The meetings
Following the procedure in the preceding chapter, the establishment of schools in Montgomery County will be treated (1) under the head of the monthly meetings in whose limits they were located and (2) in the order of the time of settlement. The monthly meetings in Montgomery County and their dates of establishment are as follows: (1) Abington, 1683; (2) Gwynedd, set off from Radnor, located in present Delaware County, 1714, and (3) Horsham, set off from Abington in 1782.[443] In connection with the schools established in Montgomery County will also be considered briefly the same activity of Warrington Monthly Meeting (York County), which belongs at present to Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Warrington was established as a monthly meeting in 1747,[444] being set off from that of Sadsbury. Brief mention is made of Westland Meeting.
Abington
Youths’ meetings
The first records left by Abington Meeting, which relate particularly to any phase of education, are those in reference to the establishment of youths’ meetings. It is implied by these minutes that nothing was done in this regard till about 1695, when,
It was agreed upon ... that four friends belonging to this monthly meeting be asked to take care of the Youth belonging to each meeting as concerning their orderly walking ... according to the good advice of Friends, in an epistle from the Yearly Meeting at Burlington 1694, wherefore ... men appointed.[445]
Established
This apparently resulted in an agreement that the youths’ meetings should be established at the home of Richard Worrall.[446] It is to be inferred that considerable attention was given to this earliest phase of education. In 1699 the Friends of Abington urged:
Those Friends that are appointed to inspect into the behavior of the youth and their respective meetings; that they may be stirred to discharge their places, and to give account to the monthly meeting.[447]
Youths’ meetings shifted often