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

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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 !

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name was Elisha Thornton. He was an eloquent, poetic, and mag- netic preacher, and the distinnguished head of a private school in the Very neighborhood of this meeting, which was a beacon light of cul- ture and educational influence for many years. There were others of less note, but of similar substantial type of character, who hailed the dawning of a new light on the pathway of the church. It is a matter of simple justice that we note how essentially this School sprang out of the bosom of the church, as Minerva from the head of jove. The colleges and universities, in the beginning at least, all came in the same manner, and the com- mon schools from the colleges, while the common schools seldom remember with gratitude or affection the church which is the mother of them all. Religion, the school, and the State can never be long severed and each takes its own several way without loss and, at last, destruction to one and all. Sectarianism may be an evil if its aims are selfish and clannish 5 but religion is a public necessity for the public safety, and ought to enter the education of all youth in the community. The cause of the School was next presented at Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting of Friends, the Eighth of Fourth Month, 1779, at East Greenwich, R. I., and the record is as follows: 'tSmith- field Monthly Meeting signifying their desire, for the education of youth in schools, and that the consideration thereof might be laid before the Yearly Meeting. The subject was accordingly brought before the Yearly Meeting, Sixth Month, 12th, 1779, and from that day to this, more than one hundred and twenty years, the Yearly Meeting has never ceased to concern itself respecting this school and the education of all its children. The Yearly Meeting re- sponded to the suggestion from Rhode Island, in the following re- corded words: Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting in their account, desiring this Meeting to consider of a method to promote the estab- lishing of Schools, for the education of Youth Among Friends. Thereupon Moses Brown with fifteen other men, together with such other Friends as may feel an engagement to attend with them, are appoi-nted to the matter under consideration ' ' ' and to report their sense upon the same to the adjournment of this meeting. - Yearbf Zlleefing Rec., Vol. f,j1. 333-4. This Committee reported a few days later that they had solidly considered the proposal of Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, and the recommendation of our brethren of Pennsylvania, and New