As with the schools and school affairs of other meetings, their history becomes more tangible about the last quarter of the century. The recommendations of the yearly meeting being received in 1777 and their attention thus directed consciously to the question of education, a committee was appointed consisting of the following men: David Bacon, John Elliott, Jr., Charles West, David Estaugh, William Brown, Thomas Hollowell, John Gracey, Abraham Liddon, Samuel Lloyd, Abraham Cadwalader, John Heman, David Evans, Samuel Lee, Joseph Penrose, Joseph Lukens and John Evans.[480] The committee reported in 1779 that the establishment of schools had been under consideration, but that no fund had yet been raised or land purchased for the establishment thereof, as the yearly meeting had directed.[481] Accordingly the same committee was continued. In 1780 a minute of the meeting states that:
The matter relating to the establishment of schools is continued and it is desired that the several preparative meetings will attend to that matter as recommended by the committee some time past, and that the committee ... the same under their care and make a report when anything is done toward accomplishing that service.[482]
And again in 1785:
“Little progress” reported
A care remains on the Friends’ minds for the right education of the youth, though little progress hath yet been made in establishing schools under proper regulations, although attention hath been paid thereto. Those matters respecting the Africans are under the care of a committee, though little progress hath been made in inspecting their particular cases.[483]
Committee to aid in raising funds
The activity of the committee does not appear to have been very great. After a consideration of their obligations on the subject again in 1791 it was decided to appoint a new committee which was to work definitely toward a plan for raising a fund for school purposes, and to make a report on the state of schools in the monthly meeting. Their report which appeared in 1793 showed a considerable number of schools but none established on permanent foundations, and many not in the membership of Friends. The state of all the schools as reported is given in the following extract.[484]
School in Montgomery Township
Plymouth school
The committee appointed on schools reports that within the limits of Gwynedd Meeting a school in the township of Montgomery is kept in a house, property of Friends, there is a lot on two acres of land and two rooms for a master to live in, adjoining the schoolhouse, and there is remaining of a donation to the inhabitants of said township in common towards the support of a school, about fifty pounds per annum, to be kept in the said schoolhouse, the master a member of our Society; within the compass of Plymouth meeting, there is a schoolhouse built by a subscription on a small lot of land given as a donation with the interest accruing on five hundred pounds, which is free for all the inhabitants within a mile and a half of the donor’s land, the master not in membership with Friends.