The earliest schoolhouses would doubtless present an interesting picture if we could see them inside and out. Unfortunately there is little information extant, which throws light upon the earliest. In fact, at the very earliest establishment of schools, there were no special houses built for them. For many of them this condition prevailed till fairly near the close of the century. Joseph Foulke, writing in 1859, concerning his first school days, stated that he first attended school at Gwynedd, which was held in the meeting house, there being none other for that purpose.[811] His next schooling, in 1795, was at a family school taught by Hannah Lukens, who lived in a little house on the Bethlehem Road. He then attended school in a log schoolhouse, built about 1798 by his father.[812] Other instances may be cited in connection with the use of the meeting house for schoolhouse. In 1693-4 Middletown Friends allowed a school to be held in the meeting house, provided it should cause no disturbance,[813] and again in 1699 a similar request was granted.[814] As late as 1740 Philadelphia Meeting proposed to erect a meeting house with chambers over it sufficiently large for the accommodation of a school,[815] though, as mentioned before, they already had some of their schools in regularly constructed schoolhouses.[816] [Sidenote: An old schoolroom at Merion, Pa.] The writer has had the opportunity to visit one of these little schoolrooms established in the meeting house. Not much is known of the school at Merion, though the oldest of Friends meetings, but it is quite certain that whenever their school began and however pretentious it may have been, it must have been held in the upper part of the meeting house. The schoolroom in the present building is quite hidden away under the eaves. The walls are bare and the rafters low overhead. Ample light is furnished. Rude wooden benches and tables, the latter with sloping tops, constitute the furniture of the room as it now stands. One of the table tops bears the date 1711, doubtless the telltale of some vandal outcropping, which might tempt one to place a school at that early date. It is however too meagre and uncertain evidence to justify such a conclusion.[817] [Sidenote: Size and cost of school houses; Goshen, Falls] [Sidenote: Philadelphia] [Sidenote: Manner of heating]