1. Each contributor to subscribe a principal sum.
2. All sums to be lumped together and invested in trustees, accountable to the monthly meeting.
3. All interests to be paid annually and applied each year to the schools in the compass of the monthly meeting.
4. All tutors to be members of Friends.
5. Funds to be first applied to the schooling of poor Friends’ children, their necessities to be judged by the monthly meeting.
6. The remainder to be applied equally to the payment for other children, proportionate to the time they attend school.[423]
7. Interest to continue till the principal is paid.
8. All principals paid in are to be invested or “put to use” by the trustees.
The total number of subscriptions listed up to date was 117; the total amount subscribed was £759; the individual subscriptions varied from £1 to £25.[424] The meeting also succeeded in getting such former donations, as Harker’s legacy, appropriated to this permanent fund.[425]
In 1796 Jeremiah Praul, Joseph Yerkes, and Benjamin Kite were appointed to have the care of receiving all applications from prospective masters, and in case of vacancies to seek and have ready a list of available and well-qualified members.[426]
One can hardly attempt to place a date for the beginning of the schools in Wrightstown Meeting. But by a report made late in the eighteenth century (1792) we gather a very good idea of the state of schools in that locality. The cause of the rather halting progress is perhaps found in the latter part of this committee’s report, which states that the best plan conceived is for each particular meeting to raise its own subscription for its own school,[427] which in part was right, but more direction on the part of the monthly meeting would doubtless have produced better results. The report of 1792 is here submitted.
We the committee appointed to take into consideration the state of schools within the limits of this meeting, after having several times met and attended to our appointment, find the main cause why our schools are so unsettled and so frequently occupied by unqualified teachers is the want of sufficient salaries to make tuition an object of employment worthy the attention of those who are or may be best qualified to discharge that trust; having duly investigated that subject it plainly appears very few amongst us who are interested in schools are of ability to advance money towards raising a fund on any other consideration than that of immediately receiving the benefit thereof; we are, therefore, of opinion nothing affords a fairer prospect of promoting the work than for separate neighborhoods to enter subscriptions for raising funds for the support and establishment of their own particular schools, which was read and referred to the consideration of next meeting.[428]
In 1793 the extracts from the yearly meeting being read and especially those concerned with the establishment of schools, it was decided to appoint a committee “to endeavor to promote that service as recommended,” and make a report that might be sent to the yearly assembly.[429]
In 1790 a committee was appointed to look after the state of various legacies which had been left from time to time for the “support of a free school.”[430] This committee made report shortly thereafter that the amount of the principals and interest at the time was £248/13/10.[431] A question arose as to the proper application of the interest on a legacy left by Jonathan Abbitt and others, and was referred to the school committee. They decided it might be expended for the schooling of Friends’ children in straightened circumstances, provided they be taught in a school kept in Wrightstown.[432]
A number of other legacies were granted from time to time for the encouragement of a free school, among them being one by Adam Harker (£40),[433] who had also benefitted Middletown and Buckingham, and that of David Buckman, the text of which is given below.
I give and bequeath to Isaac Wiggins of the township of Northampton, David Buckman and James Briggs of the township of Newtown, and Joseph Hampton and Isaac Chapman of the township of Wrightstown, all in the County of Bucks, and the survivors of them, the sum of £50 in gold or silver currency in trust ... place the same at interest on real security or therewith purchase an annuity or groundrent or such other method as they may think proper for securing the same and apply the interest thereof as the same shall thereafter be received, towards the establishing and maintaining a free school in Wrightstown aforesaid near the meeting house for the instruction of Friends children belonging to the monthly meeting of Friends in Wrightstown, in useful learning, and the said school to be under the care and direction of the monthly meeting aforesaid.[434]
In 1791 a committee presented a report on the status of legacies, which is given herewith in shortened form.
1. The will of David Twining.
I give to the monthly meeting of Friends at Wrightstown the sum of five pounds to be applied towards a Free School in Wrightstown, near the meeting house, that is under the direction and care of Friends.
2. A committee of six suggested to take the said legacy and apply its interest to the said school.
3. Report of a committee on Adam Harker’s will.
All trustees have died without having made any purchase of any groundrent or annuity for the purpose aforementioned.
4. The trustees appointed by David Buckman, deceased, in his last will and testament to have the care of a legacy of £50 given by the said David to this meeting for establishing a Free School in Wrightstown, report that they have received said legacy and put it out to interest on a mortgage bearing date the seventeenth day of the third month last.[435]
In 1799 a legacy of £30 was left to Wrightstown Meeting “to be laid out in the education of poor children in the school house on the meeting house land.”[436] From later records running into the first two decades of the next century, it appears that the state of the donations was never gotten into very good shape. When they came into the hands of the trustees in 1822 they were “indistinguishable one from another,” so far as the purposes for which each was intended. At the time when some of the bequests were made there was a large stone schoolhouse standing on the meeting’s grounds to which they alluded in their wills.[437] This building was torn down about 1815 and two schools set up, one two miles above the meeting house, and the other about three-quarters of a mile below it. The total amount of the legacies had increased by 1822 to about $6,800.[438]
Richland Monthly Meeting (1742), the latest of all in Bucks County to be established, with which we are now dealing, belonged to the Abington Quarter (whose limits were chiefly in Montgomery County). The school, its date of beginning not known (probably in 1742),[439] was early endowed with legacies left voluntarily and primarily for the education of the poor; the first one of considerable worth was that of Morris Morris. An extract from the minutes shows that,
At this meeting were exhibited two bonds for two sums of money amounting in the whole to £100, it being a free and generous donation given by our ancient Friend, Morris Morris, for the use and encouragement of a school to be kept at or near this meeting house, which bonds are legally executed to the Friends heretofore appointed as trustees for this meeting, who are to take care from time to time to lay out the interest arising from the said donation for procuring necessary learning for such poor Friends’ children who may be the most proper objects of such charitable help and the said trustees to render yearly account to this meeting of their service in the said distribution.[440]
This beginning was increased in 1796 by £20 granted from the estate of Edward Roberts.[441] The following record from a school account book of legacies, known as the “Jonathan Walton Fund” is cited, which indicates the manner of the school expenditures[442]:
| 1792—for schooling | |
| to Jesse Foulke | 15/10/00 |
| to Jonathan Carr | 1/10/00 |
| to ditto | 7/00 |
| to Abraham Walton | 16/6/00 |
| to Jesse Foulke | 1/10/7 |
| to John Nash | 5/00 |
| to Jesse Hicks | 1/2/6 |
| 1793— | |
| to Jonathan Carr | 7/6 |
| to Nathan Walton | 5/4 |
| to Sam Norris | 2/12/11 |
| to Abraham Walton | 18/7 |
| to Jesse Hicks | 15/00 |
| to Samuel Norris | 3/6/3½ |
| Paid to Daniel B. Ayres for teaching children | 2/1/8 |
| 3/2/2 | |
| Paid for teaching and books | 2/1/4 |
SUMMARY
The establishment of schools of Falls, Middletown, Wrightstown, Buckingham, and Richland meetings is discussed in this chapter. Their first activity was to establish youths’ meetings and look after the placing of apprentices. The date of the first school at Falls is not determined, though the educational activity appears to have been on a par with other meetings. In 1759 property was conveyed to trustees for the use of the school, and at various dates thereafter. A school committee reported three schools, one in each preparative, in 1784. The usual means of support were employed. The school money amounted in 1799 to £777/9/4½.
Middletown’s first school was held in the meeting house, in accord with a permit granted by Friends. The real progress of schools among them is not determined, though we know that they are supplied with schools. It is likely, judging from the nature of the committee’s reports, that they did not meet the standards set by the yearly meeting. The free school, endowed with £40 in 1755 by Harker, was to be under care of the monthly meeting.
Buckingham meeting assumed a regular care in the apprenticing of children, and, like Middletown, was endowed by Adam Harker. A school committee was appointed in 1778, and the visiting of schools required. An unusual plan for building schoolhouses was devised in 1785; and also a scheme for school support in 1785 which was improved in 1793. A special committee of two men had charge of employing masters. Two schools are reported as under the care of the meetings’ committee, in 1790.
The cause for the apparently slow progress of Wrightstown concerning schools lay chiefly in a lack of permanent funds. Back of this, there seems to have been a failure on the part of the monthly meeting to unite and direct the activities of its preparatives, for the individual contributions were considerable. Though “schools” are mentioned in the minutes, it seems most likely that only the one at Wrightstown was in reality a school of the monthly meeting.
Little is discovered concerning the Richland school save that it was endowed in 1762 by Morris. The account books of the Walton fund show that the children were schooled at the expense of the meeting.
There were probably eight schools regularly established in the five monthly meetings.