Germantown Friends School - History

History

Germantown Friends School was founded in 1845 by Germantown Monthly Meeting which had grown in size and stature in the Philadelphia Quaker community during the previous several decades. The School was founded in response to a request of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting which like all Friends Meetings valued an equal education for boys and girls. Until some time in the early 20th century, Germantown Friends was a "select" school, meaning that only the children of Quaker parents were admitted. The school in the early 20th century was a cheerful but proper place. Germantown Monthly Meeting was an Orthodox meeting and thus valued classical education, but athletics and the arts were still considered, as they had been since the founding of the Society of Friends in the 17th century, a diversion from the essentials needed by a young person growing up in a complex world. Esther Greenleaf Mürer has collected some relevant sources on this issue. .