a membership of about 113,789; and 402 for women with a membership
of about 27,000. The movement, which is no longer exclusively
under the control of Friends, is rapidly becoming one of the chief
means of bringing about a religious fellowship among a class which
the organized churches have largely failed to reach. The effect of
the work upon the Society itself may be summarized thus: some
addition to membership; the creation of a sphere of usefulness for
the younger and more active members; a general stirring of interest
in social questions.[1]
A strong interest in Sunday schools for children preceded the Adult School movement. The earliest schools which are still existing were formed at Bristol, for boys in 1810 and for girls in the following year. Several isolated efforts were made earlier than this; it is evident that there was a school at Lothersdale near Skipton in 1800 “for the preservation of the youth of both sexes, and for their instruction in useful learning”; and another at Nottingham. Even earlier still were the Sunday and day schools in Rossendale, Lancashire, dating from 1793. At the end of 1909 there were in connexion with the Friends’ First-Day School Association 240 schools with 2722 teachers and 25,215 scholars, very few of whom were the children of Friends. Not included in these figures are classes for children of members and “attenders,” which are usually held before or during a portion of the time of the morning meeting for worship; in these distinctly denominational teaching is given. Monthly organ, Teachers and Taught.
A “provisional committee” of members of the Society of Friends was formed in 1865 to deal with offers of service in foreign lands. In 1868 this developed into the Friends’ Foreign Mission Association, which now undertakes Missionary work in India (begun 1866), Madagascar (1867), Syria (1869), Foreign missions. China (1886), Ceylon (1896). In 1909 the number of missionaries (including wives) was 113; organized churches, 194; members and adherents, 21,085; schools, 135; pupils, 7042; hospitals and dispensaries, 17; patients treated, 6865; subscriptions raised from Friends in Great Britain and Ireland, £26,689, besides £3245 received in the fields of work. Quarterly organ, Our Missions.
Statistics of Quakerism.—At the close of 1909 there were 18,686 Quakers (the number includes children) in Great Britain; and “associates” and habitual “attenders” not in membership, 8586; number of congregations regularly meeting, 390. Ireland—members, 2528; habitual attenders not in membership, 402.
The central offices and reference library of the Society of Friends are situate at Devonshire House, Bishopsgate Without, London.
Bibliography.—The writings of the early Friends are very numerous: the most noteworthy are the Journals of George Fox and of Thomas Ellwood, both autobiographies, the Apology and other works of Robert Barclay, and the works of Penn and Penington. Early in the 18th century William Sewel, a Dutch Quaker, wrote a history of the Society and published an English translation; modern (small) histories have been written by T. Edmund Harvey (The Rise of the Quakers) and by Mrs Emmott (The Story of Quakerism). The Sufferings of the Quakers by Joseph Besse (1753) gives a detailed account of the persecution of the early Friends in England and America. An excellent portraiture of early Quakerism is given in William Tanner’s Lectures on Friends in Bristol and Somersetshire. The Book of Discipline in its successive printed editions from 1783 to 1906 contains the working rules of the organization, and also a compilation of testimonies borne by the Society at different periods, to important points of Christian truth, and often called forth by the special circumstances of the time. The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth (London, 1876) by Robert Barclay, a descendant of the Apologist, contains much curious information about the Quakers. See also “Quaker” in the index to Masson’s Life of Milton. Joseph Smith’s Descriptive Catalogue of Friends’ Books (London, 1867) gives the information which its title promises; the same author has also published a catalogue of works hostile to Quakerism. For an exposition of Quakerism on its spiritual side many of the poems by Whittier may be referred to, also Quaker Strongholds and Light Arising by Caroline E. Stephen; The Society of Friends, its Faith and Practice, and other works by John Stephenson Rowntree, A Dynamic Faith and other works by Rufus M. Jones; Authority and the Light Within and other works by Edw. Grubb, and the series of “Swarthmore Lectures” as well as the histories above mentioned. Much valuable information will be found in John Stephenson Rowntree: His Life and Work (1908). The history of the modern forward movement may be studied in Essays and Addresses by John Wilhelm Rowntree, and in Present Day Papers edited by him. The social life of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th is portrayed in Records of a Quaker Family, the Richardsons of Cleveland, by Mrs Boyce, and The Diaries of Edward Pease, the Father of English Railways, edited by Sir A. E. Pease. Other works which may usefully be consulted are the Journals of John Woolman, Stephen Grellet and Elizabeth Fry; also The First Publishers of Truth, a reprint of contemporary accounts of the rise of Quakerism in various districts. The periodicals issued (not officially) in connexion with the Quaker body are The Friend (weekly), The British Friend (monthly), The Friends’ Witness, The Friendly Messenger, The Friends’ Fellowship Papers, The Friends’ Quarterly Examiner, Journal of the Friends’ Historical Society. Officially issued: The Book of Meetings and The Friends’ Year Book. See also works mentioned at the close of sections on Adult Schools and on Quakerism in America, Scotland and Ireland, and elsewhere in this article; also Fox, George. (A. N. B.)
FRIES, ELIAS MAGNUS (1794–1878), Swedish botanist,
was born at Femsjö, Småland, on the 15th of August 1794.
From his father, the pastor of the church at Femsjö, he early
acquired an extensive knowledge of flowering plants. In 1811
he entered the university of Lund, where in 1814 he was elected
docent of botany and in 1824 professor. In 1834 he became
professor of practical economy at Upsala, and in 1844 and 1848
he represented the university of that city in the Rigsdag. On
the death of Göran Wahlenberg (1780–1851) he was appointed
professor of botany at Upsala, where he died on the 8th of
February 1878. Fries was admitted a member of the Swedish
Royal Academy in 1847, and a foreign member of the Royal
Society of London in 1875.
As an author on the Cryptogamia he was in the first rank. He wrote Novitiae florae Suecicae (1814 and 1823); Observationes mycologicae (1815); Flora Hollandica (1817–1818); Systema mycologicum (1821–1829); Systema orbis vegetabilis, not completed (1825); Elenchus fungorum (1828); Lichenographia Europaea (1831); Epicrisis systematis mycologici (1838; 2nd ed., or Hymenomycetes Europaei, 1874); Summa vegetabilium Scandinaviae (1846); Sveriges ätliga och giftiga Svampar, with coloured plates (1860); Monographia hymenomycetum Suecicae (1863), with the Icones hymenomycetum, vol. i. (1867), and pt. i. vol. ii. (1877).
FRIES, JAKOB FRIEDRICH (1773–1843), German philosopher,
was born at Barby, Saxony, on the 23rd of August 1773. Having
studied theology in the academy of the Moravian brethren at
Niesky, and philosophy at Leipzig and Jena, he travelled for
some time, and in 1806 became professor of philosophy and
elementary mathematics at Heidelberg. Though the progress
of his psychological thought compelled him to abandon the
positive theology of the Moravians, he always retained an
appreciation of its spiritual or symbolic significance. His philosophical
position with regard to his contemporaries he had
already made clear in the critical work Reinhold, Fichte und
Schelling (1803; reprinted in 1824 as Polemische Schriften),
and in the more systematic treatises System der Philosophie als
evidente Wissenschaft (1804), Wissen, Glaube und Ahnung (1805,
new ed. 1905). His most important treatise, the Neue oder
anthropologische Kritik der Vernunft (2nd ed., 1828–1831), was
an attempt to give a new foundation of psychological analysis
to the critical theory of Kant. In 1811 appeared his System
der Logik (ed. 1819 and 1837), a very instructive work, and in
1814 Julius und Evagoras, a philosophical romance. In 1816
he was invited to Jena to fill the chair of theoretical philosophy
(including mathematics and physics, and philosophy proper),
and entered upon a crusade against the prevailing Romanticism.
In politics he was a strong Liberal and Unionist, and did much
to inspire the organization of the Burschenschaft. In 1816 he
had published his views in a brochure, Vom deutschen Bund
und deutscher Staatsverfassung, dedicated to “the youth of
Germany,” and his influence gave a powerful impetus to the
agitation which led in 1819 to the issue of the Carlsbad Decrees
by the representatives of the German governments. Karl Sand,
the murderer of Kotzebue, was one of his pupils; and a letter
of his, found on another student, warning the lad against participation
in secret societies, was twisted by the suspicious
authorities into evidence of his guilt. He was condemned by the
Mainz Commission; the grand-duke of Weimar was compelled
to deprive him of his professorship; and he was forbidden to
lecture on philosophy. The grand-duke, however, continued
to pay him his stipend, and in 1824 he was recalled to Jena
as professor of mathematics and physics, receiving permission
also to lecture on philosophy in his own rooms to a select number
of students. Finally, in 1838, the unrestricted right of lecturing
was restored to him. He died on the 10th of August 1843.
The most important of the many works written during his Jena professorate are the Handbuch der praktischen Philosophie (1817–1832), the Handbuch der psychischen Anthropologie (1820–1821, 2nd ed. 1837–1839), Die mathematische Naturphilosophie (1822),
- ↑ See A History of the Adult School Movement by J. W. Rowntree and H. B. Binns. The organ of the movement is One and All, published monthly. See also The Adult School Year Book.
