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

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No gymnasium, no foot-ball, no base-ball, no maddening sports with hair-splitting issues and blood-curdling suspense, no long rows of restless, joyous, or delirious spectators intent upon the ebb and flow of fortune. Life in the beginning was simple, drear, and arid I Students everywhere have an opinion, all their own, of religious meetings, which they attend in routine because it is the thing to do. But at Friends School the meetings were quaint and curious to persons whose manner of worship at home had many attractions to eye and ear which they now sought in vain. Here is the first of the series. The first First day. In the corner of one of the four large square rooms QI wish we knew whether it was in the sitting-room, the principal's room, or the boys' or girls' nursery that the minis- tering and healing beganj containing nothing but a few chairs and a large stove, we, the household, with our bonnets tied, and our shawls on, seated ourselves. Moses, Obadiah, and Dorcas Brown, with Moses Brownls two granddaughters, were all who were added. Betsy Purington knelt in supplication. The first meeting, we may assume, was almost quiet, no other service is mentioned. The schoolbooks arrived Second day, the 1 rth of First Mo., and the ceaseless march of progress began. E But a more important event transpired the next day. Two gentlemen and three lady teachers, with seven girls and six boys, on 12th inst., with Matthew and Betsy Purington occupy for the first time the present dining-room, or the one on the same floor in the east wing. The tables were long and red, without linen. Heavy plain white china, with iron knives, spoons, and forks. The boys and girls sat on stools with- out backs to them. But, more important than all questions of nu- triment, the boys appear on this day for the first time. The story of creation represents man as first in possession of the garden, and his joyous reception of woman. This was all reversed at Friends School, where the girls took the lead in time and have ever since had the supremacy in most directions. From that day to this there have been two sexes, two streams of humanity, so near to each other yet remoter than a star, with notable exceptions of counter and cross currents, which have coalesced and formed lit- tle life rivulets of their own. There came a time when both were forced to dwell far apart in Siberian solitude, viewing the ideal be- ings of the other wings only remotely through telescopes as we

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room,--Here Dorcas and I sit, each at a form, left entirely to our- selves .... Dorcas swept and swept, and I read two or three pages in Cowper's T ask I without understanding one sentence. Poor little Maria Fuller, from Lynn, who came with the superin- tendents, Matthew and Betsy Purington, of Salem, Mass., gave vent to her feelings by shedding a few pearly drops. She is the only scholar here except those who came with us. Poor little Maria ! l' thou wast the lugubrious, blubbering pro- totype of a host of thy brothers and sisters which no man can num- ber, with cups brimful of sorrow who have yearned for home sweet home, and have felt unutterably desolate even within thy protecting walls and fond embracing arms, dear venerable mother of us all. Homesick as death! was ever pang like this? ' Too old to let my watery grief appear- Aud what so bitter as a swallowed tear! -Htzluzex. She continues: Afternoon,-School overg and such a school ! At night we were conducted to the large vaulted lodging room, there were not many beds, as the bedsteads are to be corded, whe11 they are needed. Sheets unwashed, just as they came from the hands, of those who made them, at the sewing bee at Nantucket. A fire in the fireplace, or we should have sensibly felt the cold damp air of the room. No Thomas Howland. No Deborah Hill : there cannot be a regular school until the arrival of these teachers. Thomas Howland is expected to-night. The Browns and Ahnys are here frequentlyf, The procrastinating, loitering way in which these teachers and officers approached their duty is anything but inspiring. Congress was more than a month late in assembling under the constitution, in New York, in 1789. Time and appoint- ments had not the character and importance they now have, or ought to have. The extract from the letter is as follows :- Awoke before sunrise g dresses by Aurora's light, breal-:fasted at the heavi- est, large round table I ever saw 5 H tit is, no doubt, the very one now in the girls' parlor, the bottom rounds deeply worn by genera- tions of little feetj presented to the School by one of the Browns' . . . Benjamin Rodman went to town and bought some bat- tledoors and for want of anything else to do, we made good pas- time and exercise of it. Sociables were impossible, for there were no boys reported yet. What is one blade of scissors, solitary and alone, without the other? i

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now try to inspect the curious inhabitants of Mars. Then there followed a milder age when our human nature asserted itself, and sociables became elegant and acceptable recreation, and the two hu1nan lives did as sweetly and steadily blend and flow, As in broad Narragansett the tides come and go. There were no carpets in the house, no paint or paper on the walls, not even whitewash. The ceiling is very high-it is a no- ble building. All it needs is to be finished .... We have no cows as yet. No coffee is drunk g shells fthe husk of cocoa seeds, a decoction of which is used as a substitute for chocolatel and Sou- chong tea are the substitutes. The girls do well. The branches taught are grammar, reading, writing, arithmetic and geographyf' And these continued to be nearly the entire curriculum during this period up to 1831. The easy chair was not found here, this insti- tution is prepared for none, but the hale and vigorousfl There were sixty scholars Second Mo., Ioth, 1819. The diary contains the following :- We rise before the sung collect in the boys' schoolroom for ten or fifteen minutes, until the breakfast bell rings, then go down into the boys' dining-room, in which are two tables, one for boys and one for girlsf' Qthey were not yet instructed in co-education, and had not learned the mutual refining influences as educational forces, and that confidence in their conduct without which strong character is impossiblej .... The morning school holds until 12, then comes dinner. After dinner we jump rope, and play battledoor, Src., until 2. Afternoon school closes at half-past four, half an hour remains till tea-time, just long enough for a short rest of our limbs by sitting, as we stand much of the time. After tea comes the school for grammar, until half-past seven. At eight the little girls go to bed 3 the larger ones at nine. The teachers had their trials. After the boys had all gone to bed they sat by a fire of blazing wood and glowing coals, and con- sulted each other upon their increasing responsibilities as teachers and caretakers .... This institution afforded no precedents, therefore the teachers could quote none. The year I822 became notable for the decease of Obadiah Brown, who gave to the School a very large and remarkable donation con- sidering its period. His father's gift of the land, because of its rise in value, is greater, but was far less at the time. No matter what fortune awaits the School in the future, the benevolence and