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Author's Note
I thought it would be good to write something in keeping with the September theme on this service. I put out feelers to others asking for ideas, and spent a considerable amount of time searching the Web. I did not find the material on the development of Friends' approach to education that I was hoping to find. Being near deadline, and not having a great deal of background in the subject area, I had to decide whether to abandon the subject idea, or what. I scrounged around in my personal library for information, and found some. This article draws heavily from Elbert Russell's The History of Quakerism, Friends United Press, 1979. I regret that this excellent work is now out of print.
Early Friends Ideas about Education
George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, had spent much time going to people with a formal theological education to try to understand matters of the spirit. He found this effort most frustrating, and eventually found the Inward Teacher, Jesus Christ, to be the one who could help him. With this background, one might expect that Friends would be suspicious of organized schools. Indeed they were quite suspicious of theological education, but this suspicion did not extend to other schooling.
Early Friends applied what they learned from revelation from Christ Jesus and the scripture to the matter of education. Fox himself early proposed the establishment of "a school to teach languages, together with the nature of herbs, roots, plants and trees." Fox's own conversion experience opened creation up to him, undoubtedly sparking his interest in nature study. Fox proposed the establishment of both boy's and girl's schools, reflecting Friends' concerns that the gifts of people of both genders be nurtured.
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