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

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N yd .- ,.,. 4 g M + -' .W of 1 4, a Q - - f ' 0 y . f .1 'Historic' Shats 2, i O ,St 1 fx - .-- . rg V E T is usually a very agreeable privilege to follow the wind- F , h ing courses of rivers, institutions, and human lives from A J their small beginning dow11 to the place and period of their QI.. ,T-1 supreme energy and potency. The mighty river starts with drops of melted snow at the summit of mountains which divide a continent, and sweeps into the ocean hundreds of miles away in resistless floods. The infant nurtured in some cottage re- mote from the centres of traffic, far from the seats of learning and wisdom, has developed until his hands swayed the rod of empire, or waldd to extasy the living lyre. Institutions like the British and Foreign Bible Society began with a little upper-room meet- ing of a few persons in weakness and doubt, and in a century grew to be vast, issuing IIo,ooo,ooo volumes in 2So different lan- guages. It has become one of the great forces of civilization and of the amelioration of the world. Colleges, universities, and schools in general have started small, like the mustard seed in the parable, and evolved trees with great branches. The most gifted Roman orator said, U The beginning of all things is small. The Hrst recorded movement toward the founding of Friends School appeared on the 25th day of the Third Month, 1779, at the Monthly Meeting held on that day at the Friends' meeting-house at Union Village, near W'oonsocket, R. I. The record made at that meeting is as follows: It having been the concern of this meet- ing, to promote the education of our youth in schools, under the government of solid Friends, and as this necessary care is much relaxed within our Yearly Meeting, from what our Discipline re-

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quires, and Ending encouragement 'by our own short experience as well as by the doings of the last Yearly Meeting held at Phila- delphia on this subject, which have been laid before this Meeting, we are induced to recommend to the solid attention of the Quar- terly Meeting this important subject, and if it appears to you as it does to us, of weight enough to carry forward to the Yearly Meet- ing, and the minds of Friends are united in a living concern there- in, we think it will be an acceptable step in the reformation. Providence was included within the jurisdiction of that Monthly Meeting at that time. It was called Smithfield Monthly Meeting. There were very able and historic men at that little meeting. Moses Brown was a member of it. The eminent founder of Friends School, whose thought and steadfast energy attended and minis- tered to the enterprise g for he was always its faithful treasurer, be- ginning with its inception now and here, and terminating only with his life in 1836. He contributed more than any other person to- wards the transfer and establishment of Brown University at Prov- idence, in 177o. He became a member of the Society of Friends in 1774, and had only been a member five years when he appeared as the champion in the cause of educating the poor as well as the rich of the Society, thus elevating the whole body to a higher plane of usefulness and influence. He was alsoa pioneer in the establish- ment of the public school system in Rhode Island. He was the fore- most citizen of his native State in promoting the manufacturing in- terests of it. He had a thorough altruistic public spirit in all his undertakings. No other man in his generation left a more vigor- ous and unfading impress upon the history and prosperity of this community. ' Job Scott was present at this meeting, and was a representative to the Quarterly Meeting to which the subject of the School was referred, and was charged with the duty of advancing its weal. He was the most voluminous and successful author of Friends, doctrines and books, judging from the very numerous editions of them published both in England and America, which the Society has produced in New England, notwithstanding his soundness in doctrine was sometimes questioned, a result which is likely to at- tend an author of religious doctrine who attempts to cover wide fields. There was another gifted man who was a member of that meet- ing, and a devoted friend to the establishment of a school. His !