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

Page 95 text:

tained in all 1,6oo volumes. Many of these books were very valu- able and still continue to be. Indeed, as a collection of ancient Friends books, they are priceless, but they were not the nutriment for youth, except of the mature, sober, reflective, introspective sort, of which species the ordinary American school does not afford many specimens. The students were allowed no books except those in the library, so that the waters of life were only permitted to How into the in- stitution in very narrow and sluggish channels. VVe now have about ten thousand volumes in the house, and feel satisfied o11ly because all the valuable libraries of Providence hold their doors wide open to us. Charles F. Coffin, afterwards of Lynn, Mass., was a teacher this year. He was a very accomplished man, the dearest friend to Whittier, it is believed, outside of his own family. The School received its painting of Whittier from him, which was intended by both of them to be the standard, original painting. The next year, 1840-1841, Dr. Charles H. Nichols, afterwards the eminent super- intendent of the NVashington Asylum for the Insane, and later of the Bloomingdale of New York, was a teacher here, and he and Charles F. Coffin were life-long and very dear friends. Twenty acres were added to the estate in IS42, paid for by ive thousand dollars left by Moses Brown for that very purpose. A division came into the Society of Friends in New England in 1844-5 which extended far and wide, and its influences are found, even now, wherever the Society exists. John 'Wilbur, of Hopkin- ton, R. I., thought that he discovered a spirit of worldliness among Friends which was inconsistent with the history of the Society. He agitated, and was in part correct, no doubt, but he could not convince the majority, and led off what has been called the smaller bodyf, He seems to have lost what had hitherto been regarded as a fundamental doctrine, namely, submission to the sense of the body. Perhaps he argued that the sense was with the minority, in this case, as it has sometimes been in history. There was no difference in Christian doctrine, it was only in practice, in dress, and usages deemed by the majority non-essen- tial. There is a perpetual evolution in society, and it is the duty of every generation to keep up with the progress, for it is the sur- vival of the fittest, in religious organization as in everything else. Every great religious reformation in history is in evidence. Yet

Page 94 text:

The descent in the classical department from Samuel J. Gum- mere to George F. Reed must have been sudden, precipitous, and perilous. A fall from the sublime to the ridiculous. The num- bers dropped to an average of 127 at the next report, and in 1837 rose to 134, and fell the next year to 79, and a loss of one thousand dollars. The School was broken up with scarlet fever. The year was now, for the first time, divided into two terms, as it has been ever since that time. Some stories have come to us about George F. Reed which ought to be preserved. He was convinced that horseback riding was healthful exercise, and he purchased a horse. It was brought, bridled and saddled, to the front door, and, with the wrong foot in the stirrup, he mounted into the saddle but could not find the head of the horse without facing right about. He next secured a chaise and harness, and, after driving, left the poor creature at the door without nourishment, and retired to rest. There was a deep frost that night, and the morning light disclosed the track of the chaise in and out among the trees in the girls' grove. The hungry beast had wandered in vain in quest of food, drink, and slumber. The wheels had described every curve known to mathematics, and marked out serpentine avenues everywhere, without regard to expense. Moses Brown, whose most enduring monument left in this world is Friends School, and whose memory and character will be more and more revered in the far-off years, departed this life on the Sixth day of the Ninth Mo., 1836, then almost ninety-eight years of age. Fifteen thousand dollars more came to the School by his will. It was residuary legatee upon a condition. He has set in fadeless colors the influence of his useful life-work on these hills and in these valleys. W'herever commerce, wherever the arts and humanities touch and ennoble the race, Moses Brown is present, though his name may not pass from lip to lip. Fear not but that thy light once more shall burn, Ouce more thine immemorial gleam return. The average number of students reported was seventy-seven in 1839, in the next year it was eighty-six. The library, which con- tained the most or all of the books of Moses and Obadiah Brown, had, in the opinion of the Committee, reached the limit, as it con-

Page 96 text:

truth itself is eternal, unchangeable. Most religious contests have been over non-essentials, or else over mysteries which no one can ever solve, and which are capable of suggesting any amount of theory, one view possibly as full of merit as another. The moral is to keep out of religious controversy. This trouble entered the courts, and the parties struggled for the possession of meeting-houses and other property. Friends School remained with the majority. It lost students. In 1844 it only averaged fifty-five in attend- ance, and in 1845, the year of most severe disturbance, there is no report of numbers. They report in 1846, 84, and they say that the smallness is due to excellent public schools. George F. Reed, the quaint and curious classical teacher, disappeared in 1842, but he arose and flourished in the smaller body for years. No one ap- pears again on the record as teacher of Greek and Latin until La Fayette Burr came in 1848. The average number was, in 1849, 117. The School ran behind a 31,000 that year. It also sold the land north of Olney street. A new impulse towards higher learn- ing distinguished the year I85O. Rachel S. Howland, of New Bedford, an accomplished woman of great personal influence, became a member of the Committee in 1849, and is, after more than half a century, like Nestor, the most experienced of all the Greek Chieftains. Her purifying and ennobling influence upon two generations of school children is beyond computation. Silas Cornell and wife became the superintendents in 1847, and Gertrude E. Whittier, afterwards the wife of Joseph Cartland, then first appears in the faculty as a teacher. She had distinguished herself already at Portland, Me., and her career was a very important one in Friends School, to be referred to later. Silas Cornell and Sarah remained in oflice until 1852. Silas Cornell and his wife were excellent, cultivated people, who came from Rochester, N. Y., and were probably persons of more educa- tion than any of their predecessors in that particular ollice up to their time. Charles Atherton, before their arrival, had been a member of the faculty, and continued to be through their adminis- tration, and became one of the principals upon their retirement-a man whose very name is a synonym of honor, dignity, and jus- tice. His memory is revered by every boy of worth who ever came in touch with him.