instruction.[784]

3. The teachers must be capable of good moral influence.[785]

4. Teachers must be members of Friends.[786]

5. Free education is to be provided for the poor[787] (first it was only mentioned for the children of Friends, later others).

6. The coöperation of teachers is urged for the betterment of methods of teaching.[788]

7. The weaker communities are to be aided by the stronger.[789]

8. Both parents and teachers must realize the force of example.[790]

9. Close censorship of all reading material for the youth.[791]

Means of exercising influence: epistles, ministers, and representatives

Philadelphia advices also general for first half century

From this very brief statement of London Advices and with little attention paid to their manner of getting into and influencing those of Philadelphia, save to state that the chief means were: (1) epistles sent, (2) travelling ministers, and (3) through representatives sent from the lower meetings, let us turn to consider those of the last named meeting. As early as 1694 we find that that body approved certain “proposals about the education of youth,” the initiative for which seems to have come from Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting.[792] So far as the minute of the meeting goes, one would hardly dignify this statement so much as to say that it suggested a plan of education. If such a plan were submitted, it was carefully kept out of the minutes of that date. The very nature of the advice continues as with those of London until near the middle of the century, but as one reads the records they are seen to grow gradually in definiteness until beginning (to name a definite date) about 1746 and on through the period of 1777 and 1778, there are elaborated certain ideas for the establishment of schools in town and country. It is not until those later years that anything like strong central control is felt, and certainly there were earlier no visible results of such centralizing influence. Even then it took the form of urgent suggestions which, though producing very considerable results, cannot be regarded candidly as the best that might have been done. It is with these suggestions of the latter part of the century that we are chiefly concerned. The most important are here stated in brief manner.

Summary of Philadelphia advices

1. Education is to be useful in nature.

2. The minima to be attained are moral and Christian training and an ability to read and write.

3. The meetings are to assist each other in settling schools.

4. Members of Friends are to be employed as teachers in the schools; good moral influence of the teachers is of first importance.

5. A fixed income, house, and garden are necessary for securing a better and more permanent teaching body.

6. All teachers, employed, are to be approved by the monthly meeting.

7. Quarterly meetings are to appoint visiting committees.

8. Permanent funds recommended to be put in care of trustees.

9. Schools to be under the care of monthly meetings’ committees and reports are to be made thereon.

10. The poor children to be educated free of charge, and also the Negroes, where they are not able to pay. Children not Friends were not omitted,[793] as we find in the plans actually followed by the monthly meetings.

The functions of the quarterly meeting

The chief functions of the quarterly meeting were: (1) to transmit these advices; (2) to gather and return reports of the accomplishments within its limits; and (3) to keep in touch with the work by means of committees. Sufficient material has in the writer’s opinion been presented in the way of reports in previous chapters relating to schools established in the various counties, to make it unnecessary here.[794] To characterize it as an intermediary agent and its functions as supervisory and directive seems to be adequate.

Monthly meeting the business unit

The monthly meeting was above all others the organizing business unit and the welfare of schools appears to have depended much on its activity. It is to the monthly meeting that we are indebted for almost all of the reports on schools, and it has been noticed that not until raised to the dignity of being a monthly meeting, did many meetings assume any important part in directing education. A few preparatives, which might be considered as a little exceptional, were Byberry, Falls, and Horsham. They appear to have handled their schools a little more independently than did others. Duties which were as a general rule performed by each of the monthly meetings were these:[795]

Duties summarized

1. To investigate the state of schools in their preparatives.

2. To appoint committees to visit, assist and report on schools established, and recommend the establishment of others where necessary.

3. To approve masters, retire them, and fill vacancies.

4. Through trustees or committees on funds, (a) to finance the education of poor children, (b) to pay salaries, (c) to build school houses, and (d) to establish permanent endowments.

5. To take final reports to be sent to the yearly meeting.

Three points indicated concerning the organization

These functions have all been brought to the reader’s attention by reports and minutes quoted in chapters on the schools in various counties. This brief presentation of the organization and direction on the part of the meetings should be sufficient to point out: (1) that the general nature of the organization is a hierarchy of units; (2) that the direction of school activities comes from the higher to the lower, and is of a general and suggestive rather than specific and mandatory nature; (3) that the monthly meeting formed the real working unit, and that on its diligence probably depended the welfare of the preparatives’ schools. We shall now attend for a moment to a few of the details of the school in so far as we may judge them from the records at our disposal.