Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1905 — How an Infant School Was Founded. [ARTICLE]

How an Infant School Was Founded.

It is well known that the Society of Friends objects to all war. This conscientious feeling has sometimes placed individual Quakers in an awkward position. For instance, during the war against the first Napoleon a ship that was partly owned by a Friend captured a Dutch vessel. The long continuance of the state of war prevented him for several years from compensating the owner and sailors of the seized vessel in accordance with his principles. In the meantime he invested the money received as his share of the prize, and when at last pence was declared he paid it over, with interest to date, to those who had suffered by the capture of the vessel. Not being able to find them all, he founded with the rest of the money a free infant school in Amsterdam, this being the port from which the Dutch ship had sailed. The school was the first of the kind set up in the city, and it was housed in a building called “Holland’s Welfare,” which was the name of the captured vessel.