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

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The passing of bounds was a violation of rule, but the spirit and purpose of the boys was good g that was not appreciated, and the boys now did rebel in earnest, and Silas Cornell's usefulness at the School was ended forever. If he had regarded the spirit more and the let- ter less, he would have won their confidence and their hearts: as it was he lost all at one stroke. Like Charles I, he lost his kingdom in one action. The boys' schoolroom at this period was in the west end of the west wing. It was from forty-five to fifty feet, east and west, be- ginning at the present entrance to the boys' schoolroom, and from there extending east the distance named. The present boys' school- room was constructed later. Two boys occupied one desk, sitting on a form and not in chairs. A pin of wood three inches long and less than an inch in diameter stood in the outer edge of the desk, halfway between its ends and between the two boys. The room was lighted with whale oil lamps, everyone of which had sockets that fitted to the -pins on the desks, one for every two boys. And when every lamp was in action, and the wicks indifferently ad- justed, the smoke from them contributed a richness to the odor of the room, and carbon was present to be inhaled as well as oxygen. The house was soon lighted with gas, which was a great improve- ment. The boys' dining-room was the south portion of the present one. The girlsshad a separate one where the bake-house now is. There were two long tables in each room 3 no conversation was permitted at the table unless you wished something to eat or drink, and then in a whisper. Instead of chairs the children sat on stools, three of them attached to a plank so that none could be thrown down with- out a conspiracy of three persons. Table-cloths had not yet ap- peared. There was neither color nor pictures on the walls. The lodging-rooms were large, without partitions. Two persons in each bed. These rooms covered the second floor of each wing. The girls' trunk-room was their present play-room on the third iioor. Alumni Hall was not yet built. The boys' trunk-room was tlie present Belmont. There was a wash-room for boys at the west end of their present dining-room. A great iron kettle, in place of bath- rooms, was heated to furnish warm water Seventh and Fourth days, and held about fifty gallons. A memorable accident burst this at last into eight pieces. If you wished a drink of water, except when in the dining-room,

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I This administration of Silas Cornell and wife attempted to throw some sweetness and light 'into co-education, by letting boys and girls walk certain streets of the city in sweet companionship, under what particular guards and conditions we are not informed. The result was that attentions were soon too marked between them. Some of them, by a strange fatuity, walked always with the same girl, and fond parents took away their girls. A re-action followed, which was made more trying by this very agreeable experience. Not even sociables were granted, but for a while meetings in the sitting-room softened the asperities of the situation. Also for a while correspondence was permitted beween the wings. Letters were brought in and placed upon a table, and answers were left in the same place. The nature of the correspondence is not generally known. One remarkable instance of fraud is remembered. The girl and boy were probably the last among the students that were attired in the honored and venerable garb of ancient Friends. They were so like the Friends of the olden time that you might fancy yourself looking at our ancestors through the big end of a telescope. Birds of a feather Hock together, and they flocked so far as the powers that were made way. They attempted to correspond, and all went merry as a marriage bell H until naughty boys interrupted the How of soul and wrote letters themselves to him in her stead, and the disguise was so perfect that he did not for a long time discover the deceitg not, indeed, until informed by a friend. This last corre- spondence was doubtless unique. We ought to have sympathy with the girl, severed in such an untimely manner, without a faint echo of the joyous past to comfort and console her. Silas Cornell lost his hold upon the boys chiefiy by one mistake. The farmers were ploughing in the field next to the play-ground, and the bars were temporarily down. The men went 'to dinner, and the boys went out of bounds into the field, and attached their long jumping-rope to it, and with a hundred boys for power and a student at the handles ploughed eight most beautiful long furrows around the field, more perfect than the work of the farmers. The affair was made cheerful by the presence of beautiful faces at the windows of the other wing and of the middle house. It was re- garded by the government as a serious violation of duty and order. It was in the nature of rebellion, and all privileges were instantly suspended and all were punished.

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you must visit the pump in the back yard. A rusty, cast iron ladle bound by a chain of iron to the pump, eight inches in diameter, was the only vehicle by which water was transported to the mouths of thirsty boys. If it was frosty it had to be used with wisdom or your mouth was frozen to it. A standing offer of 525 has been out for years for that ladle, to ornament a room of instruments of tort- ure collected from earlier ages to illustrate human suffering. An elaborate account of the history of the School is in the Yearly Meeting Minutes for 1852. The School was vacated in the summer of 1855 for repairs. Joseph and Gertrude W. Cartland came as principals that au- tumn. The School at once took a position which it had not held since the days of John Griscom. They remained only four years, but they established the present classical course and graduated three classes, 1857-8-9. The new impulse in the direction of higher education from them was felt in the Society of Friends throughout New England. Ill health soon took them from the School. but their noble, cultured infiuence has continued to be felt throughout the Society of Friends in America ever since. They have done much to preserve some qualities of the Society which are far too much disregarded in this generation. Albert K. Smiley, and his wife, Eliza P. Smiley, became prin- cipals in 1860, with his brother, Alfred H. Smiley, as associate. This administration continued nineteen years, until 1879, and was very successful. Alumni Hall was constructed in 1869. The first portion of the money was raised at a large reunion after a tent dinner west of the boys' grove, in 1866. The present boys' school- room building was finished in 1872. The general division of the chambers into rooms, with two students in each, in place of vast dormitories. Soon, also, girls and boys recited together in the same class-rooms. Finally they all sat at tables opposite to each other, instead of the girls in one wing and the boys in another. A five-thousand-dollar fence was built about tl1e premises to keep intruders away, but, after all, the School began more and more to recognize that its greatest mission would be in the wide fields of the world, among the Gentiles. The exclusive ideas of the found- ers always are to be regarded with reverence, and always are to guide the policy of the School, so far as possible, yet new occa- sions teach new duties. Many things were done to liberalize the School and to open its doors wider to the public. Greater numbers