Quaker Meetings and Education in the Eighteenth Century

QUAKER MEETINGS AND EDUCATION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY By Sydney V. James* The educational policies of American Quakers in 1800 would have been almost unrecognizable to their ancestors a century earlier. Scholars studying this period, however, have tended to regard it as one of progress along fairly straight lines. The turns have remained in shadow, perhaps, because they seem minor compared to the decisions to found colleges in the nineteenth century. Yet Friends could hardly have accepted higher education without the preliminary réévaluation of the school in earlier years. Happily, a group of books, all written over twenty-five years ago, have made available the decisions of the various Quaker business meetings (except in New York Yearly Meeting) about schools in the eighteenth century, together with some discussion of educational goals both in and out of the classroom.1 Emphasis on the history of schools, however, has failed to give a true perspective on the developments of the period. To appreciate them it is necessary to inspect the views Friends held on the whole subject of education during the *Sydney V. James is a member of the History Department, University of Oregon. This article, from his book A People among Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1963), is copyrighted by the President and Fellows of Harvard University. 1 Thomas Woody, Early Quaker Education in Pennsylvania ("Columbia University Contributions to Education, Teachers' College Series," No. 105 ; New York, 1920) ; T. Woody, Quaker Education in the Colony and State of New Jersey (Philadelphia, 1923) ; Zora Klain, Quaker Contributions to Education in North Carolina (Philadelphia, 1924) ; Z. Klain, Educational Activities of New England Quakers: A Source Book (Philadelphia , 1928); William C. Dunlap, Quaker Education in Baltimore and Virginia Yearly Meetings, with an Account of Certain Meetings of Delaware and the Eastern Shore Affiliated with Philadelphia; Based on the Manuscript Sources (Philadelphia, 1936). 87 88Quaker History first half of the period and the changes which subsequendy took place in their ideals and the responsibilities which they gave their meetings. Colonial Quakers generally thought that education had two sides, one useful to economic life, the other to spiritual. They made the distinction, though, in purpose more than subject matter. In both categories they included training in such branches of virtuous conduct as honesty, diligence and skill in business, and selfrestraint in consumption. Nor before the Revolution did the school take a preponderant share of either kind of training. Formal classes had only limited functions, only rarely going so far as to prepare boys for higher learning in law or medicine. Even these professions were usually learned by assisting successful practitioners rather than at a university. Training for economic life usually was received on the family farm or in an apprenticeship. Quaker children went to school fundamentally to get basic instruction of kinds useful to all. Even in this arena, however, schoolmasters for many years took third rank in importance behind parents or masters and "Overseers" of the meeting. This was particularly true during the first half of the eighteenth century for two reasons. First, Friends put primary stress on the religious side of child training before apprenticeship; and second, the meetings held that the upbringing of children was a side of life which they ought to deal with not by direct action as corporate entities (the children were not considered members for most of this period) , but mainly as a part of the application of the discipline to parents.2 The school gained importance after 1746 not at first because of any revision of ideas about what it could or ought to do, but because Friends decided to make the establishment and support of schools part of the business of their meetings. After the Revolution a more sweeping alteration of policy emerged out of a new conception of the religious fellowship and new faith in what the school could do for it. From early in their history Quakers put the various kinds of learning to a test of utility. Reading (if only to read the Bible), writing, and simple arithmetic could easily pass it. These skills 2 Minutes of New England Yearly Meeting (MS, Yearly Meeting Vault, Moses Brown School, Providence 6, R-L...