CHAPTER VII
SCHOOLS OF CHESTER COUNTY

The meetings considered

The several monthly meetings, which are discussed in this chapter, were, for the period of this study (before 1800) members of Chester (or Concord Quarterly) Meeting, until the establishment of Western Quarterly Meeting in 1758,[520] when a number of them were included in that quarter. In 1800 a new Quarterly Meeting (Caln) was established from those formerly constituting Western Quarterly.[521] The monthly meetings with which we are to deal, the dates of their establishment, and the order of their presentation here, are as follows: (1) Kennett, known as Newark till 1760, 1686, or before; (2) New Garden, set off from Kennett in 1718; (3) Goshen, set off from Chester, 1722; (4) Bradford, 1737; (5) Uwchlan, set off from Goshen, 1763; (6) London Grove, set off from New Garden, 1792.[522] Those just named were situated within the limits of present Chester County.[523] The last meeting to be considered in this chapter, (7) Sadsbury, established in 1737, was situated in Lancaster County.[524]

Kennett

Early care for children

In the records of Kennett (Newark) Meeting, the writer has been unable to find any early explicit reference to education. Among the early references to children, are the minutes of 1715 in regard to those of the widow Howard at the time of her remarriage.[525] The meeting appointed a committee to look after the affairs of her children to see that the will of the deceased father was entirely complied with. Again in 1727 the meeting appointed a committee to see that the provision for the orphan children be fulfilled before allowing the widow to remarry.[526] These two cases serve to point out that an early care and interest in the affairs of children was manifested on the part of the meeting.

Local history credits Quakers with furnishing the foundation of schools

Local historians have very little to offer in the way of clews to the education of the Quakers in the last part of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, though they all agree that the Quakers furnished the foundations of education, and it was begun very early, even from the first establishment in the various counties.[527] Some of the early schools have already been discussed, in cases where it was possible to state the earliest beginnings.[528]

Yearly recommendations received