When the first Quakers met in union, they consisted of religious or
spiritually minded men. From that time to the present, there has always
been, as we may imagine, a succession of such in the society. Many of
these, at their great meetings, which have been annual since those days,
have delivered their sentiments on various interesting points. These
sentiments were regularly printed, in the form of yearly epistles, and
distributed among Quaker families. Extracts, in process of time, were
made from them, and arranged under different heads, and published in one
book, under the name of [4]Advices. Now these advices comprehend
important subjects. They relate to customs, manners, fashions,
conversation, conduct. They contain of course _recommendations_, and
suggest _prohibitions_, to the society, as _rules of guidance:_ and as
they came from spiritually _minded_ men on _solemn occasions_, they are
supposed to have had a _spiritual origin_. Hence Quaker parents manage
their youth according to these _recommendations_ and _prohibitions_, and
hence this book of extracts (for so it is usually called) from which I
have obtained a considerable portion of my knowledge on this subject,
forms the basis of the moral Education of the Society.

[Footnote 4: The Book is intitled "Extracts from the minutes made, and
from the advices given, at the yearly Meeting of the Quakers in London,
since its first Institution."]

Of the contents of this book, I shall notice, while I am treating upon
this subject, not those rules which are of a recommendatory, but those,
which are of a _prohibitory nature_. Education is regulated either by
recommendations, or by prohibitions, or by both conjoined. The former
relate to things, where there is a wish that youth should conform to
them, but where a trifling deviation from them would not be considered
as an act of delinquency publicly reprehensible. The latter to things,