Three schools reported
In accord with the above report the monthly meeting urged each preparative meeting to appoint a committee on schools; the monthly meeting named James Moon, John Merrick, Jonathan Kirkbride, William Satterthwaite, William Bidgood, Jr., John Stapler and Joseph Gillingham to join with those of the preparatives for that service.[360] Five months thereafter they reported,
The three several schools kept within compass of our respective preparative meetings are conducted in some measure under the care of a committee of Friends appointed for that purpose and that the several teachers are members of our society.[361]
The three preparative meetings were Falls, Makefield, and Bristol, the last named being transferred to Middletown in 1788.[362] Makefield Meeting was considerably assisted by help from private sources; they reported to the monthly meeting in 1787:
Individual aid
We hereby inform the monthly meeting that lately there has been a house built on the ground belonging to Makefield Preparative Meeting for the accommodation of a school master, chiefly at the expense of Bernard Taylor, which he is desirous should be under use for that purpose, to be subject to a moderate yearly rent to be paid to Friends of that meeting for the use of the said meeting: the said house to be their property and under the care and the direction of said meeting with the advice and assistance of the Falls Monthly Meeting as occasion may require.[363]
New building proposed at Falls; not built till later
In 1790 a committee of the quarterly meeting was appointed to confer with those of the monthly meetings on schools, hoping that the union of all might be more productive of results than all working separately.[364] In 1794 plans were set on foot for a new schoolhouse at Falls Preparative, said house to be two stories in height and about twenty-two feet by thirty.[365] It was to be placed “near the line” of the meeting’s land at the west end of the meeting house. The monthly meeting was to pay £75, the employers who are members, £75, and the school committee £50 from the money arising from donations left for the purposes of schools. The house was not built until 1799, due to some unknown delay; its dimensions were twenty-four by twenty-six feet, one story high, with a cellar of the same dimensions.[366]
Attention called to the boarding school
In 1797 the attention of the monthly meeting was called to the proposals of the yearly meeting for the founding of a boarding school.[367] Copies of the printed rules proposed for its government had been received, and a committee was appointed to distribute them and to take subscriptions from any who were interested to contribute.[368]