poor a fair chance to secure its advantages.* In the same year the Yearly Meeting says: "Meetings for the education of youth are settled in most counties except Bucks, Shrewsbury (N.J.), and Salem (N. J.).

Advices began to go down to the subordinate meetings, the burden of which was that Friends should see to it that all children should be taught "to read and write and some further useful learning," and that teachers should also be "careful in the wisdom of God and a spirit of meekness gradually to bring them to a knowledge of their duty to God and one another." ‡ These schools were not free schools, but the idea of mutual aid extended to education as well as to bodily distress, and probably nearly all

* "They (Quakers) have endowed a school with 80 pounds per annum, which is in effect to blast my endeavors."-J. Arrowsmith, March 26th, 1698. "Papers Relat ing to the American Church, Pennsylvania," page 7.

"They are establishing a free school for the growth of Quakerism and apostacy."-Robert Suder, November 20th, 1698. Ibid., page 11.

+"Our greatest want is a schoolmaster to instruct our children and youth, which we are obliged to see corrupted with the base principles they must needs suck in from Quaker masters and mistresses."-" Ministry and Vestry of Chester, alias Uplands, 1704." Ibid., page 23.

Yearly Meeting, 1746.

children received this elementary opportunity. It became a matter of comment that Quakers were the best educated people of the counties. It was as rare to find an entirely ignorant member as a poverty-stricken one. A number of private academies gave the well-to-do a better chance, and as a result the average mental development was not low. But it was a great loss to them and their successors that there were not, as in New England, a few highly educated men in each community to stimulate the intellectual life, and university opportunities to satisfy it.

But though without this advantage, a moral poise and a tenderness of spirit preserved them from some Puritan delusions. They never persecuted. There was only one trial for witchcraft in the colony. In 1683 a poor woman had the usual accusations of bewitching cattle brought against her. She was tried by jury, the evidence soberly sifted, its absurdity proven, and the jury brought in the verdict, "Guilty of having the common fame of a witch, but not guilty in manner and forme as she stands indicted.' No other witch got so far as to court. Nine

* Colonial Records, Vol. I., pages 40-41.

years later they were hanging them in Massachusetts.

There is a long minute of instructions among the records of Chester Quarterly Meeting in 1695 against those "who, professing astrology, have undertaken thereby to give answers and astrological judgments concerning persons and things, to the dishonor of God and the reproach. of the Truth," also against "rhabdomancy, or consulting with a staff." Those who used them were required to bring all books into the Monthly Meetings or take the penalty of having "testimony given against them." Several were thus put through the disciplinary process,* and sorcery disappeared.

Another contrast to New England was the absence of any hierarchy. It often happened that ministers and men prominent in the meeting were also members of the Council or Assembly, or held judicial stations, but the connection was only accidental. In no meeting record, so far as a somewhat careful examination has revealed,

*J. T. offered an acknowledgment "for going to a man to be informed concerning my horse. I can truly say I had no desire he should use any bad art in the affair. Likewise was ignorant of Friends' rules; but hope not to fall into the like again."-Concord Monthly Meeting, 1738.

was there ever any attempt to influence legislation for any political purpose. Whenever the laws touched the consciences of the members, the old English spirit instantly revived, and advices were given, not to go into politics as reformers, but to suffer as martyrs rather than bring "reproach upon Truth." Indeed there seemed evidences under the surface, but becoming more open near the middle of the eighteenth century, of a breach between those who ruled the policy of the meetings and those who were honored by their constituents with public office. A sentiment was growing up that the activities of public life were unfavorable to that introversion of thought and quietness of spirit necessary for the highest development of spiritual life. A touch of asceticism was revealed in the characters of the men whose voices had most "weight in the yearly assemblies. These had no presiding officer, and took no votes. The clerk recorded the evident judgment of the meeting, (every adult member being permitted to be present), after a temperate and quiet discussion, carried on, as they believed, under the immediate guidance of a Divine Power. In such a discussion the subdued and infrequent words of a man known to be living in close communion with