Their report was left for further consideration.
Attempt to bestir the preparatives
In 1784 a drive was organized on the preparative meetings. The monthly meeting received a visit from the committee of the quarterly meeting, which suggested the appointment of a large committee and the distribution of the printed advices of the yearly meeting of 1778, to be read before each of the preparative meetings.[576] In conformity with this suggestion, the former school committee was released and a new one of ten members appointed as a standing committee, directed to follow out the previously made suggestions.[577] In their report issued shortly thereafter, there is an account of the beginning of a school in Willistown, which is as the following:
School at Willistown; master’s house, etc., proposed
The committee in the care of schools report that a school is kept in the new house built in Willistown by a Friend, and endeavors are used to have it conducted as near as may be to the directions of the Yearly Meeting, and the building of a house for the master is proposed and a considerable sum of money is subscribed towards the same, provided a sufficiency can in like manner be raised.[578]
Another report for 1785 gives the state of schools for that date.
One school the property of the monthly meeting
There are several schools in the verge of our monthly meeting, kept by members of our society, one of which belongs to the monthly meeting, with several acres of land, whereon Friends are now building a house for a master, which when completed there will be a small fund towards schooling poor children.[579]
The chief concern to which the committee now addressed itself was the problem as to how they might establish a permanent fund for the schooling of poor children in their limits. For this problem they seem to have found a satisfactory solution for the time being, in 1786, which they reported to the monthly meeting for its approval. It appears to have been satisfactory to the meeting in the following form, the essential features being the same as those incorporated in the plans of meetings already mentioned.
Goshen plan for establishing funds similar to others