Moses Brown School

Moses Brown
Original building of the Moses Brown School campus, ca.1819
Location
Providence, RI, USA
Coordinates	41°49′59.2″N 71°23′54.36″W / 41.833111°N 71.3984333°W / 41.833111; -71.3984333 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]

Founder

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.

History

First meeting place of the school from 1784-88 in the Portsmouth Friends Meeting House

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. To this day, administrators and faculty hired by the school are overwhelmingly liberal, while students are encouraged to adopt similar opinions.

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.

Facilities

• 33 acres (130,000 m²) on Providence's East Side
• Collis Science Center- Upper School science complex on the ground floor of Friends Hall. These facilities provide two lab/classrooms each for biology, physics, and chemistry, lab prep rooms, a faculty resource room, and smart boards, wireless tablets, and Internet access.
• Dwares Family Student Center- Provides upper school students with areas for quiet study, student leadership meetings, clubs, activities, and informal gatherings with friends and faculty.
• Krause Gallery- Showcasing works of artists in residence as well as visiting artists.
• Hoffman House and Lubrano Science Classroom- These middle school facilities house three science labs, classrooms, breakout spaces, meeting areas, and faculty/advisor offices.
• Fischer Ricci Family Instrumental Music Center- Provides ensemble room and practice suites.
• Waughtel-Howe Field House- indoor track, basketball courts, Physical Therapy center, weight and training room, men's and women's locker rooms, coaches' offices, and the Athletic Hall of Fame.
• Campanella Field- Campanella Field was converted to a FieldTurf artificial turf field during the winter and spring of 2006 to 2007. This is the same FieldTurf that numerous professional teams play on. It is home to the Football, Field Hockey, Girls and Boys Lacrosse and Boys and Girls Soccer teams at both the Upper and Middle School level. The FieldTurf replaced AstroTurf which was first installed in 1965. Moses Brown was the very first athletic facility in the United States to install AstroTurf, then known as Chemgrass. It was not referred to as AstroTurf until a year later in 1966 when it was installed in the Houston Astro-Dome.
• Milot Field- Athletic fields belonging to Moses Brown School in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.

References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Rayner Wickersham Kelsey, Centennial history of Moses Brown school, 1819-1919 (Moses Brown school, 1919) pg. 50 http://books.google.com/books?id=28kiAAAAMAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Providence, Rhode Island