Of this moral education I may observe here, that it is universal among the society, or that it obtains where the individuals are considered to be true Quakers.  It matters not, how various the tempers of young persons may be, who come under it, they must submit to it.  Nor does it signify what may be the disposition, or the whim, and caprice of their parents, they must submit to it alike.  The Quakers believe that they have discovered that system of morality, which christianity prescribes; and therefore that they can give no dispensation to their members, under any circumstances whatever, to deviate from it.  The origin of this system, as a standard of education in the society, is as follows.

When the first Quakers met in union, they consisted of religious or spiritually minded men.  From that time to the present, there has always been, as we may imagine, a succession of such in the society.  Many of these, at their great meetings, which have been annual since those days, have delivered their sentiments on various interesting points.  These sentiments were regularly printed, in the form of yearly epistles, and distributed among Quaker families.  Extracts, in process of time, were made from them, and arranged under different heads, and published in one book, under the name of [4]Advices.  Now these advices comprehend important subjects.  They relate to customs, manners, fashions, conversation, conduct.  They contain of course recommendations, and suggest prohibitions, to the society, as rules of guidance: and as they came from spiritually minded men on solemn occasions, they are supposed to have had a spiritual origin.  Hence Quaker parents manage their youth according to these recommendations and prohibitions, and hence this book of extracts (for so it is usually called) from which I have obtained a considerable portion of my knowledge on this subject, forms the basis of the moral Education of the Society.

[Footnote 4:  The Book is intitled “Extracts from the minutes made, and from the advices given, at the yearly Meeting of the Quakers in London, since its first Institution.”]

Of the contents of this book, I shall notice, while I am treating upon this subject, not those rules which are of a recommendatory, but those, which are of a prohibitory nature.  Education is regulated either by recommendations, or by prohibitions, or by both conjoined.  The former relate to things, where there is a wish that youth should conform to them, but where a trifling deviation from them would not be considered as an act of delinquency publicly reprehensible.  The latter to things, where any compliance with them becomes a positive offence.  The Quakers, in consequence of the vast power they have over their members by means of their discipline, lay a great stress upon the latter.  They consider their prohibitions, when duly watched and enforced, as so many barriers against vice or preservatives of virtue.  Hence they are the grand component parts of their moral education, and hence I shall chiefly consider them in the chapters, which are now to follow upon this subject.