| Moses Brown | |
|---|---|
| Original building of the Moses Brown School campus, ca.1819 | |
| Location | |
| Providence, RI, USA | |
| Coordinates | View on Google Maps |
| Information | |
| Type | Private |
| Religious affiliation(s) | Quaker |
| Established | 1784 |
| Head of school | Matt Glendinning |
| Faculty | 217 |
| Enrollment | 771 total |
| Average class size | 11 to 15 students |
| Student to teacher ratio | 8:1 |
| Campus | Urban, 33 acres (130,000 m2) |
| Color(s) | White and Navy Blue |
| Athletics | 30 sports |
| Mascot | Quaker |
| Website | www.mosesbrown.org |
Moses Brown School is a Quaker school located in Providence, Rhode Island, founded by Moses Brown, a Quaker abolitionist, in 1784. It is one of the oldest preparatory schools in the country.[1]
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Moses Brown (1738–1836) was a member of the Brown family, a powerful mercantile family of New England. Later on in his life, Moses converted to the Religious Society of Friends and went on to become a pioneering abolitionist while starting the Moses Brown School.
In 1777 a committee of New England Yearly Meeting took up the idea for a school to educate young Quakers in New England. The committee, which included Moses Brown, was part of an effort within Quakerdom to promote their faith to the next generation, but Brown also had a vision of ensuring that when they reached adulthood, these young Friends would be able to make a living.
When the school opened in 1784, it was located at Portsmouth Friends Meeting House in Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island, which was the administrative center for Yearly Meeting, and which had historically been heavily Quaker. However, by the 1780s, it was an isolated location, and in the years after the American Revolution, it was difficult to recruit both students and teachers. Just four years later, the Yearly Meeting decided to close the school "for one year", and it closed its doors in June 1788. The school remained closed for over three decades.[2]
During those years, Moses Brown worked to restart the school, and as treasurer of the school fund, was able to convince the Yearly Meeting to reopen the school – in part by donating a portion of his farm located in Providence, Rhode Island for the school to be built on.
The school reopened in 1819 in Providence under the name "The New England Yearly Meeting Boarding School." Moses Brown then joined with his son, Obadiah, and his son-in-law, William Almy, to pay for the construction of the first building—which today still serves as the main building of the school. Obadiah Brown also left $100,000 in his will to the school—a sum unheard of at the time for a school endowment or gift. In 1904 the school was renamed "Moses Brown School" to honor its benefactor and advocate.
As the Quakers were early advocates of equality of the sexes, Moses Brown School was a coeducational school. However, in 1926, it became a boys-only school as was the fashion in U.S. society at the time. As attitudes again became more liberal, it again became coed in 1976.
Currently, the school is owned by New England Yearly Meeting, but it has its own Board of Overseers, and operates independently of the yearly meeting. It has been examining the possibility of changing its specific affiliation while still retaining its identity as a Quaker school.
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