10. The poor children to be educated free of charge, and also the Negroes, where they are not able to pay. Children not Friends were not omitted,[793] as we find in the plans actually followed by the monthly meetings. [Sidenote: The functions of the quarterly meeting] The chief functions of the quarterly meeting were: (1) to transmit these advices; (2) to gather and return reports of the accomplishments within its limits; and (3) to keep in touch with the work by means of committees. Sufficient material has in the writer’s opinion been presented in the way of reports in previous chapters relating to schools established in the various counties, to make it unnecessary here.[794] To characterize it as an intermediary agent and its functions as supervisory and directive seems to be adequate. [Sidenote: Monthly meeting the business unit] The monthly meeting was above all others the organizing business unit and the welfare of schools appears to have depended much on its activity. It is to the monthly meeting that we are indebted for almost all of the reports on schools, and it has been noticed that not until raised to the dignity of being a monthly meeting, did many meetings assume any important part in directing education. A few preparatives, which might be considered as a little exceptional, were Byberry, Falls, and Horsham. They appear to have handled their schools a little more independently than did others. Duties which were as a general rule performed by each of the monthly meetings were these:[795] [Sidenote: Duties summarized] 1. To investigate the state of schools in their preparatives. 2. To appoint committees to visit, assist and report on schools established, and recommend the establishment of others where necessary. 3. To approve masters, retire them, and fill vacancies. 4. Through trustees or committees on funds, (_a_) to finance the education of poor children, (_b_) to pay salaries, (_c_) to build school houses, and (_d_) to establish permanent endowments. 5. To take final reports to be sent to the yearly meeting. [Sidenote: Three points indicated concerning the organization] These functions have all been brought to the reader’s attention by reports and minutes quoted in chapters on the schools in various counties. This brief presentation of the organization and direction on the part of the meetings should be sufficient to point out: (1) that the general nature of the organization is a hierarchy of units; (2) that the direction of school activities comes from the higher to the lower, and is of a general and suggestive rather than specific and mandatory nature; (3) that the monthly meeting formed the real working unit, and that on its diligence probably depended the welfare of the preparatives’ schools. We shall now attend for a moment to a few of the details of the school in so far as we may judge them from the records at our disposal. THE SCHOOL [Sidenote: Permanent properties recommended for schools]