An Age to Work: Working-Class

Childhood in Third Republic Paris

Miranda Sachs
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An Age to Work
An Age to Work
Working-​Class Childhood in
Third Republic Paris

M I R A N DA S AC H S
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Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Sachs, Miranda, author.
Title: An age to work : working-class childhood in third republic Paris / Miranda Sachs.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2023] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022028807 (print) | LCCN 2022028808 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197638453 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197638460 | ISBN 9780197638484 |
ISBN 9780197638477 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Child labor—France—Paris—History—19th century. |
Child labor—France—Paris—History—20th century. |
Child labor—Law and legislation—France—Paris—History—19th century. |
Child labor—Law and legislation—France—Paris—History—20th century. |
Children—France—Paris—Social conditions—19th century. |
Children—France—Paris—Social conditions—20th century. |
Paris (France)—History—1870–1940.
Classification: LCC HD6250 .F82 S33 2022 (print) | LCC HD6250 .F82 (ebook) |
DDC 331.3/1094409034—dc23/eng/20220629
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022028807
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022028808

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197638453.001.0001

Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

In memory of my grandparents, Marilyn and Morris Sachs
 Contents

Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction: Defining Childhood in Third Republic Paris  1

1. Child Labor Legislation and the Regulation of Age  16
2. “An Apprenticeship for Life”: Training the Republican Worker  40
3. Creating the Juvenile Delinquent  65
4. “An Insurmountable Distaste for Work”:
Juvenile Delinquents in the Archives  83
5. Blurred Spaces: Working-​Class Girlhood  100
6. “The Collaboration of the Crowd”: Age and Identity in
Working-​Class Neighborhoods  123
7. Interwar Reform  148
Conclusion  172

Notes  177
Bibliography  217
Index  233
 Acknowledgments

My favorite part of most academic books is the acknowledgments section.

My own acknowledgments section is bittersweet. In the decade since I began
graduate school, the humanities have been in free fall. My generation of
humanists has absorbed the cost. Although I am beginning a tenure-​track
position, I wrote this book while working as a contingent faculty member at
three different institutions. Many of my peers, including many of the people
I thank below, have had to leave academia. Generations of future students are
poorer for it.
I have had the pleasure of studying and working alongside many
thoughtful, generous scholars. John Merriman boisterously welcomed me to
Yale and remained an enthusiastic supporter of my work for over a decade.
It is strange to write about John in the past tense, as he was such a vibrant
person. I so regret that I cannot share this final version of the book with
him, as he taught me much about combing through the archives to find les
parisiens des quartiers populaires. Jay Winter has posed many key questions
that have helped me clarify my work and has provided numerous dinners at
his home in Paris. Laura Lee Downs helped me appreciate the complexities
of the history of childhood. She has been a generous mentor since my first
semester of graduate school. To Phil Nord, I remain indebted for helping me
begin this journey.
At Oxford University Press, I would like to thank Nancy Toff. She saw
the potential in my book manuscript and has guided me through the pub-
lishing process. Zara Cannon-​Mohammed has worked hard to prepare my
manuscript for publication. I would also like to thank the two anonymous
reviewers for their thoughtful comments. I am grateful to Adrienne Petty for
connecting me to Nancy.
At each of the three departments where I have taught, my colleagues have
provided invaluable insights into my work and to navigating the publishing
process. My colleagues at William and Mary helped me to shape my initial
argument and provided the funding that enabled me to add a chapter on the
interwar period. My colleagues at Denison read multiple chapters and helped
me conceive of the project as a book. As I complete this manuscript, my
x Acknowledgments

colleagues at Texas State have continued to pose important questions and to

guide me through the publishing process. I would like to thank the Swinney
Faculty Writing Group for reading and commenting on one of my chapters.
Many historians have taken time to read sections of this book. I would like
to thank Bruno Cabanes, Sara Damiano, Colin Heywood, Sarah Horwitz,
Charlotte Kiechel, Ken Margerison, Susan Whitney, and Shao-​yun Yang
for agreeing to read portions of the manuscript. I would also like to ac-
knowledge Nimisha Barton, Sarah Curtis, Quentin Deluermoz, Paula Fass,
Sarah Fishman, Jérôme Krop, Lisa Morrison, Briony Neilson, Jessica Pliley,
Caroline Ritter, Eleanor Rivera, Rebecca Rogers, Sophia Rosenfeld, Andrew
Israel Ross, Birgitte Søland, and Holly White for sharing their knowledge and
expertise. Alice Conklin welcomed me into The Ohio State University French
history community and has been unbelievably generous with her time and
advice. I would like to thank her and her students at OSU for reading and
commenting on one of my chapters.
Generous funding from the Fulbright Foundation, the George Lurcy
Foundation, the Macmillan Center at Yale University, the Society for French
Historical Studies, and the European Studies Program at William & Mary
allowed me to conduct research in France. I am grateful for the work of
Caroline Piketty and the staff at the Archives Nationales; to Vincent Tuchais
and the staff of the Archives de Paris; and the staffs of the Archives de la
Préfecture de Police, the Musée Sociale, the Bibliothèque Historique de la
Ville de Paris, the Archives de Catholicité, the Archives of the Alliance
Israélite Universelle, and the Bibliothèque Nationale Française, especially the
librarian who suggested a number of the memoirs in Chapter 6. Thanks, too,
to Florence Rodriguez at the École Estienne and the late Soeur Fromaget at
the Archives of the Filles de la Charité.
The highlight of the last decade has been the friends I’ve met along the
way. Many of my fellow graduate students in New Haven deserve thanks
for celebrating the joyful moments and providing support in the difficult
ones. Among my fellow historians, I want to recognize Catherine Arnold,
Kate Brackney, John Burden, Sarah Ifft Decker, Rachel Johnston-​White,
Mireille Pardon, Eric Smith, and Amy Watson. Katherine Hindley, Angus
Ledingham, and Shari Yosinski have helped me laugh since the first week
of graduate school. In Williamsburg, VA, I shared many happy evenings
with Miles Canady, Matthew Franco, Amy Lemoncelli, and Monica Streifer.
I was fortunate to find friends in Columbus, OH including Dan Blim, Jessica
Burch, Mary Anne and John Cusato, Can Dalyan, Leslie Hempson, Lance
 Acknowledgments xi

and Lauren Ingwersen, Julie Mujic, Mariana Saavedra Espinosa, and Adrian
Young. A growing circle of friends in San Marcos, TX has provided welcome
distractions as I completed the final revisions on this book. In France, I have
wandered and debated with Baptiste Bonnefoy and Delia Guijarro Arribas,
Meg Cychosz, and Mia Schatz. Thea Goldring has been an inciteful interloc-
utor on many occasions. Megan Brown has not only read a significant por-
tion of the manuscript but has also been a tireless mentor and friend.
My French adopted family, the Moatis, have always welcomed me to Paris.
Hila Calev and Aaron Hosios have provided years of generosity and friend-
ship. My Lowell crew—​Theresa Chan, Jenny C., Angela Huang, Merry Tu,
Cynthia Yee, Diana Yeung, and Eliza Yu-​Dietz—​has remained an important
fixture in my life for the better part of two decades.
To my students, you have challenged me and made me a better historian.
To those of you who took classes on childhood or on youth culture, I am
still reflecting on many of the questions you have posed. Claire Nevin, Nina
Whidden, and Vaidehi Kudhyadi have contributed to this book through
their work as research assistants.
Finally, my family deserves credit for stubbornly believing this book could
exist. My mom, Anne, encouraged me to be a reader and first sparked my
love of history by introducing me to Eleanor of Aquitaine. My dad, Zack,
has provided decades of editorial assistance in both French and English. His
passion for France inspired mine. My younger sister Lena is my oldest friend
and ally. Colette, Rae, and Gabriel have offered hospitality and advice. Ann,
Paul, Sarah, Samuel, and Nathan have given me a second home in Tacoma.
Justin Randolph has nurtured me with his humor, his cooking, and his
steadfast support. Through our discussions and through his scholarship, he
exemplifies how to interrogate systems of inequality. This book is dedicated
to the memory of my grandparents, Marilyn and Morris Sachs. My grandpa
attended a technical high school in the 1930s and was able to explain the ma-
chinery in the photos of the Parisian vocational schools to me. Through her
books and her stories, my grandmother piqued my interest in the past. Above
all, they devoted their lives to creating and to giving.
Sections of Chapter 3 first appeared in “ ‘A Sad and . . . Odious Industry’: The
Problem of Child Begging in Late Nineteenth-​Century Paris,” Journal of the
History of Childhood and Youth 10, 2 (Spring 2017): 188–​205. Copyright The
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Some of the material in Chapters 1 and 4 appears in “ ‘But the Child is
Flighty, Playful, Curious’: Working-​Class Boyhood and the Policing of Play,”
xii Acknowledgments

Historical Reflections/​Réflexions Historiques 45, 2 (Summer 2019): 7–​27.

Copyright Berghahn Book.
A portion of Chapter 5 is published in “When the Republic Came
for the Nuns: Laicization, Labor Laws, and Religious Orders,” French
Historical Studies 42, 3 (August 2019): 423–​451. Copyright Duke University
Press. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the publisher.
www.duk​eupr​ess.edu.
 Introduction
Defining Childhood in Third Republic Paris

“Take him from school . . . of an age to work . . . to earn his living,” so

concludes Auguste Brepson’s semi-​autobiographical novel, Un gosse (A Kid).1
Published in 1928, the book documents the childhood of an impoverished,
young Parisian. In the novel’s final scene, the protagonist’s grandmother, who
is his caretaker, dies. Through the fog of his grief, he overhears the adults
around him planning his future. In his novel, Brepson’s family decides
when he is “of an age to work.” But for most working-​class children in Third
Republic France, the government’s child labor laws dictated how and when
they entered the workforce. The state, not the family, decided when the first
stage of childhood came to an end.
In the twenty-​first century, childhood unfolds and ends according to
proscribed, fairly universal milestones based on numeric age. Until the
late nineteenth century, this was not the case for working-​class Parisians.
The barriers separating stages within childhood were not precise, numeric
markers. Instead, childhood was more fluid.2 The one constant was that
parents and guardians expected children to contribute their labor and, even-
tually, their wages to support the family. A change in family circumstances,
such as the death of a relative, determined when young people entered the
formal workforce and earned compensation.3
From its inception in 1870, the French Third Republic attempted to carve
out childhood as a distinct, standardized stage of life. Through laws on labor,
education, and delinquency, its legislators imposed numeric barriers around
and within childhood. These regulations instituted universal standards for
when young people began school and when they were permitted to work.4 In
1912, the Republic established a juvenile court for young offenders, ensuring
that the legal system dealt with juvenile delinquents separately from adults.5
Legislators and reformers designed these policies to protect children.
Influenced by new ideas about children and their development, reformers

An Age to Work. Miranda Sachs, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197638453.003.0001
2 An Age to Work

created classrooms and juvenile detention facilities to cater to young people’s

unique needs as developing beings.
But gender-​and class-​based variations persisted within childhood. Even
by the 1950s, almost a century after the Republic’s founding (and a decade
after its ignominious collapse during World War II), only thirty-​two thou-
sand French youths graduated academic secondary school each year. By this
period, the population of metropolitan France was around forty-​two mil-
lion.6 Why did disparities remain in this seemingly universal life stage? The
answer lies both with the legislators and reformers who created social welfare
policies as well as with the functionaries and parents who had more control
over young people’s day-​to-​day activities.
In the first place, when republican legislators and reformers placed age-​based
regulations on working-​class childhood, they hoped that these young people
would grow up to become productive workers. They tried to introduce a more
uniform version of working-​class childhood, not to eliminate all the variations
within childhood. Creating labor laws, primary schools, and vocational training
programs were all attempts to standardize how working-​ class childhood
unfolded. In establishing vocational training programs, the Republic sought
to ensure that once a young person left primary school, he or she received the
technical and moral education necessary to become a skilled worker-​citizen.
Likewise, the expansion of welfare programs and the creation of the juvenile
justice system removed young people from any influences that might limit their
desire to work and steered them toward a productive adulthood. For elites, the
regulation of age was a tool of social control. By placing more regulations on
childhood, the state gained more ability to supervise children’s development.
The archives of the functionaries responsible for implementing these
policies capture how this worked in practice. Labor inspectors, police
officers, and vocational school directors all disseminated new ideas about
childhood, while simultaneously ensuring that working-​class children could
and would mature into contributing members of the workforce. When a
labor inspector visited a factory, he relied on quantifiable measurements,
such as young workers’ ages and physical development, to determine if
young workers belonged in the factory. Examining magistrates in the crim-
inal justice system (juges d’instruction) considered children’s intellectual
maturity when recommending a sentence. These individuals all worked to
protect young people and promote their normal development. Through their
actions, they defined childhood as a specific life stage. But these individuals
were also concerned with young people’s mental and physical capacity to
 Introduction 3

labor. For instance, police officers investigated an arrested youth’s employ-

ment history. Education reformers designed vocational school curriculums
to direct youths toward more regular employment.
Working-​class parents clashed with functionaries about how to struc-
ture childhood, but they agreed that their offspring needed to labor. Within
working-​ class communities, age remained more fluid. Parents resisted
or subverted laws that limited their ability to put their offspring to work.
However, the disagreements between parents and functionaries were over
when young people would enter the workforce, not whether they would. In
many instances, parents were even more eager than state actors to place their
children into productive roles. Many turned to state agencies for assistance
with children who could not or would not work. Parents helped to ensure
that their offspring entered the labor force as soon as they were legally able
(and sometimes before they were).
Through its regulation of childhood, the Republic also reinforced the sep-
aration between girls’ and boys’ experiences of childhood. While child labor
laws and vocational schools created a more uniform path through childhood
for boys, the life course for girls remained less fixed. Motherhood loomed
over girls’ lives, shaping their experiences as young workers. The stages
within girlhood were less precise, because girls, no matter their age, were
always preparing for motherhood. They could only enter into professions
that resembled domestic work, such as trades in the garment industry. These
professions tended to escape the notice of labor inspectors. Girls were more
likely to enter the workforce prematurely or work in conditions that violated
the child labor laws. This lack of state supervision characterized girls’ time
in the workforce. The creation of gender-​segregated vocational schools also
encoded specific trades as masculine or feminine.
By introducing age-​ based regulations on childhood, the Republic
encoded and enforced the norm that working-​class children had to grow into
contributing members of the economy. As a result, the laws and institutions
it designed to protect and nurture working-​class children also formalized
class-​and gender-​based divisions within childhood.

Childhood before the Republic

As industrialization and urbanization accelerated in the early nineteenth

century, French elites started to regard young people as a distinct legal
4 An Age to Work

category.7 In the late 1820s, reformers began calling for legislation to protect
the youngest members of the industrial workforce. This idea gained support
over the course of the 1830s.8 In 1841, the Chamber of Deputies under the
July Monarchy passed France’s first child labor legislation. This law barred
children younger than eight from working and limited the workday for
youths under sixteen.9 Although the Napoleonic Code had included sepa-
rate rules for sentencing minors, it was only in the 1830s that legal scholars
advocated for separate correctional facilities for young offenders.10 In 1831,
Paris opened the first prison for juvenile offenders.11 In the discussions that
led to these changes, reformers and legislators began to identify young people
as a distinct category of the laboring and criminal populations.
The 1830s also marked a key moment in the development of education
for the popular classes. In 1833, the July Monarchy passed the Guizot Law,
which required every commune in France to have a public primary school.12
In the same decade, Catholic reformers opened the first patronages—​local
centers that provided supplemental vocational training for apprentices
and young workers.13 Both schools and patronages were age-​segregated
spaces that catered to young people. July Monarchy legislators and Catholic
reformers also envisioned such spaces as providing lessons on obedience and
morality—​the sorts of lessons that might keep a working-​class population
in check.
The danger that industrial workspaces posed to young people’s minds and
bodies inspired many of these reforms. In the agricultural economy, children
labored alongside their parents. The home and the workspace overlapped.14
Industrialization removed children from the home and their families. Girls
and boys participated in almost every sector of industrial production. In the
textile industry, they represented almost twenty percent of the workforce.15
Most young people in industry were teen-​aged, but some employers hired
children as young as seven.16 In factories, children interacted with machines
that could damage their fragile bodies. It is no coincidence that reformers’
first calls to regulate the work of young people coincided with the accelera-
tion of the Industrial Revolution in France in the 1830s. Industrialization also
upended how young people trained for work. In the first decades of the nine-
teenth century, elites began agonizing over the “apprenticeship crisis,” as tra-
ditional modes of training young workers for skilled trades fell into disuse.17
The breakdown of the apprenticeship system hastened children’s entry into
crowded, industrial workspaces. It also threatened the craft industries that
had traditionally been crucial to the French economy.18
 Introduction 5

Urbanization, too, drew elite attention to working-​class children. As indus-

trialization accelerated, people migrated to cities. Diseases flourished in the
crowded neighborhoods of working-​class Paris. While it is unclear if these
areas also bred crime, elites certainly worried about the “dangerous classes.”19
Social economists, hygienists, and Catholic reformers theorized that poverty
spawned immorality and disorder.20 Middle-​class reformers believed the so-
lution was to impose the bourgeois family model onto the laboring classes.21
To that end, they expanded aide to abandoned babies and unwed mothers.22
They also tried to create better housing for the laboring classes.23
Many of these reformers targeted children. In placing limits on children’s
ability to participate in the workforce, reformers sought to introduce a more
middle-​class version of childhood to the laboring classes.24 By encouraging
the working classes to care for their children, they attempted to promote
domesticity. Through regulating childhood, reformers and legislators tried
to ensure that working-​class children followed a prescribed path to adult-
hood. While many of these early reforms had mixed results—​the law of 1841
was unevenly enforced, the first Parisian juvenile prisons closed, and it took
decades before some localities opened a primary school—​they laid a frame-
work for the Third Republic.25 These reforms established young people as
a distinct component of the laboring classes. They also introduced the idea
that regulating childhood, and that creating a particular path to adulthood
for the laboring classes, was a potential avenue for attacking the perceived
immorality and unruliness of the laboring classes.

The Third Republic

In 1938, just two years before the Third Republic’s collapse, Gustave Monod
wrote, “Though we might very well be a democracy, it’s all too clear that not
all our institutions are democratic.”26 Monod, the director of the Academy
of Paris, was critiquing the education system. But his statement highlights a
tension within the Third Republic. The regime proclaimed its commitment
to the egalitarian ideals of the French Revolution while excluding all but
white men from citizenship.
Founded in 1870, the Republic was an outlier in nineteenth-​century
Europe. It did not have a monarch. Instead, the Chamber of Deputies, elected
by universal manhood suffrage, governed the country. After 1877, the po-
litical leaders of the Republic were primarily committed to representative
6 An Age to Work

democracy and a secular state. While traditional elites, namely the landed
nobility, held power in most of the rest of Europe, the bourgeoisie controlled
the Republic’s institutions.27
But only men enjoyed these privileges. Male legislators cemented women’s
exclusion from full citizenship by passing laws that defined them as a sep-
arate, vulnerable category of the population. For many male politicians,
women could only contribute to the Republic as mothers. French women did
not gain the right to vote until after World War II.28 Whether through the
regulation of prostitution, of women’s work, or of maternal care, the Republic
placed women’s bodies under public scrutiny.29 These policies reinforced the
patriarchal order and the division between male and female citizenship.30
Men wielded political power; women’s bodies were subject to state oversight.
In addition, the greater regulation of women’s work resulted in their spatial
segregation within the workforce.31
Similarly, in codifying the colonial subject as a distinct legal category,
the Republic excluded the majority of non-​European people in its em-
pire from citizenship. Under the Republic, the French Empire expanded
to include much of North Africa, Southeast Asia, and Sub-​Saharan Africa.
While France promised citizenship to its imperial subjects, few ever gained
it.32 In 1881, the same year that the Republic made primary education free,
it passed the Code de indigénat in Algeria. Building on half a century of co-
lonial rule, this code defined non-​European subjects in Algeria as a legal
category and subjected them to harsher legal punishments.33 By World
War I, this notion of the indigénat existed throughout the French Empire
and “provided legal cover . . . for colonial coercion.”34 The enforcement of
these laws bolstered the separation between French citizens and imperial
subjects. The growing state bureaucracy within metropolitan France and
its colonies “worked to particularize segments of the population.”35 The ex-
perience of white women in metropolitan France was vastly different from
that of colonial subjects in Africa and Southeast Asia. But for both women
and colonial subjects, republican legislators singled out these groups as dis-
tinct legal categories and subjected them to greater state oversight. As such,
the legal codification of these categories formalized a social and political
hierarchy dominated by French men. The Republic’s approach to women
and colonial subjects has striking parallels to its treatment of working-​class
children.
By the final decades of the nineteenth century, many French elites
regarded children as vulnerable beings who required special care and
 Introduction 7

attention. In this period, “a concern to save children for the enjoyment of

childhood” increasingly motivated reformers across Europe and North
America. These reformers pushed for laws to protect working children
and opened institutions to protect the vulnerable.36 In France, a growing
number of doctors published texts on the health and hygiene of young
people. They were principally concerned with preventing infant mortality,
but such discussions helped to create a distinct field of pediatric medicine.37
For the French, the health of their youngest citizens held particular impor-
tance. Since the mid-​nineteenth century, the birthrate in France had been
declining. After the defeat in the Franco–​Prussian War, anxiety over the
birthrate increased.38
From the Republic’s earliest years, legislators encoded working-​class chil-
dren as a distinct category of the population. Many of the Republic’s first
social welfare reforms focused on young people. In 1874, it barred children
younger than twelve from the workforce and established limits on the em-
ployment of those under sixteen.39 The education laws of 1881 and 1882
made primary education free, secular, and mandatory for children between
the ages of six and thirteen. In 1889, the Republic passed a law permitting
the state to remove children from parents it deemed immoral.40 Alongside
these national reforms, the city of Paris established vocational schools for
young workers.41 It created separate institutions to treat vulnerable children
and young delinquents.42
Although these reforms built on the projects of previous regimes, the
Republic’s reforms were more effective in codifying childhood as a legal
category. The Republic’s laws created a legal definition of childhood and
established numeric barriers on when it began and ended. The expansion
of the state bureaucracy and the professionalization of the Parisian po-
lice ensured that a corps of state employees would enforce these laws.43
Labor inspectors surveilled workspaces and police investigated juve-
nile criminals. As labor inspectors cited errant factory owners or police
determined whether to remove young people from their parents, they
disseminated a more bureaucratic, modern way of measuring childhood.
During the interwar period, functionaries drew on the emerging fields
of pediatric medicine and psychology to assist young people. Vocational
guidance centers measured a young person’s physical strength and in-
telligence. Social workers assessed young delinquents’ physical and psy-
chological health.44 Their work further defined childhood as a distinct
life stage.
8 An Age to Work

These regulations also led to the spatial separation of young people from
the adult world. Even by the end of the nineteenth century, most working-​
class youngsters spent their time in mixed-​age spaces. They lived in crowded
apartments, mingled in the streets with people of all ages, and trained
alongside older workers.45 Young workers were smaller and less skilled than
their adult companions in the workforce, but they were an integral part of
production in many workshops. They were responsible for removing sheets
of paper from printing presses or transporting molten glass from ovens
in glassworks. In setting limits on young people’s work, labor laws forced
employers to regard young workers as a distinct category. In some cases, this
involved eliminating them from production. In other instances, employers
created separate spaces within their workspaces where young workers
trained. The expansion of vocational schools and courses to train young
workers further removed them from production. Although I do not focus
on leisure, the summer camps, after-​school programs, or scouting organi-
zations that developed during this period also removed young people from
the adult world.46 By carving out childhood as a life stage and by removing
young people to these spaces, republican legislators and reformers were not
just protecting youngsters. They also gave the state more power to supervise
the development of working-​class children.
But this more uniform version of childhood did not align with the
way working-​class families conceived of childhood. As Brepson’s story
demonstrates, a young person’s family usually determined when she or
he entered the workforce. Just as they had in the agricultural economy,
children labored from a young age. They ran errands for their parents or
tended younger siblings. Girls in particular were expected to help out in
the home. To a certain extent, the working classes did have to accept the
Republic’s new version of childhood. Children under thirteen disappeared
from the industrial labor force. But the archival record suggests that
parents found ways to challenge the Republic’s version of childhood.
Many parents wrote letters asking for exemptions to child labor laws. They
removed their children prematurely from apprenticeships. A significant
portion of the students at the city of Paris’ vocational schools did not com-
plete their training, suggesting that parents did not agree with the way the
schools altered the life course. Working-​class parents expected their chil-
dren to contribute to the family economy as soon as they were physically
capable. The child labor laws merely changed when that labor could be
remunerated.
 Introduction 9

The Education System

One of the Third Republic’s most lasting legacies is its public primary
school system. This system epitomizes the contradictions of the Republic.
Republican legislators made primary school free and mandatory for all.
However, as Gustave Monod stressed, the education system had its faults.
Both the structure of the education system and the content it dispensed rein-
forced existing class-​and gender-​based divisions.47
On the surface, the Republic’s primary schools were instrumental in
creating a more uniform experience of childhood. According to the Jules
Ferry Laws of 1881 and 1882, all children between the ages of six and thir-
teen were supposed to pass through the Republic’s primary schools. In these
schools, primary school teachers were responsible for instilling children with
(secular) republican values.48 Eugen Weber has argued that the schools were
instrumental in creating a more cohesive national identity, although other
historians have contested this claim.49 Certainly, illiteracy declined. At the
start of the Republic, around fifteen percent of military recruits could neither
read nor write. By World War I, fewer than three percent fell into this cate-
gory.50 By the 1930s, one-​half of Parisian children were able to pass the exam
for the certificate of primary studies.51 To pass this exam, a student needed
to demonstrate a measure of proficiency in math, reading, and history.52 The
expansion of primary education ensured that an overwhelming majority of
French girls and boys spent their days studying alongside their peers rather
than laboring in mixed-​age spaces.
And yet, primary schools did not facilitate much social mobility. Schools
for the popular classes reminded students of their role in society by drilling
them in the importance of “hard work.”53 In the working-​class neighborhoods
of Paris, classes were crowded. Even by the early twentieth century, classes in
these neighborhoods had between forty and fifty students.54 Given that most
working-​class children left school after turning thirteen, they gained basic
literacy and numeracy, but access to elite culture remained beyond their
grasp. In addition, up to ten percent of Parisian children managed to elude
truancy officers.55
Working-​class youths had little access to secondary education. Most
began working at thirteen, an experience that was quite different from their
bourgeois peers who continued to attend school. Only a small fraction of
the population received a classical secondary education. To prepare for these
schools, elite boys attended elementary schools rather than the primary
10 An Age to Work

schools that the majority of children attended. As a result, even from age
six, the path of these boys diverged from the rest of the population.56 The
Third Republic expanded the number of écoles primaires supérieures, schools
that provided a modern post-​primary education to the middle classes and
the highest tiers of the laboring classes.57 Because they required youths to
remain in school when they were legally able to labor, the écoles primaires
supérieures were not an option for many working-​class youths. Technical ed-
ucation, such as the vocational schools, remained a separate system.58 Only a
fraction of the laboring classes even attended formal vocational schools.
Working-​class parents also contributed to the lack of mobility by removing
their children from the school system. The majority of truant primary school
students were older students who left school early to enter the workforce.59
Many parents were loath to send their offspring to secondary school. Parents
wanted their children to begin working as soon as they could. When the city
of Paris queried a group of primary school girls in 1877 about their future
plans, a handful indicated that they wanted to continue their education, but
that their parents needed them to begin earning a wage.60 Many working-​
class parents could not afford for their children to attend school long enough
to obtain the education necessary for a white-​collar position.
In addition, the education system reinforced the separation between the
genders. Until the 1960s, most French children attended gender-​segregated
primary schools.61 Textbooks reminded girls and boys of their separate
duties in society. Girls received a curriculum designed to prepare them for
motherhood.62 Public secondary schools for girls only existed in France after
the passage of the Victor Drury Law in 1867.63 As part of his program of
expanding public education, Jules Ferry attempted to increase the number
of secondary schools for girls with the Camille Sée Law of 1880.64 In these
schools, young women still studied a distinct curriculum from their male
peers. However, some of the graduates of these schools did become teachers
or took on other professional jobs.65 In the 1920s, some secondary schools for
boys began admitting girls, but many remained gender-​segregated.66 For the
laboring classes, the divisions in post-​primary education were even firmer.
Vocational training programs remained gender-​segregated. If working-​class
girls pursued post-​primary education, they received it in institutions that
prepared them for professions considered to be female-​appropriate.
Even as the school system perpetuated class-​and gender-​based divisions
within childhood, it was part of a larger network of programs repub-
lican legislators developed for working-​class children. To understand why
 Introduction 11

republican legislators built the school system the way they did, we need to
consider how they envisioned childhood. To do so requires studying the
school system within the larger context of the republican welfare state.
Examining the creation and operation of that welfare state shows how repub-
lican elites, everyday functionaries, and working-​class families conceived
of childhood. By analyzing the development of welfare policies for young
people, we can interrogate the history of working-​class childhood as a
category.

Defining Childhood

The young people in this book are work-​aged, but the borders around this
category were fluid. In 1870, a ten-​year-​old could work. In 1937, a thirteen-​
year-​old could not. Throughout this period, the lower limit of this stage, the
barrier between work and school, remained a site of contestation. Many chil-
dren participated in informal labor long before they entered the workforce.
Likewise, the barrier between childhood and adulthood evolved. The 1874
child labor law only applied to young people up to the age of sixteen, whereas
the 1892 law raised this age to eighteen. The division between girlhood and
womanhood was even more fluid. Many of the provisions of the 1874 law ap-
plied to young women up to the age of twenty-​one and the 1892 law included
all women. Women always remained in a state of minority, as they never
gained full political citizenship. The beginning of formal adulthood was
more fixed for men because they began their military service at eighteen and
could vote at twenty-​one.67 Based on the juvenile delinquency laws and the
1892 child labor law, I have primarily focused on young people between the
ages of thirteen and eighteen, but I do note instances where I found younger
children laboring.
Why not use “adolescence” to describe this intermediate stage? The use
of the terms “adolescence” and “adolescent” increased in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries.68 Some labor inspectors did use the term “ad-
olescence” to describe the population they surveyed. By the 1890s, a number
of educational reformers and psychologists were focused on dealing with
youngsters between school and adulthood. In their discussions, they set out
a clear definition for this intermediate stage.69 When Parisian educational
reformers created vocational training programs, they catered to teen-​aged
workers. Through these schools or classes, reformers tried to standardize
12 An Age to Work

young workers’ first years out of primary school. To a certain extent, these
reformers were attempting to carve out adolescence within the working-​class
life course.70
However, elite conceptions of adolescence did not align with the way
the laboring classes envisioned or experienced the years after primary
school. Scholars of the Global South have emphasized that “adolescence” is
a Eurocentric concept and that European efforts to impose a standardized
life course on non-​white populations were a form of cultural imperialism.71
Even within Europe, the initial model of adolescence as an intermediate
stage derived from the elite male life course. Between childhood in primary
schools and autonomous adulthood, aristocratic and bourgeois boys spent
their adolescence in secondary schools.72 The Republic’s efforts to impose
this life stage on the working-​class life course had mixed results. Educational
reformers never intended to create a universal version of adolescence.
They wanted to encode working-​class adolescence as a time to prepare for
the workforce. Even so, their vocational schools were only accessible to an
elite tier of the working classes. Of the students who attended, many left the
schools prematurely, suggesting that their parents did not envision a fixed in-
termediate stage as a necessary part of working-​class childhood. For girls, the
life course was even more fluid. As I have emphasized, ordinary French men
and women did not always embrace the way doctors or legislators envisioned
childhood. The term adolescence connotes a strict separation between life
stages that did not exist for most working-​class children and youths.
While I have tried to be precise when assigning terminology to young
people, I also must account for the fluidity that remained a feature of the
working-​class life course throughout this period. I limit my use of the term
“adolescence” to instances where a historical actor specifically employs the
term and to my analysis of vocational schools. When I am discussing an in-
dividual or a group of young people who have completed primary school,
but who are below the age of majority, I use the term “youth.” For primary
school students or young people below the legal age to work, I use “child.”
But the border between school and work was porous. Many parents tried to
place their children into the workforce prematurely. Young people who were
in the process of leaving school and entering the workforce do not fit neatly
into one category. When I am dealing with a young person on this border,
I use “child,” as it is a more inclusive term. When referring to young people
under eighteen as a whole, I use “young people,” “youngsters,” or “chil-
dren.” Similarly, I refer to this stage as “childhood.” From labor inspectors
 Introduction 13

compiling reports in the 1870s to social workers reporting on their activ-

ities in the 1930s, French officials used the term “child” to refer to this age
group. When discussing a young person in relation to his or her parents, I use
“child” interchangeably with “son,” “daughter,” or “offspring.” In this instance,
I use child to denote a relationship rather than an age group.73
As with many historians of childhood, I have faced the problem of finding
sources from the perspective of young people.74 State actors loom large in
this book, as they compiled the majority of the sources on which I draw. The
few scattered examples I have of young people’s voices from the period, such
as a disobedient apprentice’s testimony in a court hearing or girls’ responses
to a survey asking them about their future professions, exist in sources
produced by state actors. More often, I must rely on sources that describe
young people’s actions—​the accident report of an injured worker, the arrest
of a thief—​to reconstruct their experiences. The details of the thief ’s arrest
suggest that he collaborated with other boys in his neighborhood, that he
used a playful pseudonym, that he chose to steal wine for amusement rather
than to survive. That the female worker burned her hand while making a hat
tells us that she participated in production. But these types of sources rarely
include a young person’s point of view. As such, the accident report cannot
tell us whether the young worker was worried about her family, and the po-
lice record does not reveal whether the young thief stole the wine on a dare.
In Chapter 6, I integrate memoirs from individuals who grew up in
working-​class neighborhoods in Paris during this period. These memoirs
provide a glimpse of young workers’ hopes and dreams, as well as the inner
world of working-​class neighborhoods where official actors did not always
penetrate. Nevertheless, these sources, too, have their limits. The writers
compiled them many years after the events occurred. Most of the writers
were artists and/​or activists and so their experiences were exceptional. The
mass of young workers who learned a trade, worked twelve-​hour shifts, and
sought out amusement at the end of the workday have slipped into obscurity.

Paris

The young people who appear in the following pages lived and worked in
Paris, a city whose population boomed during the nineteenth century. In
the Republic’s first decades, the population of Paris reached its height. In the
early 1870s, the city had 1.9 million inhabitants. By the start of World War I,
14 An Age to Work

almost three million people lived in the city.75 Most adults living in Paris had
been born outside the capital and tens of thousands of migrants continued to
flock to the city each year.76 A small but growing minority of Parisians were
immigrants, primarily from other European countries.77
At the heart of this city, bourgeois leisure culture flourished.78 In 1853,
Napoleon III tasked the Baron George Eugène Haussmann with rebuilding
the city. Haussmann ploughed through the working-​class neighborhoods
at the heart of the city and created wide-​open boulevards.79 Opened be-
tween 1867 and 1905, Paris’ most famous department stores lined these
boulevards, their giant glass windows tempting passersby.80 Bourgeois la-
dies and gentlemen promenaded in the manicured parks of the Tuileries or
in smaller local squares.81 Theirs is the world preserved in the sun-​dappled
paintings of the Impressionists.82 It was not simply Parisians who took in the
delights of the city. In 1889, thirty-​two million people visited the Universal
Exposition in the French capital and witnessed the brand-​new spectacle of
the Eiffel Tower.83
Pushed to the neighborhoods at the city’s edge, Paris’ laboring classes were
a diverse group. Their ranks included women doing piecework in their homes,
semi-​skilled metalworkers, and highly trained furniture makers. Even by the
first decade of the twentieth century, almost one-​third of workers labored in
small ateliers or workshops with fewer than ten people.84 In the Republic’s
first decades, the absolute number of workers in certain traditional crafts,
such as shoemaking or furniture making, remained constant, but declined
as a proportion of the overall population.85 It was in the towns just outside
Paris that entrepreneurs opened larger factories.86 Within Paris, the laboring
classes lived primarily in the arrondissements at the northeast edge of the
capital (the 19th and 20th), but there were also working-​class neighborhoods
in the south of the city (at the edge of the 13th and 14th arrondissements).
Many skilled workers also lived in the 10th and 11th arrondissements.
Crammed into small apartments, families in these communities had lim-
ited access to clean water and air. While Haussmann had expanded the city’s
sewers to remove urban waste, few buildings in the outer neighborhoods
connected to this network.87 In spite of these conditions, the working classes
formed communities.
To a certain extent, the interaction between the state and children was
unique in Paris.88 The city government in Paris pioneered many of the
reforms related to working-​class childhood. The Council General of Paris
employed a labor inspector starting in 1864, a decade before the child labor
 Introduction 15

law of 1874 established a national corps of labor inspectors.89 Its municipal

vocational schools were among the first in the country.90 The city introduced
the policy of removing children who were in “moral danger” from their
parents in 1881, eight years before the Republic instituted this policy at the
national level.91 Compared with rural childhood, for instance, state actors
had many more opportunities to interact with Parisian children and to shape
childhood. However, rural children did attend primary school where they re-
ceived lessons on becoming productive citizens from their teachers.92 These
primary schools imposed structure on rural childhood and ensured that
these youngsters matured into worker-​citizens.
Over the course of its seventy years, the Third Republic built a welfare state
to serve working-​class children. But the institutions it created formalized the
social hierarchies of the nineteenth century, ensuring that they would last
well into the twentieth.
 1
Child Labor Legislation and
the Regulation of Age

In 1907, M. Chardonal, a Parisian labor inspector, cited the printing firm of

Wellhoff & Roche for employing twenty-​five young workers in hazardous
work conditions. The danger? The firm was printing Pierre Louÿs’ 1896 novel
Aphrodite. According to an 1893 decree, employers could not hire workers
under sixteen and young women under twenty-​one to work in spaces that
produced texts or images that might “injure their morality.” Chardonal de-
termined that Aphrodite fit this description. The book opens with a graphic
account of a nude woman bathing. It goes on to recount the story of a Roman
sculptor whose muse presents herself naked on the lighthouse of Alexandria,
commits suicide, and whose corpse ultimately serves as the model for his
masterpiece.1 The local police court agreed that the work was “of a nature to
shock the morality of children and young women” and levied a 125 franc fine
on the printers.2
The printers appealed the fine and hired a lawyer Henri Robert to argue
the case before the Criminal Court of the Department of the Seine. Robert’s
defense is a masterwork of legal wizardry, so much so that the printing firm
published it after the hearing.3 Robert attacked the charge on multiple fronts.
He maintained that the book had artistic merits, but also claimed that the
speed of the printing process did not give workers sufficient time to engage
with the text. Through this latter line of attack, he took his audience inside
the workshop, giving us a sense of the place of young workers in this space.
Robert claimed that the workers would not have had time to read the book,
as the printing presses spat out eight hundred sheets an hour. Robert then
explained that each printed page emerged covered in blotting paper, meaning
that the text was not visible to anyone near the machines.4 Although Robert
did not describe young workers’ role in production, his defense suggests that
they were removing pages from the presses and working alongside these
machines.

An Age to Work. Miranda Sachs, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197638453.003.0002
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 James Jones.[737]

The definition of the time when Concord [Sidenote:

established its first schools under the meeting’s Concord]
care, is only possible within rather extended limits.
We can only say that at such a time certain schools [Sidenote:
Birmingham
were in existence; earlier than that we have no School at least as
authentic source of information. Jordan, in his early as 1779]
History of Delaware County, places the date of [Sidenote: School
Birmingham’s first school as 1806,[738] it being built at Chichester]
on a lot conveyed for that purpose by John
Burgess. From the report of the Concord Monthly Meeting in 1779,
which will be presented later, it appears that Birmingham had a
school at that date which was established “in some measure
agreeable to the demands of the yearly meeting.”[739] It is spoken of
as a regularly established school, which the writer has found in most
meetings to mean that a house, master, funds, and sometimes a
permanent lot were provided. This is merely suggestive. It certainly
does not prove that there was a lot and building provided, but the
indications are in favor of that, rather than against it. The same
author, in reference to Upper Chichester, states,

In 1793 the Society of Friends established a school in

Upper Chichester which was maintained by the Society until
the public school system was introduced.[740]

The source for the statement is not given, but it appears it must be
subject to the like inaccuracy suggested above in reference to
Birmingham.
The report of the school committee which seems to contravert the
time of the establishment of schools, given by Jordan, is herewith
included.
[Sidenote: Report
We of the committee appointed to the care of of 1779]
schools and education of the youth, report we
 have in some degree attended to the importance of the
service, have lately visited two schools, which are now
established in some measure agreeable to the concern of the
Yearly Meeting as recommended in the extracts for that
purpose....

One of which in the verge of Chichester, the [Sidenote: Two

other Birmingham particular meeting; which schools]
visits, on observing the economy and regularity
of said schools, have afforded us much satisfaction. With
increasing desires for the establishment of another in the
verge of Concord which unitedly appears to be much wanting
as divers Friends now labor under very considerable
inconvenience for want thereof. Signed by nine of the
committee.[741]

In 1780 the minutes of the meeting state that [Sidenote:

another full report on schools was brought in, but Committee visits
such a report is not found in the minutes. In 1781, preparatives]
the question being revived by the receipt of the
yearly meeting’s extracts, a committee of Joshua Sharpe, Richard
Strode, Hugh Judge, Samuel Trimble, George Martin, and Caleb
Pierce were appointed to take the extracts and visit each of the
preparative meetings, at which they were to be read.[742] They
further directed the time for Birmingham to hold their meeting, so that
the visit of the committee might be arranged.[743] It is known that
these visits were performed, and others following that date.[744]
It was noted in the committee’s report presented [Sidenote: Report
in 1779, that Concord did not yet have a school of 1786 and 1787]
under its care,[745] though one was desired. The [Sidenote: Three
report of 1786 indicates that all of the preparatives schools]
were at that time supplied. A digest of the said
report is produced here, also that of 1787.
 The committee informed this meeting that they have
appointed John Pierce Treasurer for Chichester, Joseph
Trimble for Concord, and William Townsend for Birmingham.
We also agree to report, agreeable to the request of the
quarterly meeting....[746]

Digest of their report.

1. We have a school and house at each preparative

meeting—agreeable to the plan of the yearly meeting.
2. They are under the care of a steady committee of our
monthly meeting.
3. Schools are conducted to the good satisfaction of
Friends.
4. One of them at present is vacant.
5. We have also agreed upon a plan to establish a fund for
the education of poor children; also for the support of the said
schools.
6. There is a treasurer for each particular meeting.
7. Not much progress made in securing funds, up to date.

The report of the next year, 1787, was:[747]

1. The three schools visited.

2. Are conducted to a good degree of satisfaction.
3. Chichester is at present vacant.
4. Request a future urging and some advice of the yearly
meeting.

The encouragement given to the school of Concord through

individual philanthropy is to be noted in the will of Nathan Yarnall, an
extract from which appeared in the Concord minutes.
[Sidenote:
I give and bequeath the sum of £50 to be Schools
appropriated for the use of Friends School at encouraged by
Concord, if established agreeable to the plan individual
philanthropy]
recommended by the Yearly Meeting last year,
to be paid into the hands of the committee appointed for the
establishment of the said school.... It appears that Samuel
Trimble, Morris Jones, William Trimble, and Caleb Pierce are
a committee appointed by the Concord Preparative meeting
to take the immediate care and oversight of that school. They
... and to make report to next meeting.[748]

Such aid as this doubtless hastened the coming of the first school
which was reported by the committee in 1786.[749]

SUMMARY
The establishment of schools in Chester, Radnor, [Sidenote: The
Darby and Concord meetings is discussed in this meetings]
chapter.
There is evidence that education was provided [Sidenote:
for some children in Chester before the Quakers Chester]
came to the colony. The first meetings at Chester
were held in the Court House, but land for a [Sidenote:
devised for
Land

meeting house was devised in 1688. The first schools]

property devised for school purposes was that of
Hoskins in 1769. A schoolhouse was built on the [Sidenote:
schools]
Three
land in 1770. A school is said to have been at
Middletown in 1740, in a building donated by Thomas Yarnall and
Thomas Minshall. Land was also given for schools in 1791 by Enock
Taylor and his wife. About 1778 the usual committees were
appointed and subscription plans formulated. At the end of the
century three schools were reported under Friends’ care.
[Sidenote: Darby]
 The first school at Darby was taught by Benjamin
Clift in 1692, 1693 and perhaps longer, though no [Sidenote:
Committees
further record is found. Not much progress is coöperate]
noticed until about 1778, when the quarterly and
monthly meetings’ committees united on the [Sidenote: Two
schools]
subject of schools. A schoolhouse was erected
between 1779 and 1781. According to reports of 1784 and 1790 the
Darby School was satisfactorily situated. A new school in Upper
Darby on Benjamin Lobb’s lot was proposed in 1793, but not built
before 1798. Two schools, kept as recommended, are reported in
1798.
Smith says that as early as 1788 there was a [Sidenote:
school at Radnor. The meeting records mention Radnor]
one as early as 1731. The meeting was active in
educating and apprenticing the poor. The reports, [Sidenote: Two
schools under
however, do not indicate that they were very charge of
successful in meeting the standards set by the meeting]
yearly meeting for the schools. In 1791 one of the
preparatives, probably Haverford, considered the purchase of
grounds for a school. A full report of the same year shows two
schools (Radnor and Haverford) which are subject to the control of
the monthly meeting. Merion and the Valley had no schools
established according to the plan proposed.
The very early state of Concord’s schools has [Sidenote:
not been determined, though one was at Concord]
Birmingham in 1779. Mr. Jordan is inclined to place
the date of Birmingham’s first school about 1806. [Sidenote: Two
schools 1779]
The date stated by him for Chichester (1793) also
seems to be too late. The minutes recognize the Birmingham school
in 1779 and also one at Chichester at the same date. In 1787 one
school is reported for each preparative meeting, Concord,
Chichester, and Birmingham.
 CHAPTER IX
SCHOOL SUPPORT, ORGANIZATION, AND
CURRICULUM

SUPPORT
At various times in the course of this study, it has been [Sidenote: Problem
mentioned that the activities of the lower branches of the of support]
meeting organization were directed by means of advices
sent out from the yearly meetings. These advices, [Sidenote: A fixed
salary necessary to
particularly at the earlier dates, were of a very general secure better
nature, and, as one would judge from the name, were only teachers and retain
them]
recommendations as to what should be done, with
occasional expressions of approbation or reproof as the action of the
constituent meetings merited. As years went on, however, the advices became
of more consequence, sometimes mapping out plans of action in considerable
detail.[750] One of the questions which came to demand a great deal of
attention was that of supporting teachers in the schools. Great trouble had
always been experienced in getting masters, properly qualified mentally and
morally, who would continue long in the same place of service. The
suggestions of the yearly meeting in 1750 sought to remedy that serious
condition. The opinion then expressed was that,

the most likely means to induce such persons to undertake the

business will be to have some certain income fixed, in consideration of
which, they should be obliged to teach so many children on behalf of
each monthly meeting, as said monthly meeting might judge adequate
to the salary and that no person should receive the benefit of the
salary, without the appointment of the said meeting.[751]

It was directed that the meeting’s clerk send copies of the above
recommendation to all quarterly meetings, which were in turn to supply each
of their monthly meetings and direct them to send in a report to the next yearly
meeting.[752]
 The above is cited as one of many similar [Sidenote: A
recommendations; and, without the presentation of any weakness of the
more of them, it may be well to point out one of the great meeting
organization]
weaknesses of the system—that weakness being the lack
of a strong central control in the organization which could formulate plans and
compel them to be carried into execution. A financial plan based on that idea
would no doubt have resulted quite differently than did the one pursued, which
left it wholly to the determination of the locality whether they would settle
regular funds for the schools. Since this study is historical we shall limit
ourselves to that point of view exclusively. Let us notice then the reception of
the recommendations in the case of a few meetings, tracing it to the lowest
meeting whence, in the last analysis, the funds usually came.
What became of the recommendation when it had been [Sidenote: How
sent out from the yearly meeting? In some cases recommendations
committees were appointed in the quarterly meetings to reached the lower
meetings]
which it came. An instance of this is the case of Concord
Quarterly Meeting which in 1754 appointed a committee to [Sidenote: Function
inspect and examine the accounts and all moneys which of committees
appointed]
were given to charitable and educational purposes.[753] At
another time Concord appointed a committee to visit the monthly and
preparative meetings to ascertain the state of schools among them; this
committee reported soon after that they had visited the meetings but that not
much had been done in regard to schools.[754] The appointment of these
committees was quite a common practice and, no doubt, they had
considerable influence. They often worked with the committees of the monthly
meetings,[755] and in some instances produced very full reports of their
activity, which they, of course, forwarded to the yearly meeting.[756] The duties
in general performed by the quarterly meetings, as doers of the yearly
meeting’s will, were as follows:
1. To transmit the advices through the representatives to [Sidenote: Duties of
the various monthly meetings. the quarterly
meeting
2. To appoint committees (a) for investigation and (b) for summarized]
coöperation with those in the monthly meetings.
3. To collect reports and make final report for their locality to the yearly
meeting.
4. At some stages of development the quarterly performed some duties later
performed by the monthly meeting.[757]
What became of the recommendation when sent on from [Sidenote:
quarterly meeting? After arriving at and being perused by Procedure in the
the monthly, they were always sent by the representatives monthly meeting]
back to the various particulars, or preparatives, there to be
considered also.[758] The preparative meeting was not primarily a “record-
meeting” and little can be found of their organization, if they had any, for
raising funds, save from the reports of the monthly meetings. This does not
mean, however, that the preparatives did not share in raising the funds; it
means only that the organization for so doing was in the monthly meeting.[759]
The plans adopted by that body were drawn up in the most part by a
committee which was representative of each particular meeting. Let us
examine briefly the general nature of the plans proposed by some of the
meetings for establishing permanent funds. Only those of two or three will be
mentioned, as there was great similarity in all of them. The text of the plan for
some of the meetings may be found in the chapter in which those meetings
are considered.[760]
In 1796 the minutes of Kennett recorded a plan their committee had devised
for the establishment of a permanent fund. As has already been suggested,
one of the greatest weaknesses of the whole system was that everything was
done upon individual choice.[761] That is probably the first thing to strike the
reader’s attention as he looks over the plans devised. We will state as
concisely as possible the chief points.
(a) Subscriptions were voluntary, and if a note were [Sidenote: Kennett
given it bore interest at 5%; plans for raising
funds summarized]
(b) There was a regularly constituted board of trustees
for the funds;
(c) Record was to be kept of receipts and expenditures and reported to the
monthly meeting;
(d) All money paid in was to be vested in real property as soon as possible;
(e) Disagreement among the trustees must be settled before the monthly
meeting;
(f) Funds were to be used for paying salaries or keeping buildings in repair
provided the amount of the principal fund be not lessened.[762] From reports of
the success in establishing schools in Kennett meeting,[763] one must believe
that their trustees managed the funds wisely and that subscriptions were
generously made, but their exact financial state is not given.
Similar plans were devised by many other meetings, [Sidenote: Similar
such as London Grove,[764] Darby,[765] Sadsbury,[766] and plans by Darby,
London Grove,
Buckingham.[767] In all the outstanding characteristics are Buckingham,
the same as those mentioned in the Kennett plan. One Sadsbury, and
others]
very interesting characteristic which frequently recurs, is
that in the fifth rule of Kennett which allows that the funds
may be used also for the poor, who are not members of Friends.[768]
Other forms of support besides the subscription just mentioned were, (1)
legacies, given on terms determined at the will of the donors, (2) fees, and,
occasionally, (3) issue of bonds for rather small sums, which were needed in
case of emergency, such as completing a school house which had been
begun. An instance of the third method occurred in 1701 when Philadelphia
Monthly Meeting agreed that £100 be raised in that manner for completing the
work on the school house.[769] Many similar instances were found in records
of other meetings. The rate system was so commonly used as a means of
support in the early schools that it needs no special attention here. Some of
the rates paid for teaching will be noted in a later presentation of masters’
salaries. Legacies have been very frequently mentioned in previous chapters
and it is here necessary only to call attention to the chief characteristics of the
bequests and refer the reader to previous chapters if he wishes to examine
the text of them.[770] The common characteristics are:
(1) Entirely voluntary, though the making of them was [Sidenote: Main
frequently urged by the meeting[771] and was in fact the characteristics of the
bequests made]
concern of the queries which were regularly sent out. By
this means the yearly meeting was informed of the interest taken in making
donations.
(2) Almost universally consisted of (a) sums of money or (b) land.
(3) The donor chose trustees in the meeting to be subject to its direction.
(4) The purpose was generally definitely stated; also how the money should
be invested.
An entire chapter might be devoted to this interesting [Sidenote: The value
and very important means of support of the Quaker of legacies in a few
schools, but much less space must suffice. The value of it meetings]
may be indicated by a few figures given in statements of a
few meetings and school records. The table gives the yearly value of the
legacies or other permanent endowments at the year stated. The list is not
complete, due to inadequate records, but may be taken as indicative of the
extent of this form of support.[772]

VALUE OF LEGACIES FOR SCHOOL SUPPORT

 For whose use Year Amount
Overseers of Penn Charter School[773] 1776 £574/00/11½
Buckingham Monthly Meeting[774] 1778 244/ 4/11½
Buckingham Monthly Meeting[775] 1793 767/10/00
Wrightstown Monthly Meeting[776] 1790 248/13/10
Falls Monthly Meeting[777] 1799 777/ 9/ 4½
Uwchlan Monthly Meeting[778] 1784 120/10/00
Horsham School Committee[779] 1793 351/ 2/11

ORGANIZATION
The machinery of organization which had any [Sidenote: London
connection with the direction of the school system has advices on
already been frequently referred to. It is the same education]
organization which was discussed in Chapter II.[780] It has
further been pointed out that one of the functions of the head of this
organization, the yearly or general assembly, was to issue advices for the
direction of the lower units. These advices began very early, so far as they are
concerned with education. In 1692 London Yearly Meeting warned all others to
be careful of a “Christian care in the education of their children,”[781] and
followed it successively each year with more suggestions.[782] These advices
all found their way to the Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia and Burlington, and
the similarity between the advices of the two meetings is striking but not
surprising.
It may be convenient for the reader if some of the chief [Sidenote: London
recommendations of the London Advices are stated briefly, advices
that the likeness of the two may be noted later when we summarized]

examine those of Philadelphia. They are:

1. Education is to be useful and practical.[783]
2. The major emphasis is placed on Christian and moral instruction.[784]
3. The teachers must be capable of good moral influence.[785]
4. Teachers must be members of Friends.[786]
5. Free education is to be provided for the poor[787] (first it was only
mentioned for the children of Friends, later others).
 6. The coöperation of teachers is urged for the betterment of methods of
teaching.[788]
7. The weaker communities are to be aided by the stronger.[789]
8. Both parents and teachers must realize the force of example.[790]
9. Close censorship of all reading material for the youth.[791]
From this very brief statement of London Advices and [Sidenote: Means of
with little attention paid to their manner of getting into and exercising influence:
influencing those of Philadelphia, save to state that the epistles, ministers,
and representatives]
chief means were: (1) epistles sent, (2) travelling ministers,
and (3) through representatives sent from the lower [Sidenote:
meetings, let us turn to consider those of the last named Philadelphia advices
also general for first
meeting. As early as 1694 we find that that body approved half century]
certain “proposals about the education of youth,” the
initiative for which seems to have come from Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting.
[792] So far as the minute of the meeting goes, one would hardly dignify this
statement so much as to say that it suggested a plan of education. If such a
plan were submitted, it was carefully kept out of the minutes of that date. The
very nature of the advice continues as with those of London until near the
middle of the century, but as one reads the records they are seen to grow
gradually in definiteness until beginning (to name a definite date) about 1746
and on through the period of 1777 and 1778, there are elaborated certain
ideas for the establishment of schools in town and country. It is not until those
later years that anything like strong central control is felt, and certainly there
were earlier no visible results of such centralizing influence. Even then it took
the form of urgent suggestions which, though producing very considerable
results, cannot be regarded candidly as the best that might have been done. It
is with these suggestions of the latter part of the century that we are chiefly
concerned. The most important are here stated in brief manner.
1. Education is to be useful in nature. [Sidenote: Summary
of Philadelphia
2. The minima to be attained are moral and Christian advices]
training and an ability to read and write.
3. The meetings are to assist each other in settling schools.
4. Members of Friends are to be employed as teachers in the schools; good
moral influence of the teachers is of first importance.
5. A fixed income, house, and garden are necessary for securing a better
and more permanent teaching body.
6. All teachers, employed, are to be approved by the monthly meeting.
 7. Quarterly meetings are to appoint visiting committees.
8. Permanent funds recommended to be put in care of trustees.
9. Schools to be under the care of monthly meetings’ committees and
reports are to be made thereon.
10. The poor children to be educated free of charge, and also the Negroes,
where they are not able to pay. Children not Friends were not omitted,[793] as
we find in the plans actually followed by the monthly meetings.
The chief functions of the quarterly meeting were: (1) to [Sidenote: The
transmit these advices; (2) to gather and return reports of functions of the
the accomplishments within its limits; and (3) to keep in quarterly meeting]
touch with the work by means of committees. Sufficient
material has in the writer’s opinion been presented in the way of reports in
previous chapters relating to schools established in the various counties, to
make it unnecessary here.[794] To characterize it as an intermediary agent and
its functions as supervisory and directive seems to be adequate.
The monthly meeting was above all others the [Sidenote: Monthly
organizing business unit and the welfare of schools meeting the
appears to have depended much on its activity. It is to the business unit]
monthly meeting that we are indebted for almost all of the
reports on schools, and it has been noticed that not until raised to the dignity
of being a monthly meeting, did many meetings assume any important part in
directing education. A few preparatives, which might be considered as a little
exceptional, were Byberry, Falls, and Horsham. They appear to have handled
their schools a little more independently than did others. Duties which were as
a general rule performed by each of the monthly meetings were these:[795]
1. To investigate the state of schools in their [Sidenote: Duties
preparatives. summarized]

2. To appoint committees to visit, assist and report on schools established,

and recommend the establishment of others where necessary.
3. To approve masters, retire them, and fill vacancies.
4. Through trustees or committees on funds, (a) to finance the education of
poor children, (b) to pay salaries, (c) to build school houses, and (d) to
establish permanent endowments.
5. To take final reports to be sent to the yearly meeting.
These functions have all been brought to the reader’s [Sidenote: Three
attention by reports and minutes quoted in chapters on the points indicated
schools in various counties. This brief presentation of the concerning the
organization]
organization and direction on the part of the meetings
should be sufficient to point out: (1) that the general nature of the organization
is a hierarchy of units; (2) that the direction of school activities comes from the
higher to the lower, and is of a general and suggestive rather than specific and
mandatory nature; (3) that the monthly meeting formed the real working unit,
and that on its diligence probably depended the welfare of the preparatives’
schools. We shall now attend for a moment to a few of the details of the school
in so far as we may judge them from the records at our disposal.

THE SCHOOL
It has already been mentioned that one of the yearly [Sidenote:
meeting’s earnest recommendations was that a lot of Permanent
ground be provided where schools might be necessary, properties
recommended for
sufficient for a garden, orchard, grass for a cow, etc., and schools]
that a suitable house and stables and other necessary
things be arranged for the securing of more permanent and [Sidenote: Property
acquired by
better qualified teachers.[796] There were certainly several Philadelphia schools
of the meetings where land for the purposes of schools and meeting]
was possessed before these recommendations were
[Sidenote: and
made. Notable instances, which may be mentioned, were Abington]
Philadelphia and Abington, and many others, who early
secured permanent lands for the meeting which were also used for the
erection of schools. Some of the early acquisitions of school property in
Philadelphia were: (1) that purchased in 1698 of Lionell Brittain;[797] (2)
another deeded by John Goodson and Thomas Lightfoot to the overseers;[798]
and (3) that devised by William Forrest, upon which the overseers erected a
school in 1744.[799] There was also the piece of ground left to the monthly
meeting of that place by George Fox, upon which the meeting gave
permission for the building of a school, free from ground rent.[800] The
property gained by Abington in 1696 was for the support of a school.[801] A
meeting house was erected on the land between 1696 and 1700. These cases
of endowment directly for schools were very limited as to locality at the early
part of the eighteenth century. Their number increased in later years, and the
increase may have been due partly to the influence of the yearly meeting’s
urgent advices.
A few instances of the tendency toward the policy of [Sidenote:
purchasing permanent lands may be mentioned. In 1779, Warrington and
Fairfax Quarterly]
Warrington and Fairfax Quarterly reported two of their
monthly meetings had purchased grounds and erected
houses for the said purpose.[802] Another meeting had [Sidenote: New
purchased sixteen acres, built a house, but had difficulty in Garden]
securing a suitable master.[803] All other accommodations [Sidenote: Goshen,
recommended for masters had been provided. Near the Darby, Buckingham]
close of the century (1794) William Jackson of New
Garden deeded a lot of ground to Friends of that meeting for the use of a
school.[804] New Garden also reported a school house built about 1795 on
land given for the purpose by Jeremiah Barnard.[805] In 1792 Kennett reported
that their preparative meeting had purchased of Abraham Taylor a piece of
ground for a school and were preparing to build a house on it. It was situated
about 2½ miles from Kennett.[806] Other instances of like procedure were:
Goshen, 1795[807] and 1782;[808] Darby, 1793;[809] and Buckingham in 1794.
[810] Similar cases might be cited for almost every monthly meeting in the
southeastern part of Pennsylvania, and it doubtless extended elsewhere. It is
to be noted that this general purchasing of school property did not come until
late in the eighteenth century, when the great advancement in Quaker
education had its beginning. It may be fairly stated that by the end of the
century most of the schools were established on school property held by the
meeting for that purpose. As pointed out above, this had been a slow
development, beginning with a few in the seventeenth century that started with
land endowments.
The earliest schoolhouses would doubtless present an [Sidenote: Early
interesting picture if we could see them inside and out. schools held in
Unfortunately there is little information extant, which throws meeting houses]
light upon the earliest. In fact, at the very earliest [Sidenote: Family
establishment of schools, there were no special houses school]
built for them. For many of them this condition prevailed till
fairly near the close of the century. Joseph Foulke, writing in 1859, concerning
his first school days, stated that he first attended school at Gwynedd, which
was held in the meeting house, there being none other for that purpose.[811]
His next schooling, in 1795, was at a family school taught by Hannah Lukens,
who lived in a little house on the Bethlehem Road. He then attended school in
a log schoolhouse, built about 1798 by his father.[812] Other instances may be
cited in connection with the use of the meeting house for schoolhouse. In
1693-4 Middletown Friends allowed a school to be held in the meeting house,
provided it should cause no disturbance,[813] and again in 1699 a similar
request was granted.[814] As late as 1740 Philadelphia Meeting proposed to
erect a meeting house with chambers over it sufficiently large for the
accommodation of a school,[815] though, as mentioned before, they already
had some of their schools in regularly constructed schoolhouses.[816]
The writer has had the opportunity to visit one of these [Sidenote: An old
little schoolrooms established in the meeting house. Not schoolroom at
much is known of the school at Merion, though the oldest Merion, Pa.]
of Friends meetings, but it is quite certain that whenever
their school began and however pretentious it may have been, it must have
been held in the upper part of the meeting house. The schoolroom in the
present building is quite hidden away under the eaves. The walls are bare and
the rafters low overhead. Ample light is furnished. Rude wooden benches and
tables, the latter with sloping tops, constitute the furniture of the room as it
now stands. One of the table tops bears the date 1711, doubtless the telltale of
some vandal outcropping, which might tempt one to place a school at that
early date. It is however too meagre and uncertain evidence to justify such a
conclusion.[817]
From a few sources of information we gather some [Sidenote: Size and
clews as to the size of the schoolhouse generally. The cost of school
house proposed by the Goshen Meeting in 1782 was to be houses; Falls]
Goshen,

27 feet square from out to out and to cost about £150.[818]

The new one proposed at Falls some twelve years later [Sidenote:
was to be somewhat more pretentious being twenty-two Philadelphia]
feet by thirty and having two stories. Its cost was estimated [Sidenote: Manner
at £200.[819] We infer from the minutes that a building was of heating]
badly needed at Falls, the old roof being “very leaky and
the ceiling about to fall.” In spite of this fact it does not appear that the house
was erected until about 1799; the final dimensions decided upon were twenty-
six feet by twenty-four, one story, and a cellar of the same dimensions.[820] It
is not certain how much space was actually devoted to the use of the school
room, since the building doubtless accommodated the master and his family at
the same time. The schoolhouse begun in Philadelphia about 1701,[821] was
to be twenty-four by sixty feet. Another one in 1744, built on the Forrest
property, was to be about sixty by thirty-five feet, two stories high, with a
basement underneath raised three feet above the surface of the ground.[822]
The cost of the last building when completed in 1746 was £794.[823] Anthony
Benezet, who apparently was teaching in an old building, made complaint in
1744 that it was “too hot in summer and too dark in winter” and therefore
urged that a window be put in the south side.[824] The writer has found a
single instance to indicate how the school building was heated. Judging from
such meager data we would say that the first schools probably up to 1715 or
1720 were heated by the old-fashioned brick stoves. They were at any rate
employed in some, but were beginning to lose their popularity in that period.
One was removed in 1715 and an iron stove substituted for it.[825]
The size of the schools, measured by the number of [Sidenote: Number
pupils, must be judged mostly from material found relating of children attending
to Philadelphia. It was doubtless true that in the country schools]
regions there were fewer children within reach of the [Sidenote: Two
school and it was not necessary to state limits beyond classes: the “pay”
which they might not go. The yearly meeting certainly and the “free”
scholar]
recommended that the number of children be specified,
which the master was to teach, but this was often taken to mean that they
should promise to teach a certain number of children for the use of the school.
The schools were always composed of these two classes, the independent or
pay scholar and the poor or free scholar. Some of the Philadelphia reports
state the number attending, of each of these classes. In that system the
teachers were required to keep a roll, especially of the poor children, and turn
it over for the inspection of the overseers.[826] In country districts the school
committee usually kept account of the poor scholars, seeing that they were
supplied with all things necessary.[827] It may prove interesting to examine the
Philadelphia system a little more fully.
First, let it be noted that cases of both boys and girls [Sidenote: Both boys
were investigated by the overseers, and if capable and in and girls assisted]
need of assistance, they were put under the tutorage of
[Sidenote:
masters or mistresses free of any charge.[828] Not only Everything furnished
were the children of Friends admitted, but an effort was to the “free” scholar]
made to find out the needy, of other denominations, and
put them to school also.[829] All articles necessary were furnished free to the
poor scholars by the Board, the master was required to keep an account of
each item and present the bill therefor in his reports to that body.[830] The
number of poor in Anthony Benezet’s school in 1743-4, about a year after he
entered it, was 14.[831] There was very little fluctuation as to the number for
many years; in 1749 there were 17.[832] Below are given the reports of some
of the schools in 1757.[833] It seldom or never occurred that a report for all
schools was made at one time.

Pay Free
Master Year Items Amount
Scholars Scholars
Charles Thompson 1757 Books and firing for 31 7 £150/00/00
(Latin) poor scholars
Alexander Seaton 1757 Teaching poor 30 41 58/15/ 4
(English) scholars
 Premiums 3/00/00
Books and firewood 15/ 4/ 9½
Clothing for poor 6/17/ 8½
Joseph Stiles 1757 Teaching poor 14 28/18/ 1
scholars
Books and firewood 3/14/ 7
Rebeckah Burchall 1757 Teaching poor 23 36/ 9/10
children
Firewood 3/ 4/ 6
Ann Thornton 1757 Teaching poor 3/ 2/ 9
children

Immediately following the above report, another stated [Sidenote: Number

there were 38 in the Latin School, 37 free scholars under of poor and pay
Alexander Seaton, 17 (free) under Joseph Stiles, 30 under scholars stated]
Ann Thornton, and 30 (free) under Rebeckah Burchall.[834] [Sidenote: Indication
The slight discrepancy in the figures is not explained. A of the system’s
later report of 1784 shows the following schools and the growth in the
number of schools]
enrollment of each. (1) Proud, (Latin), number not given;
Todd, (English), 88 on the list; Isaac Weaver, 28; William Brown, 29 girls;
Sarah Lancaster, 64; Mary Harry, 15 or 16; Joseph Clarke, about 30; Mrs.
Clarke, 15 or 16 boys and girls; Ann Marsh, about 50 boys and girls; Mary
McDonnell, 15 young children.[835] From this it seems that the only two
schools which have increased considerably in number are the Latin and
English, both of which employed ushers or assistants.[836] The chief indication
of the system’s growth is the increase from five or six schools to at least ten.
The approximate number of children recorded as having attended the schools
under the overseers from 1712 to 1770 was 720.[837]
Children were frequently sent away from home to attend [Sidenote: Children
school, due to a lack of adequate facilities near at hand. sent from home to
The following letter, from an anxious mother, is a very attend school]
interesting commentary on the attitude taken by the less
educated toward the propriety of spending time for education. Though impolite
to read private letters, it may be pardoned in this case.

The 20 of December, 1702.

Dear Brother:
The few liens comes to salute thee and fore prisila which I hope are
in helth as blessed be the God of all our mersies I am at this writing. I
 long to hear from you both and how prisila likes being at scool and
how the like her and whether she thinks that shee will lern anything
worth her while to be kept at cool here. I have sent her some thred to
knit me too pares of golves and herself on if there be anough for to
mak so much if not one for me and one for her. bid her be a good gerl
and larn well and then I shall love her. if Abraham Antone have
brought ... purchas me twenty pound and send it me if thou can by
some opportunity in so doing thou wilt much oblige thy most
affectionate sister
Abigail ⸺.[838]

A fairly good mental picture of the school, and the atmosphere pervading it,
is obtained from a perusal of the list of rules which were adopted both for the
guidance of the masters and the observance of the pupils. We cannot gain
much from a discussion since they are self-explanatory, hence there is
submitted a concise digest of those issued for the masters and mistresses in
the several schools.
1. All pupils must be at school promptly. [Sidenote: Rules for
the government of
2. No one shall be absent without a permit from parents. schools
summarized]
3. Strict obedience to the monitor is demanded, but if
there is a real grievance, complaint may be made to the master.
4. Be orderly in coming to and leaving school.
5. Use the plain language to all persons; be civil to all.
6. To avoid, in hours of leisure, all “ranting games” and quarrelling with one
another.
7. Shall not play or keep company with rude boys of the town, but play with
own school fellows.
8. They shall come to school on 5th day prepared to go to the regular
meeting.[839]
The rules above, which, if all followed, one must admit would have made an
almost model school so far as behavior was concerned, were shortly
thereafter expanded a little to meet the needs of the Latin and English
schools. Those rules, however, were more concerned with the curriculum and
part of method, and were doubtless a guide for the instructors more than to be
followed by the pupils. They will receive attention in the next few pages in the
discussion of the curriculum. We shall however be interested at this juncture to
read the rules adopted by Robert Proud, schoolmaster and historian, for the
government of the Latin School, in which he was the head master for many
years. They are very similar to those already noted, though drawn up by Proud
for his school alone.
[Sidenote: Rules
Orders and Directions adopted by Robert
In the School Proud while master
of the Latin School]
Reverentia Jehovae Caput Scientiae
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
1. Duty in attending.
Fail not to be present in school precisely at or before the time
appointed for learning, being clean and decent; except sufficient
reason require thy absense; in which case, on thy first returning ...
before the master, immediately inform him thereof to his satisfaction.
2. On entering, remaining in and departing from school, having
taken thy appointed seat, with as little noise and disturbance as may
be, move not therefrom, to that of another during the time of learning
without absolute necessity and then, very seldom; nor go out of the
school without the master’s leave or knowledge. And observe the
same silently and orderly behavior, in thy departing from the school, as
in thy entering it.
3. How to behave and study in the School.
Be always silent, in School or during the time of thy studies, so as to
be heard, neither in voice, nor otherwise, as little as possible; except in
writing or speaking to the Master or Teacher; and discourse not with
thy Schoolfellows during the hours of study, without the Master’s
permission; unless in asking, or giving information relating to thine or
their learning; and even then observe to whisper, or speak as low as
possible to be heard by him, who is next thee.
4. Behavior to the Master, and during the presence of visitants, etc.
Make all thy speeches to the master with due respect; and observe
cheerfully to perform all his directions and commands, with readiness
according to thy ability. And, if a stranger or visitant speak to thee in
the school, stand up, turn thy face towards him respectfully and give a
modest and ready answer, if any answer be required or necessary;
resuming thy seat again, with a silent application to thy study; which
order and silence are more particularly and especially to be strictly
observed and kept during the presence of any stranger, or visitant, in
the School.
 5. Behavior to one another.
Behave thyself always in a submissive and kind manner to thy
School fellows, never provoking, quarreling, nor complaining,
especially about frivolous matters; but use the word please, etc., or
expressions of similar signification when asking anything of them; and
observe a proper gratitude for every kindness received, be it ever so
small; using thy utmost to cultivate a special Friendship with them; not
returning injuries, but learning to forgive; and shew them, by thy
exemplary Deportment, how they ought to behave.
6. Not to take Another’s Property, etc.
Neither take nor use anything which is the property of another or in
his custody, without first having his permission and as much as
possible, avoid borrowing, at any time, but provide thyself with all
books, instruments and things necessary for thy learning and studies
according to the Master’s direction; always keeping them clean and in
good order.
7. The Language.
Let the common language, used in School, be Latin, as much as
conveniently may be, according to the speaker’s knowledge and ability
therein, but in all places let every one speak with as much propriety
and grammatical accuracy as he is capable in whatever language he
makes use of.
8. School transactions not to be divulged.
Be not forward to divulge any transaction, passed in school, more
especially, to the disreputation of any in it; nor mock, nor jeer any of
thy school fellows, for being reproved or corrected, lest it may
sometime happen to be thy own case; but rather be assisting, than
troublesome, to the masters or teachers by rendering thyself as
agreeable, both to him and them, as possible, in all laudable and good
order and discipline, as well as in the advancement and increase of
learning and all real improvement in the respective branches thereof:
that, instead of introducing any cause of punishing, severe reproof, or
servile fear, the place of thy learning may be a place of pleasure and
delight.[840]

Rule 9 deals with the proper attitude and behavior.

Rule 10 deals with the behavior in the religious meetings.