Lyceum Phoenix of Friends School - Phoenix Echo Yearbook (Providence, RI)

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of students than ever before were drawn to its instruction and its protection. An order of court was secured to sell land not needed, to make permanent improvements on the estate. A valuable astronomical building was secured, well equipped for the time and place, which has been of great service. The School graduated a good-sized class every year, and the last classes were materially larger. The prominent teachers were able and efficient, and the reputas tion of the School was extended everywhere, and its support was creditable. One character was quite prominent for a time-John F. Rowell- the governor of the boys. His method was not the best, but it pos- sessed the merit of a strong government. And the name above all others on the lips of former students of his period is always John Rowell. Where is john F. Rowell ? H Where most he had used the'rod to save the child, there he was most revered, and tenderly and gratefully praised. He had great personal magnetism, large in size, resolute, fearless, he was born to command and to be obeyed. The boys liked the situation-and so did their parents. Taxes were assessed for the first time in the history of the School, and more than sixty thousand dollars have been paid to the city of Providence. Most of this tax was thrown off in the next administration. It is only just to say of Albert K. Smiley, that he laid the foundation of much of the subsequent prosperity in the School, if any is found in its later history. He built broad and well. He had limitations, as all have who deal with trust prop- erty and vested interests. He has also reflected credit upon the school by his subsequent career. He is an honored trustee of Brown University and of Bryn Mawr College. He has raised at Mohonk a beacon light in aid of the Indian, year after year, seen all over the civilized world, and later, at the same place, he has concentrated the best minds of the nation upon international courts and arbitration. No person can render a greater service to mankind than to help the leaders of the people to see that war is foolish and wicked between Christian na- tions. The name and memory of Albert K. Smiley is warmly cherished at Friends School, and ought to be forever. Augustine Jones, who nineteen years before succeeded Albert K. Smiley at Oak Grove, Vassalboro, Me., also succeeded him as prin- cipal of Friends School in 1879. And has the promise of a lake at

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you must visit the pump in the back yard. A rusty, cast iron ladle bound by a chain of iron to the pump, eight inches in diameter, was the only vehicle by which water was transported to the mouths of thirsty boys. If it was frosty it had to be used with wisdom or your mouth was frozen to it. A standing offer of 525 has been out for years for that ladle, to ornament a room of instruments of tort- ure collected from earlier ages to illustrate human suffering. An elaborate account of the history of the School is in the Yearly Meeting Minutes for 1852. The School was vacated in the summer of 1855 for repairs. Joseph and Gertrude W. Cartland came as principals that au- tumn. The School at once took a position which it had not held since the days of John Griscom. They remained only four years, but they established the present classical course and graduated three classes, 1857-8-9. The new impulse in the direction of higher education from them was felt in the Society of Friends throughout New England. Ill health soon took them from the School. but their noble, cultured infiuence has continued to be felt throughout the Society of Friends in America ever since. They have done much to preserve some qualities of the Society which are far too much disregarded in this generation. Albert K. Smiley, and his wife, Eliza P. Smiley, became prin- cipals in 1860, with his brother, Alfred H. Smiley, as associate. This administration continued nineteen years, until 1879, and was very successful. Alumni Hall was constructed in 1869. The first portion of the money was raised at a large reunion after a tent dinner west of the boys' grove, in 1866. The present boys' school- room building was finished in 1872. The general division of the chambers into rooms, with two students in each, in place of vast dormitories. Soon, also, girls and boys recited together in the same class-rooms. Finally they all sat at tables opposite to each other, instead of the girls in one wing and the boys in another. A five-thousand-dollar fence was built about tl1e premises to keep intruders away, but, after all, the School began more and more to recognize that its greatest mission would be in the wide fields of the world, among the Gentiles. The exclusive ideas of the found- ers always are to be regarded with reverence, and always are to guide the policy of the School, so far as possible, yet new occa- sions teach new duties. Many things were done to liberalize the School and to open its doors wider to the public. Greater numbers

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Mohonk to run a hotel when weary of Friends School, or the School of him. .- There has not been much building on the premises in the last twenty-one years. The effort has 11ot been so much to expand as to deepen and strengthen the work and make it thorough. Two hundred pupils are as many as can well be congregated in one boarding-schoolg if that number is to be exceeded it would be bet- ter to use the cottage system, but to do it well every cottage re- quires as much tact in its officers as the main house, not easily se- cured for a multitude of them. The funds have been increased by the Ella J. Wheeler or Eliza- beth Fry fund, g30,000, by the Stephen T. Olney fund, 33410003 by the improvement account, 35,0002 by the Tripp flll1Cl,QE2,000Q and by art and other sums, igI0,000Q by other donations, 131,100 Qi g9O,IOO. The place has been illuminated in every room by line arts and valuable pictures. Two line wire beds and hair mattresses have taken the place of inferior- beds in every room. Each student in a single bed, instead of two in one bed. The hardwood new floors have gone almost everywhere. Paint and color have taken the place of whitewash, over all the house, on the walls. New roofs have taken the place of the old over all the important buildings. A new art building has been constructed, including wood-carving. A new boiler-house, and heating and electric lighting in every room. Complete ventilation. And hundreds of smaller matters not to be enumerated. Instrumental music in many forms has been introduced. But a greater work was the removing of the taxes, all but 51,500 annually, which will go after certain outlying land has been sold. The School must have been destroyed but for this. The library has been nearly doubled, and its effectiveness increased many folds in catalogues and qualityiof books. The introduction of art treasures is an interesting story, as also of instrumental music. The principal found in entering upon his duties that singing had been introduced, while instrumental music was not taught on the premises, but students went into the city for it. This raised a ques- tion, if it was fit to be taught at all, then it was fit to be taught here. And if the Society had a testimony against music as an art, that way of upholding it was neither logical nor expedient. It ought either to be exterminated as a thing of evil, or cherished as o