SALUTATIONS.

FRIENDS are advised against a declension crept in among us by unbecoming gestures, in cringing and bowing the body by way of salutation, which ought not to be taught or countenanced. 1718.

[See Plainness.]

SCHOOLS.

ADVISED, that schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, who are faithful friends, and well qualified, be encouraged in all places where there may be need; and that care be taken, that poor friends' children may freely partake of such education, as may tend to their benefit and advantage, in order to apprenticeship. 1695.

Quarterly and monthly meetings are desired to take care, that in all places where schools are set up for teaching friends' children, the masters be diligent to improve and forward their scholars in learning, and to keep them out of everything that would corrupt good manners. 1697.

It is the renewed concern of this meeting, to recommend a care for the offspring of parents, whose earnings or income are so small, as to render them incapable of giving their children a suitable and guarded education, and that especially from home; by which they may be prevented from mixing with others not of our religious persuasion, which so of ten leads into hurtful habits, from which they are not afterwards easily reclaimed. And, as some of our members may incautiously permit their offspring to suffer this great loss, rather than apply

for assistance from their monthly meetings, it is recommended to friends in every monthly meeting to seek out such of their members as may be thus straitened, and administer to their help; and it is desired that such will receive the salutary aid with a willing mind, and thankfulness to the great Author of all good. 1777.

It is advised that each monthly meeting appoint a solid, judicious committee, whose care it should be, to meet as often as occasion requires, and consult together, and assist in procuring friends to teach schools, and to advise and assist in the regulation thereof, and also to encourage friends to send their children to the same.

And it is our advice, that no friends send their children to any other schools but such as are kept by members of our society and under the regulation of friends, unless the particular circumstances attending are such that the school-committees of the monthly meetings may think it best. And the school committees of friends everywhere, throughout the yearly meeting, are desired to pay special attention to give the poor of society such an education as may fit them for business.

SCRIPTURES.

RECOMMENDED, as an incumbent duty on friends, to cause their children to be frequent in reading the Holy Scriptures, and to observe to them the examples of such children as in Scripture are recorded to have early learned the fear of the Lord, and hearkened to his counsel: instructing them in the fear and dread of the Lord, planting upon their spirits impressions of reverence towards God, from whom they have their daily support; showing them they ought not to offend Him, but love, serve, and honor Him in whose hand all blessings are. 1709.

It is also seriously advised, that no friend suffer romances, play-books, or other vain and idle pamphlets, in their houses or families, which tend to corrupt the minds of youth; but instead thereof, that they excite them to the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and other religious books. Let the Holy Scriptures be early taught our youth, diligently searched, and seriously read by friends, with due regard to the Holy Spirit from whence they came, and by which they are truly opened: for they contain excellent doctrine, rules and precepts, divine and moral. 1720.

And, dear friends, inasmuch as the Holy Scriptures are the external means of conveying and preserving to us, an account of the things most surely to be believed concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh, and the fulfilling of the prophecies relating thereto; we therefore recommend to all friends, especially elders in the church, and masters of families, that they would, both by · example and advice, impress on the minds of the younger a reverent esteem of those sacred writings, and advise them to a frequent reading and meditating therein; and that you would, at proper times and seasons, when you find your minds rightly disposed thereunto, give the youth to understand, that the same good experience of the work of sanctification, through the operations of the Spirit of God, which the Holy Scriptures plentifully bear testimony to, is to be witnessed by believers in all generations, as well as by those in the first stages of Christianity; in which case, some account of our own experience will be helpful to them. And this we recommend as the most effectual means of begetting and establishing in their minds, a firm belief of the Christian doctrine in general, as well as of the necessity of the aid and help of the operations of the Holy Spirit of God in the hearts of men in particular, contained in that most excellent book, the Bible; and of preserving of them from being defiled with the many pernicious notions and principles, contrary to such sound doctrine, which are at this time industriously dispersed in this country, to the reproach of the Christian profession in general. 1728.