286 ACKWORTH SCHOOL CHAP. 



executors and Isaac Walker, established the Ackworth 

 Boys' Fund, the income of which is applied for assisting 

 in the apprenticeship equipment or further training of 

 boys educated at Ackworth. 1 



The school prospered well. When Sir Rowland Winn 

 of Nostell, who had been a zealous supporter of the 

 Foundling Hospital, came in one day and saw the boys at 

 dinner, he was affected to tears : " Why," said he, " could 

 we not have our children as happy and healthy as these ? " 



Thomas Scattergood in 1799 describes the " wonderful 

 machinery " of the boys' side of the school : twelve 

 monitors, with a host of inspectors under them, reported 

 to the master on duty one day in the week previous to 

 the giving out of the spice (probably various groceries), 

 one-half or all of which might be forfeited as a penalty. 

 Equality and harmony prevailed, an admirable foundation 

 for a noble and erect carriage, and for establishing the 

 habit of valuing men not by wealth or rank but by virtue 

 and talent. 2 About 1816 systematic Bible study was 

 introduced in the school through the influence of Joseph 

 John Gurney, who took an earnest interest in its welfare 

 throughout thirty years. Pilkington visited the school 

 in 1834, an d was greatly struck by its family character 

 and by the order and restraint in the manners of the 

 children ; in their silent grace before meals they seemed, 

 he writes, to be thinking without saying what some too 

 often say without thinking. The " Teacher on Duty " 

 occupied " an elevated spot of ground on which he 

 walked backwards and forwards like a sentinel." 3 



The foundation of Ackworth School gave a stimulus 

 and a pattern to the communities of Friends everywhere 

 in the work of education. The Irish Quakers had long 

 been exercised in efforts to meet the needs of their children. 

 But after this date the matter was taken up with fresh 

 zeal, and between 1786 and 1798 Friends' Boarding- 

 Schools were instituted in the three provinces of Leinster, 



1 Barclay contributed one-third part of the total sum of 2400 3 per cent 

 Annuities, as well as 105 to the Girls' Fund. 

 3 Friend, Phila. Ixviii. 374. 

 * G. Pilkington, Travels through the United Kingdom, 1839, PP- 54> 55- 



