Report on funds
We the subscribers having perused the accounts of Joshua Morris, the meeting’s treasurer, do report that the said treasurer credits the meeting with several sums received on the meeting’s accounts from the year 1761 ... including £28 for the rent of William Carter’s legacy to this meeting, the whole being the sum of £157/12/11, and that he paid by order of this meeting in that time (including £40 paid for schools for poor children) the sum of £137/11/8; balance in his hands the 24th of the 11th month, 1766 is £20/1/3.
We likewise report that we find five years’ rent of four pounds a year and a year’s rent of six pounds on the said Carter’s legacy outstanding and not yet collected or received by him.[470]
A minute of 1735 entered in the meeting’s records affords us an interesting glimpse into the nature of the books used for the Friends’ schools. These books are very frequently mentioned in many of the meeting’s records, and many of them were always on sale by booksellers such as Franklin in Philadelphia.[471] There seems to be no doubt that they constituted one of the staples of the mental pabulum. The extract in which they are mentioned illustrates also the initiative taken by the meeting in the direction of affairs relating to schools.
Books used in schools
And further to let the quarterly meeting understand that this meeting conceives that reprinting a quantity of George Fox’s Primers and Stephen Crisp’s ditto and of George Fox’s The Youngers might be advantageous to those children of Friends in school or elsewhere. We, therefore, refer the same to said meeting’s consideration.[472]
The Abington Meeting began at an early date to work for a better organization among its schools, coöperating heartily with the suggestions of the yearly meeting from time to time. The yearly meeting in 1746 and 1750 made several suggestions for the improvement of schools,[473] which were in 1751 followed by Abington with a statement that
This meeting has gone through in the several branches thereof in the service of visiting of families and to general satisfaction, and as to the settling of schools we have had it under consideration and some are desirous to promote the same but find many discouragements at the present, yet are in hopes it may be further considered, and....[474]
This report means nothing in terms of accomplishment, but indicates willingness and an active interest in educational problems. In reading of their “discouragements” one must keep in mind the standards set by the yearly meeting, and that their report was their idea of how they measured up to them.
Gwynedd