288 ACKWORTH SCHOOL CHAP. 



fold ; it promoted friendships and intermarriages, and 

 was a chief cause in making the society like one large 

 family a feature which still in some measure belongs to 

 it. The system may have lessened parental responsibility 

 in some degree, especially when, as in the early times at 

 Ackworth, children spent six or seven years continuously 

 at the school without vacation. 1 Upon the whole this 

 form of education has effected much good, and no one 

 has more right to be looked upon as its author than 

 John Fothergill. 



The zeal of Friends for education did not stop at the 

 provision for the needs of their own members. Not long 

 after Fothergill's time the efforts which had already been 

 made in many places to set up small schools for the poor 

 received a great impetus through the enthusiasm of a 

 Friend, Joseph Lancaster. The Royal Lancasterian 

 Society was founded about 1808, and great numbers of 

 poor children were brought under teaching. Lancaster 

 had the defects of an ardent nature ; he was thriftless 

 and contentious, and hindered his own cause. His 

 action led to a long controversy, the Church of England 

 supporting another school reformer, Bell, who put forward 

 a rival system. We can now see that the work of both 

 Lancaster and Bell was of high value ; they were pioneers 

 in public elementary education. From their time the 

 movement spread, long maintained by voluntary agencies, 

 until in 1870 the British state itself took up the duty, 

 under the leadership of one trained as a Friend, W. E. 

 Forster, and set up the present system of national educa- 

 tion. In America, education was brought under central 

 control at about the same period. 



The following verses were written by the late Frederic 

 Taylor of Sunderland to grace the Centenary of Ackworth 

 School in 1879 : 



Crowns for the athlete, wreaths of fragrant bay 

 To bind the poet's brow, victorious palm 



1 Jacob Bright, father of John Bright, was an early scholar, and spent five 

 years at Ackworth without holiday. 



