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for the special use of the school, and rooms were provided in the house for the accommodation of the teacher and a few boarding

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ANCIENT FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE AND SCHOOLHOUSE, LAMPETER. 1792.

scholars. Friends' meeting-houses were built at Newberry and Warrington, in York county, about 1745; and from the first there were schools connected with them.

The zeal of Friends in the cause of education did not rest satisfied in the establishment of schools for themselves. They were frequently the moving spirits in establishing schools open to all the children of a neighborhood and entirely free from church control. This was particularly the case in neighborhoods where there were few Friends and no meeting-houses. Multitudes of old schools in the counties around Philadelphia, when their history comes to be written, will reveal the hands of the public-spirited Friends to whom they owed their existence.

Nor were the schools established by the early Friends wholly of an elementary character. Although most of them were located in rural districts, the masters frequently gave instruction in the higher branches of learning. Geometry, Mensuration, Algebra and Surveying were taught in many schools; History, Natural Philosophy

and Astronomy were taught less generally, and in a few instances instruction was given in Latin and Greek. As examples of such advanced schools, may be named the school at Birmingham, Chester county, under John Forsythe; the school at Byberry, Philadelphia county, under John Comly, and the schools at Plymouth, Abington and Gwynedd, Montgomery county. About 1790, George Churchman, a prominent Friend, established a Boarding School in East Nottingham, Chester county, for the advanced education of young women with a view of preparing them for the business of teaching; but the day for Normal schools had not yet arrived, and after a few terms the school closed. Of the many private Boarding Schools that were established by Friends, mostly at a later date than the period now under consideration, some mention will be made in another chapter.

In 1769, perhaps earlier, an effort was made by Friends to establish a Boarding School for boys. The plan was to purchase a farm and erect commodious buildings. The course of instruction mapped out was to include "Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Navigation, Surveying, Gauging, and such other learning as is usually taught, and the parents may direct; and likewise the Latin, Greek and French languages." The project failed for the time, probably owing to the confused political condition of the country; but, in 1791, the subject was brought up in the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, carried to the Quarterly Meeting, and in the succeeding year reached the Yearly Meeting, where it was carefully deliberated upon for two years, and, 1794, carried into effect by the purchase of the fine farm of James Gibbons in Westtown township, Chester county, consisting of six hundred acres. Here, in 1799, buildings were completed which still stand, and the school was opened at once. The first cost of the farm and buildings was about $46,000, but the additions and improvements since made swell the expeditures on the real estate to $300,000. In addition a large new building is now, 1885, in process of erection. The institution as it now stands, with its massive buildings; its splendid grounds; its large well-cultivated farm, including farm-house, barns, mill, gardens, orchards, woodlands and water-courses; extensive collections of apparatus and well-filled libraries and cabinets, and its large corps of skilled instructors and liberal course of study, is one of the most attractive as well as one of the best schools of the kind in the country. Both boys and girls have been admitted from the first, but communication between the

in the hands of what is known as the Orthodox branch, and is managed by a committee appointed by the Yearly Meeting. None but children of the members of the Society controlling the school

sexes has always been judiciously regulated. After the division that took place in the Society of Friends, 1827, the school remained

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are admitted as students. The school is so largely endowed that the whole cost of boarding and tuition scarcely ever exceeds $150 a year, and sometimes it falls as low as $50 or $60 a year. Many are boarded and instructed entirely without expense. To 1872, the number of students who had attended the school from the beginning was 9,612, 4,215 boys, and 5,396 girls.

Westtown Boarding School has always been noted for the many excellent teachers there qualified for their work. Soon after its establishment young men and women began to go forth from it to open schools of their own, introducing into them improved textbooks, advanced studies, more system, and better methods of teaching. The institution trained teachers, and in numerous instances they in turn trained other teachers. Of those who had either been teachers or students at Westtown or who had inherited from sons of Westtown the Westtown spirit, may be named John Comly, Principal of Byberry Boarding School, and author of Comly's Grammar, Spelling-Book, etc.; Enoch Lewis, Principal of New Garden Boarding School, and author of various works on mathematics; John Gummere, Principal of Burlington, New Jersey, Boarding School, and author of Gummere's Surveying, Astronomy, etc.; Joseph Foulke, Principal of Gwynedd Boarding School; Samuel Alsop, a noted teacher and author of works on Mathematics; Emmor Kimber, Principal of Kimberton Boarding School; Joshua Hoopes, Principal of a Boarding School at West Chester, and a distinguished botanist; Jonathan Gause, who for fifty-seven years, at the head of various institutions of learning, held the place of one of Pennsylvania's most gifted teachers, and Joseph C. Strode, Principal of East Bradford Boarding School and one of the most famous mathematicians in the United States-a galaxy of names unequaled as teachers by the sons of any other like institution in the State.

In founding schools, it was the policy of the early Friends in Pennsylvania to provide endowments for them. Advice to this effect was frequently given by the Yearly Meeting; and, in 1795, it was specifically recommended by this body that Friends should make testamentary provision for the support of schools. The response to this action on the part of the Yearly Meeting seems to have been quite general, as the facts already given and the following examples will show.

Adam Harker, of Buckingham, Bucks county, in 1754, left £75 for the establishment of a free school at Wrightstown, and £40 for

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the same purpose at Buckingham. The schools were to be under the care of the Monthly Meeting.

The Byberry school received £113 1s. 8d. from John Eastburn in 1776, £100 from James Thornton in 1794, £50 from John Townsend in 1800, and various smaller sums from other Friends.

Thomas Griffin, another Bucks county Friend, bequeathed, in 1761, the rentals of two lots of ground in the city of Philadelphia for the purpose of "supporting and maintaining a free school forever, on a lot of ground, already purchased, situated in Montgomery township, where there is a good stone schoolhouse erected.” The amount subsequently realized from the sale of the lots was £953 15s.

Friends' meeting at Richland, Bucks county, in 1762, raised a fund for the education of the poor of all denominations. Similar action was taken by many other Friends' meetings.

In 1810. Jacob Jones devised a tract of land and a sum of money, the proceeds of which were to be devoted to the "free education and instruction of the poor and orphan children of both sexes" living in Lower Merion township, Montgomery county. This was the foundation of an institution now and for many years known as "Lower Merion Academy." Mr. Jones also left £100 to endow the free school connected with Plymouth Meeting. Joseph Williams in 1812, left £200 to the Plymouth school for the free education of the children of parents in "necessitous circumstances."

The two-storied Academy building at Hatboro, Montgomery county, with seven acres of ground and a large dwelling house, were the fruits of a legacy left by Robert Loller, in 1810, to establish and maintain a school of high grade. About the same time, Milcali Martha Moore made a bequest of $800 for the "schooling of poor young women of Gwynedd and Montgomery townships who intend to teach."

EPISCOPALIANS.

At the time the first settlements were made in Pennsylvania, education in England was almost wholly in the hands of the Established Church. This was not only true of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the great Public Schools, but also of such schools as had been established throughout the kingdom for instruction in the rudiments. The same authorities that built churches and employed clergymen provided schoolhouses and teachers. The Parish church and the Parish school were one and

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