Founded in 1748…
Wilmington Friends School

(Summarized, with updates, from A Gift in Trust: Wilmington Friends School, A Celebration of Our First 250 Years, 1998; Friends School in Wilmington, 1948; and Friends Magazine: 250 Faces of Friends, Fall 1998.)

Quaker Roots

The Religious Society of Friends (Quakerism) was founded by George Fox (1624-1690) with a central belief that there is “that of God in every one.” That belief—that every person has an essential worth that commands respect—continues as a major influence in Friends education today. Also of continuing importance is the Quaker belief in “continuing revelation,” the idea that truth is discovered and revealed through an ongoing process of active seeking and creative reflection, with openness to new information and insights.

Respect for each individual in the context of community responsibility led the Quakers, from their founding, to seek to provide education for all children—girls and boys, regardless of race, religion or economic means. Quakers were early leaders in providing post-secondary educational opportunities, as well. Bryn Mawr, Cornell, Swarthmore, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Earlham and Guilford are among the American colleges and universities with Quaker roots. Cheney University was established as a teacher's college for African Americans in 1837 through a bequest from a Quaker silversmith, and remained under Quaker governance through 1921.

Local Seeds, Global Reach

In 1701, with leadership from Quaker William Penn, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting established the first “free school,” to serve both rich and poor, in colonial America. Wilmington Quakers followed in 1748, founding what is now Wilmington Friends, Delaware’s first school and the 11th oldest independent school in the country. In 1789, the School Committee of Wilmington Monthly Meeting designated a leadership and financial structure to provide for the education of African Americans, including a night school for African-American adults. Records from the first 40 years of the 19th century indicate that the Meeting paid for 2,200 terms of education for children, black and white, whose families could not afford tuition. It was an impressive outreach considering the population of Wilmington was then about 10,000.

Just as the school reached into the community to serve students, students were encouraged to look outward in their learning. Long before global geography was a familiar feature of education, Friends School students learned about the world. True to Fox's vision of education as both practical and moral, serving both individuals and the community, Friends students also learned to consider their place in that world, their responsibility to the common good.

Lives That Speak

Even as they maintained their own school, many Quakers in Wilmington also were actively involved in building the public school system. Several public schools in the Wilmington area today bear the names of Quaker leaders and Friends graduates who continued that commitment—among them, Emalea Pusey Warner (Warner Elementary), class of 1870. Warner and her husband Alfred, class of 1860, founded the charity now known as Children & Families First. Emalea Warner was also a leader in prison reform, the founding of Family Court, and the establishment of a Women’s College at the University of Delaware. She was the University’s first female trustee.

Throughout her life, Warner credited her Friends teachers, and principal Emma Worrell in particular, for a lasting influence. Warner described Worrell as “a woman of broad vision, a pioneer in all progressive movements…all activities that fostered a higher culture and a nobler civilization.” Worrell spoke at the state constitutional convention in 1896 in favor of women’s suffrage. (Like Emma Worrell, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were Quakers). Worrell also was among a group of Wilmington Friends who helped lead the anti-slavery movement, a group that included famed Underground Railroad conductor Thomas Garrett, longtime member of the School Committee. Garrett worked closely with fellow abolitionist Harriett Tubman; they were honored together with the dedication of Wilmington's Tubman-Garrett Park.

Pioneering Program, Great Teachers

In 1881, Isaac Johnson became principal with a vision of developing a first-rate, all college-focused academic program, including an emphasis on the sciences—long part of the Quaker tradition of seeking truth and active inquiry. The sciences became such a serious undertaking at Friends that beginning in 1892, the Natural History Society of Delaware housed its collection and held its meetings in the school building. In other pioneering efforts of the era, Johnson  helped to develop a leading physical education program, including interscholastic sports, for both girls and boys; and in 1890, Friends School established Delaware’s first kindergarten.

Art was prominent in the written curriculum by 1914; drama was an active part of the school through the Whittier Society, named for Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier (the student newspaper, one of the oldest in the country, is still called The Whittier Miscellany); and music was established as its own course of study by 1916.

Another development in the Friends program in the early 20th century was led by Edith Hubbard, head of the math department. Hubbard’s passion for architecture, fueled by trips abroad, gave math a practical and international flavor at Friends. Former student and school trustee Steve Stephenson, class of 1931, remembered Edith Hubbard as, “as fine a math teacher as I have ever had”; he added, “Her qualities as a person included a quiet wisdom...a concern for human dignity that never wavered, and a life style that displayed deep sympathy and sensitivity for people.”

The influence of Friends teachers, in quality instruction and in character, has been a theme throughout the school’s history. The 2007 Friends Alumna of the Year, founder of the BrewHaHa coffeehouses Alisa Lippincott Morkides ’75, said, “What made the difference for me were my teachers. They helped me to get over my fears of failure, and along the way, they instilled in me a passion for learning that has never left me....Because the school was able to attract great and caring teachers, the best in me was able to come out. Future life challenges—starting a business, raising a child—would be easier as a result. I know that this story has played out many times at Friends School over the years. One of the things I treasure most about my Quaker heritage is the strong belief that everyone, regardless of economic or social circumstances, deserves an opportunity to be the best they can be.”

Alapocas

Charles Bush, class of 1900, was Delaware’s first Rhodes Scholar. He was practicing and teaching law at New York University, when he was asked to return to lead Friends School for one year in 1923. He stayed as much beloved principal until 1935. Bush led program changes, such as replacing Greek with Spanish, and  helped to establish the Home & School Association in 1928, formalizing the critical partnership between parents and the school. Bush also renewed the school’s commitment to the Quaker philosophy, even as he and others recognized the need to move from the crowded building by the Meetinghouse.

The conversation about a change of location gained momentum with a bequest from Emma Bancroft, widow of prominent Quaker William Bancroft. The bequest was supplemented generously with gifts from the Bancrofts’ daughters, Sarah, class of 1893, and Lucy, class of 1896. The Bancrofts led many public efforts in Wilmington, including establishing the public park and free library systems, and donating land to maintain green space, notably the tract now known as Alapocas Woods.

In addition to the Bancroft gifts, a then-anonymous donor—later revealed to be J. Warren Marshall ’00—provided a substantial sum that allowed plans to go forward for acquiring land, and constructing a new building for Friends School. The Honorary Chairman of the New Building Committee was Delaware’s Governor, C. Douglass Buck, class of 1908.

Ground was broken for the new Alapocas campus in June 1936 by members of the senior and kindergarten classes, including Charles Warner Kenworthy ’42, representing the fourth generation of his family to attend Friends School. The new school building was dedicated in September 1937. Major expansions and renovations followed in 1960, 1970, 1982, 1992 and 1997-98; the lower school campus was dedicated in 1972 and has been expanded three times since, most recently in 2004; the preschool in downtown Wilmington was established in 2004.

Wilmington and the World

Wilmot Jones, Head from 1935 to 1962, set unequivocally high standards for faculty and students, and despite the move to Alapocas, deepened the school’s engagement with the Wilmington community. During the period of legalized segregation, Friends had athletic competitions and choir exchanges with Howard High School, the public high school in then-segregated Wilmington that served African Americans. Friends was the only school to reply to Howard’s call in 1943 to play local schools, when fuel rationing had limited its teams’ ability to travel. And Jones also led Friends in engaging the world, for example, hosting students from overseas—including Germany—during World War II. Fifty years later, Head of School Lisa Darling and Board Chair Darcy Rademaker led a similar initiative to enroll five Bosnian students during the war in the former Yugoslavia.

Immediately after World War II, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) led the effort to develop relationships “for mutual benefit” between American schools and schools in war-damaged areas. At the request of AFSC, Wilmot Jones was given a leave of absence from Friends to go to Europe and help set up international programs. In 1946-47, Jones visited 65 schools in Italy, France, Holland and Belgium. The lower school at Friends became affiliated with two schools in the France; the upper school became affiliated with a college preparatory school in Holland. In the 1947-48 academic year, Friends was among the first schools in the country to host an exchange student through the American Field Service (AFS) program, and it has done so ever since—hosting AFS students every academic year, without exception, since 1947.

Community, 1950's-1970's

The Friends “catalogue” of 1951-52 included a revised admissions policy statement adding the non-discrimination clause that admission decisions were made “without regard to race.” True to the school’s Quaker identity and founding mission, the statement was put forth by the Board of Trustees as “reaffirming the existing policy." The first 20th century black graduate of Friends was Jane Bond ’55, daughter of then President of Lincoln University, Horace Mann Bond, and sister of Julian Bond, who later became President of the NAACP.

In the 1970’s, court-ordered desegregation through busing went into effect in New Castle County, and applications to Friends and other non-public schools soared. Head of School Bill Goulding wrote to the school community in 1975, that if those seeking enrollment were looking to escape integration, “the school’s philosophy, objectives and program run the risk of being badly distorted.” Goulding worked with a supportive Board of Trustees to strengthen the Friends School’s commitment to enrolling children of color and to supporting students and families of color in the school community.

Relevance, Friends Education Today

From the 1960’s on, it has seemed to many that Wilmington Friends again has been a pioneer in education. But as longtime English teacher Kerry Brown wrote, “changes in the school’s program evolved from deeply ingrained principles, rather than from the attractions of educational trendiness.” Requirements for faculty and students have evolved to meet the demands of a changing world—from international searches to fill teaching jobs to international student admissions, from courses in computer programming to projects that teach 21st century skills of creative and cooperative problem solving. But the defining reason for the requirements remains the same, to bring out the best in all toward the good of all.

Friends continues to be a leader in providing tuition aid and in other initiatives to build an inclusive school community. The school’s statement on diversity reflects its historic commitment and continuing identity as not only consistent with, but essential to, educational excellence.

Just as with early innovations from global geography to kindergarten, Friends in recent decades was among the first schools in the country to offer Advanced Placement (AP) courses, and then the first in Delaware to become authorized to offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) program and to join the School Year Abroad (SYA) consortium. The Peace, Justice and Social Change course was instituted in the 1970’s as a requirement for graduation from Friends, combining the Quaker tradition of peace studies with social science theory and an intensive study of current global events.

Matt Meyer ’90 cited “the Peace course” as part of his inspiration in co-founding a community-based business in Kenya, to manufacture and market sandals made from recycled tires. Talking about the project, Meyer said, “…that is where Peace, Justice, and Social Change comes in—this class I took back in tenth grade, this values education my parents sent me to get. I learned from many great teachers never to turn a blind eye to injustice. It is not about anger but about action. It is not about charity but about change. It is not about despair but about duty.” In 2003, Meyer was honored with the Samuel S. Beard Award for the Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under, a national award presented by the American Institute for Public Service. Previous recipients have included Lance Armstrong, Henry Cisneros, Max Cleland and Sally Ride.

“Innovations” like the Peace course and the IB are contemporary expressions of Friends School’s historic commitment to engage the world, to link learning to application beyond the classroom, and to educate students to think for themselves, guided by a sense of community responsibility, to be leaders characterized by confidence without arrogance. The current mission statement would not be unfamiliar to the Wilmington Quakers who founded Delaware’s first school in 1748, to Isaac Johnson or Emma Worrell, to Edith Hubbard or Wilmot Jones, or even to George Fox himself:

"Wilmington Friends, a Quaker school with high standards for academic achievement, challenges students to seek truth, to value justice and peace, and to act as creative, independent thinkers with a conscious responsibility to the good of all."