As the Quakers are particularly attentive to the wants of the poor, so they are no less attentive to the education of their offspring.  These are all of them to receive their education at the public expense.  The same overseers, as in the former case, are to take care of it, and the same funds to support it.  An inquiry is therefore made three times in the year into this subject.  “The children of the poor, says the book of Extracts, are to have due help of education, instruction, and necessary learning.  The families also of the poor are to be provided with Bibles, and books of the society, at the expense of the monthly meetings.  And as spine members may be straitened in their circumstances, and may refuse, out of delicacy, to apply for aid towards the education of their children, it is earnestly recommended to friends in every monthly meeting, to look out for persons who may be thus straitened, and to take care that their children shall receive instruction:  and it is recommended to the parents of such, not to refuse this salutary aid, but to receive it with a willing mind, and with thankfulness to the great author of all good.”

When the boys have received their necessary learning, they are usually put out as apprentices to husbandry or trade.  Domestic service is generally considered by their parents as unmanly, and as a nursery for idleness.  Boys too, who can read and write, ought to expect, with the accustomed diligence and sobriety of Quakers, to arrive at a better situation in life.  The girls, however, are destined in general for service:  for it must be obvious, whatever their education may be, that the same number of employments is not open to women as to men.  Of those again, which are open, some are objectionable.  A Quaker-girl, for example, could not consistently be put an apprentice to a Milliner.  Neither if a cotton-manufactory were in the neighbourhood, could her parents send her to such a nursery of debauchery and vice.  From these and other considerations, and because domestic employments belong to women, their parents generally think it advisable to bring them up to service, and to place them in the families of friends.

It is a remarkable circumstance, when we consider it to be recommended that Quaker-masters of families should take Quaker-servants, that persons of the latter description are not to be found sufficiently numerous for those who want them.  This is probably a proof of the thriving situation of this society.  It is remarkable again, that the rich have by no means their proportion of such servants.  Those of the wealthy, who are exemplary, get them if they can.  Others decline their services.  Of these, some do it from good motives; for, knowing that it would be difficult to make up their complement of servants from the society, they do not wish to break in upon the customs and morals of those belonging to it, by mixing them with others.  The rest, who mix more with the world, are, as I have been informed, fearful