PHILANTHROPIC EFFORTS.

293

the stalwart supporters of movements than the ones who appeared before the public as leaders. They have been stronger in council than in the brilliant exercise of gifts, and in plain practical common sense than in the graceful accomplishments. For this reason superficial observers have often overlooked the service done by Friends to the various movements. They have not seldom given the needed suggestion at the right time. Thus it is said to

have been a Friend who was the means of starting Father Matthew on his great temperance work in Ireland. The modern idea of fresh-air funds and free sanitariums for sick children during the summer months is not new among Friends. The Annual Association of Women Friends for the Relief of Sick Children in the Summer Season was in full running order in Philadelphia in the summer of 1849, with a corps of nine physicians, ready to furnish free excursions by rail or steamboat, and in extreme cases to procure free board in the country for mothers with their sick infants. Later the work of Sarah Smith in the Indiana penitentiary, where she was for many years matron, must not be overlooked. She was one of the band of noble women who demonstrated that to treat criminals kindly and as human beings should be treated was not only humane, but eminently the wise thing to do for their reformation.

The interest of the Hicksites in the cause of temperance has been noted, and the Orthodox have not been behind them. Every Yearly Meeting has special committees on the subject, and, with perhaps no exception, the Disciplines of all make the manufacture or the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage a disownable offense. The Western Yearly Meetings are particularly earnest in the cause of the absolute prohibition of the traffic.

1 "Friends' Review," Philadelphia, "fifth mo. 26th, 1849," vol. ii., p. 576.

The interest of Friends in education developed early, and while they did not produce great scholars, they were able to keep the average educational standard of their members at a higher level than that of the community around them. This, with their strict moral discipline, made them generally persons of considerable influence in every neighborhood where they were found. New York Yearly Meeting opened the first boarding-school for Friends' children at Nine Partners, Dutchess Co., N. Y., in 1796. It was for children of both sexes. Moral training was made primary, and intellectual training secondary. After the separation it remained in the hands of the Orthodox Friends. About thirty years ago it was moved to Union Springs, N. Y., and is now in a flourishing condition, after having gone through many vicissitudes.

The next movement, three years later (1799) was the establishment of a boarding-school at Westtown,1 Chester County, Pa., by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, on an estate of six hundred acres. It was also for both sexes. The school has exercised for nearly a century very wide and deep influence upon Friends of Philadelphia and Baltimore Yearly Meetings. The teaching is most thorough and the discipline strict. At the separation it remained in the hands of the Orthodox. During the past ten years very handsome new buildings, with all modern improvements, have been erected.

In 1819 New England Yearly Meeting, influenced largely by the philanthropist Moses Brown, who had for years labored to establish such a school, and had given. valuable land in Providence, R. I., for the purpose, opened

1 It is not generally known that the establishment of this school was largely due to the celebrated John Dickinson, the author of "The Farmer's Letters,' member of the Continental Congress, etc. He and his wife contributed to its endowment. ("Life and Times of John Dickinson," C. J. Stillé, Philadelphia, 1891, pp. 328, 329.)

F

HAVERFORD COLLEGE.

295

"Friends' Boarding-school." This has been exceedingly successful, and has been to New England what Westtown has been to Pennsylvania. It is coeducational, and has in recent years become very liberal in its policy, so that many of its students are not Friends. Moses Brown, above mentioned, was also one of the greatest benefactors of Brown University, and through his influence the charter provides that a certain proportion of the trustees, who are chosen from various religious denominations, shall be Friends.1

Soon after the separation of 1827-28 the subject of more advanced education claimed the attention of Orthodox Friends, with the result of establishing Haverford School, in 1833, at Haverford, Pa. After several years of successful operation it had pecuniary difficulties and was closed for about three years, but was reopened in 1848. Though having a collegiate course, it did not apply for a charter as a college until 1856, being the first institution of the Society to assume that position. It is under the control of a corporation all the members of which must be Friends. It is, however, almost unsectarian in its teaching. It ranks high among the smaller colleges of the country. Among its professors have been Thomas Chase, of the American Company of Revisers of the New Testament, and an editor of a number of the classics, and also J. Rendel Harris, who during his professorship discovered the long-lost "Apology of Aristides" in the convent on Mount Sinai.2

The Friends of North Carolina opened New Garden Boarding-school in 1837. The great prejudice against Friends on account of their antislavery principles made the work difficult. The school was conducted during the

1 See" Sketch of Moses Brown," by Augustine Jones, principal of Friends' Boarding-school, Providence, 1893.

2 The college is residuary legatee, on the death of the widow, of an estate of over half a million of dollars left by the late Jacob P. Jones of Philadelphia.

whole Civil War on a gold basis, and came out without embarrassment, and without having missed a class—a record which from a financial as well as an educational point of view was probably unique in the South during that period. In 1888 the school was raised to the rank of a college, and is now known as Guilford College. It is coeducational.

The Friends in the West were somewhat later in the establishment of boarding-schools. In 1847 one was established, under the care of Indiana Yearly Meeting, near Richmond, Ind., which in 1859 was chartered as Earlham College. It is in a flourishing condition, under the joint control of Indiana and Western Yearly Meetings. Wilmington College, Wilmington, O., was opened 1871, and Penn College, Oskaloosa, Ia., in 1873. Both these are doing good work. In addition to these is Pacific College, Newberg, Ore. (1891), and Pickering College, Pickering, Ont., Canada, recently reopened.

A very important college for women was founded at Bryn Mawr, Pa., 1885, in accordance with the will of Dr. Joseph W. Taylor, a Friend of Burlington, N. J. By its charter all the trustees are required to be members of the Society of Friends (Orthodox). It is thoroughly equipped, and is the most advanced college for women in the country. It pursues a very liberal course, and can hardly be classed as a denominational college.

There are many schools and academies under the control of Friends which cannot be named. As with the Hicksites, the Orthodox have taken great interest in educational matters, and in 1877 an important and influential conference on education was held at Baltimore, which was followed by others in 1880, 1881, 1883, 1888; in addition to these, local conferences have frequently been held.

CHAPTER VII.

1

LATER YEARS.

THE great awakening of the separation was not lost, and the body came more and more into something of the spirit of the earlier age. The progress was, however, slow at first, and the casual observer would have noticed but little change. As to numbers, the Society in different parts of the country presented very different aspects. In the East generally there was for over thirty years a steady decline, the chief cause being emigration. In New England the attractions of the West were peculiarly enticing to the practical-minded Friend. The failure of the whale fisheries of Nantucket and New Bedford led to a very general exodus. Emigration acted as a less important factor in New York and Pennsylvania, but farther south another cause operated with great force. The many disabilities that Friends suffered in slaveholding States from their faithful adherence to their position that it was wrong to hold fellow-beings in slavery were a great drag upon them. It was exceedingly difficult-in fact, often impossible-to procure free labor, especially in the country districts. In these same localities manual labor was by a false public sentiment considered degrading, so that those who from conscientious grounds had to do such work themselves were obliged to take a lower position in society than the one to which they really belonged. Their position also placed

1 On the Island of Nantucket there were fifty years since about twelve hundred Friends; there are now (1894) hardly a dozen of any branch.