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

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loyalty of this man in its infancy will be cherished with grateful and affectionate remembrance. The large accession to the funds of gIO0,000, turned the atten- tion of the Yearly Meeting to guarding the same on all possible sides for its protection. The Yearly Meeting itself was in 1823 in- corporated especially under the name of The Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England, to hold property in trust perpetually, for educational and charitable uses. It would have been wiser, as the result has shown, to have created boards of trustees and have limited the immediate government of the School, as in cases of col- leges and other like institutions in general. There are reasons which make a change to usual methods, for the present, at least, impractical. There were several other donations to the School at about this time. Sylvester Wickes left to it his farm in Pomfret, Conn. He lived in Cranston, R. I. Lydia Tillinghast, of Providence, was an- other benefactor. The most remarkable benefactors at this time, next to the Browns, were William Rotch, of Nantucket, later of New Bedford, and his son, William Rotch, Jr. We must never forget to do justice to those who contributed small sums. Their personal sacrifice was greater than that of the affluent donors. The first report of the first School Committee is duly recorded, and is found Y. flf. Rec., Vol. ff, p. 3,41-2. The number of pupils in the early years are uncertain, because there were no vacations, and people must, in many instances, have remained for brief periods. It seems to have been like the platform railway, at the Chicago Columbian Exhibition, which was an end- less chain, and, without stopping the train, you stepped on and rode one minute or an hour or two, as it suited your convenience. The Yearly Meeting record reports the average number for 1819- I82O at seventy pupils, while the lists show one hundred and seventy-eight different individuals who attended. The average number reported in 1828 to the meeting is 121, but the lists show 274. The average number in 1829 reported was I35,Wl1llC 365 were listed. The two wings were extended in 1825 and 1826 forty feet each, making the wings, as now, eighty-two feet each. This made room for an increase of students. Each monthly meeting sent one or more free of cost, for six n. hs, The School at this period was distinguished for Plainness of speech behavior and apparelf'

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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

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Plainness of speech meant singular pronouns in addressing a single person 3 more thanfthis was vanity. It included also the avoidance of extravagant, vain, and superfluous words in conversa- tion. Plainness of behavior implied a reserve from evil companions ship, places of public resort, horse-races, theatres, and general muster, and other vain assemblies. Plainness in apparel meant nothing for show, in form or color, or to attract attention, A coat must have only one row of useful buttons, another row would be only to stimulate superiiuous vanity. There must be no buttons behind for the same reason, or at any rate not for ornament. No rolling collar was allowed on a coat. It niust rise single, sole, and perpendicular, like a rector's. If it rolled and doubled over, that portion was superiiuous, and the government proceeded at once to do execution on the coat and reduce it to the regulation type, and sometimes even took the whole collar away. A boy came in 1829 from Worcester He had light, beautiful hair, with natural curls and ringlets all over his head. The gov- ernment, in order to subdue the wayward crookedness of his hair, sheared it all off, and left him like that fowl which had its feathers plucked out to reduce Plato's definition of a man to an absurdity: Here is Plato's man. Think of the absurdity of this in the midst of the ten thousand times ten thousand forms of beauty in the world, created solely, and without superiiuity, for the sake of beauty, which is its own excuse for being. Yet we need not think that we shall escape. A future generation will be trying in all ways to translate sense and excuse and reason into our actions and conduct, which will seem absurd to them when far from us. The superintendents were changed in I82Q and go-Enoch Breed and his wife, Lydia, with Stephen and Hannah Gould as assist- ants. Their powers and official stations were, no doubt, properly distributed, but they are not well known at present. Enoch Breed and his wife continued in oflice seven years. He seems to have left a strong impression upon the institution. His wife is said to have been a gifted person, with quick understanding, with a power of penetration into the motives of personal action which was quite remarkable. Her daughter, by ag1'ffr.er husband, entered the list of teachers at this time, and subsequently became the wife of a for- mer teacher, Samuel Boyd Tobey.