History
Founded in 1867 by the Religious Society of Friends as a coeducational, nonsectarian school, Brooklyn Friends School is one of the oldest continuously operating independent schools in New York City.
From an initial student body of 17, the school now enrolls 700 students from Preschool through 12th grade, with a faculty and staff of 180. While the percentage of Quaker families and staff is small, the school’s Quaker heritage has remained central to its mission.
Starting as a grade school, BFS added a kindergarten in 1902, a high school division in 1907, and a Preschool and Family Center in 1985 and 1992 respectively. The most recent addition, the BFS Preschool has gained prominence as one of the city’s premier early learning centers.
Read more about this topic: Brooklyn Friends School
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)