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.)

HAVERFORD COLLEGE.

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"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. 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

It ranks

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 Augustus 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.

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. 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

It

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.

increasing difficulties in their way in engaging in business, and also rendered them objects of suspicion to their slaveholding neighbors, who resented their opposition to the "peculiar institution," and often suspected them of aiding negroes to escape-a suspicion far better founded as regards Friends north of Mason and Dixon's line than south of it. To the Friends living in such an uncongenial atmosphere the free West appeared as a land of promise, and a steady exodus soon set in. The Society from this cause died out in South Carolina, and was so greatly reduced in Virginia that in 1845 Virginia Yearly Meeting was suspended and joined to Baltimore Yearly Meeting. This latter body, small to begin with (after the separation), had also suffered from the same cause, so that the two joined were still the smallest Yearly Meeting in the world. The same state of things existed in North Carolina, and at one time it seemed as if there were risk of that Yearly Meeting being lost. Sometimes whole congregations would emigrate in a body, so that one instance has been known where the same church organization remained in force, the same officers continuing to act in the new settlement as they had done in the old home.

Another cause of the diminution in numbers was the strict enforcement of the Discipline and prompt disownment of members for comparatively slight offenses. To marry a non-member or by any other religious ceremony than that of Friends was a disownable offense on the ground that it recognized what was called, in the rather severe language of the Society in that day, a “hireling" ministry. Many other things that would now be esteemed trivial, but which had had, at the beginning at least, a foundation in some principle that was deemed important, were made the cause for expulsion from the Society. That the denomination should have lived at all through such restrictions,