Another brief notice indicates that the Quaker preferment for plain dress was also made to prevail in the schoolroom.
Gay clothing disagreeable
From a certain expression which lately drop’d from one of the overseers, we would have the greatest reason to believe that Mr. Webster’s gay appearance is rather disagreeable.[870]
Supervision
Somewhat irregular
Monthly visits decided upon
Some supervision of the work on the part of overseers and school committees seems to have been at all times expected, though attention hardly needs be called to it after the presentation of so many reports made by committees, in the chapters relating to the establishment of schools in the several counties. From the irregularity in the reports we judge, however, that the visitation must have likewise been irregular in many places. In 1755 the Board in Philadelphia decided that for the encouragement of masters and scholars there should be visits made each month, preceding the usual monthly meetings. Also if “play days” were thought necessary they were to be arranged for between the masters and the committee of visitors.[871] The minutes indicate that these monthly visits were regularly performed. The Negro School, established in 1770, was also in charge of a committee to visit, superintend, and advise regarding its affairs.[872]
THE CURRICULUM
The curricula are in general in harmony with the recommendations of the yearly meetings; and the Frame of Government
If we go back to our references on the advices of the yearly meetings of London and Philadelphia we shall find there the basic reasons for the subjects which are to be mentioned as taught regularly in the schools. We recall that there was an emphasis placed on the moral, the useful and practical, and the subjects first to be mentioned were: writing, reading, and arithmetic, which constituted the necessities.[873] Furthermore, the Frame of Government of 1696, the product of Quaker minds and hands, recommended to erect and order all public houses and encourage and reward the authors of useful sciences and laudable inventions.[874] It is seen also from later advices of the yearly meeting that the useful was not limited necessarily to the four R’s, religion, arithmetic, writing, and reading. In 1737, they recommended that as opportunity could be found, children should be permitted to learn “French, High and Low Dutch, Danish, etc.”[875] The use of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew is also justified by Crouch,[876] and it is well known and evident in all their writings that Penn, Barclay, Fothergill, Lloyd, Proud, Pastorius, and innumerable others were classically educated men.