Teacher's Guide for Cobblestone: Quakers

FOLLOWING THE INNER LIGHT (page 2)

1. Why did the Quakers leave England and come to the New World?
2. Identify one of the fundamental Quaker beliefs.
3. How would a Quaker service be different from many Christian services?
4. Why aren't there any sacraments in the Quaker religion? How is a marriage conducted among the Quakers?
5. Why won't Quakers take an oath on the Bible when testifying in court?
6. Why don't Quakers remove their hats to honor a person in power or authority?
7. Why wouldn't there be any wars if everyone in the world were a Quaker?
8. How do the Quakers believe evil can be overcome?

In what ways are Shakers and Quakers alike? How are they different?

1. What kind of a child was Fox?
2. What struggle did Fox engage in when he was in his twenties?
3. Where did Fox find God?
4. How was Fox treated as he traveled around trying to explain his point of view? Did this discourage him?
5. When did Penn first become interested in the Quakers?
6. What is blasphemy? How serious a crime was it in England during Penn's time?
7. How were Quakers treated in the American Colonies?
8. What was Penn granted in 1681?
9. What kind of government did Penn establish?

1. Which continent has the most Friends? Which continent has the least?
2. Which country has the largest number of Quakers?
3. List three locations in Asia where you could attend a Quaker Yearly Meeting.

1. What are the three different kinds of Quakers?
2. How did Orthodox meetings change in the 1870s?
3. Why have different kinds of Friends met together in the past sixty years?
4. What does the American Friends Service Committee do?

1. Why do Quakers believe that war is wrong?
2. What often happened to Friends who refused to participate in the military in early America? Why did some Quakers refuse to accept the alternative of hiring substitutes or paying fees?
3. How have Friends tried to deal with paying taxes that help a government wage war?
4. How did Friends in Colonial Pennsylvania treat the American Indians?
5. How was the Indians' treatment of Friends different from their treatment of the Scotch-Irish?
6. What role were Quakers willing to fill during the Revolutionary War?
7. How did Quakers feel about slavery? Given their feelings about slavery, which side would you expect them to have supported in the Civil War?
8. What happened to Quakers as the Civil War dragged on?
9. Whom did the government officially recognize by World War I?
10. What very harsh stand did the government take against absolute objectors?
11. What actions did Quakers take during the Cold War?
12. What do Quakers fight against now?
13. Discuss whether you agree with the statement "Practicing peace requires as much strength and courage as making war."

1. In what two reform movements did Quaker women play a large role?
2. What freedoms did Quaker women have that most women in the 1800s did not?
3. What was one of the early actions Quaker women took against slavery?
4. What was the Grimké sisters' background? 5. What two causes became closely related in the minds of many Quakers?
6. Why was the Seneca Falls Convention important?
7. What is suffrage? In what activities did Alice Paul take part to draw national attention to the cause of woman suffrage?
8. What were some of the other reform movements Quaker women led?
9. In what activity did Quaker women actively participate during World War I?

Try this activity just for fun.

1. How many years passed between the Quakers' first public condemnation of slavery and the abolition of slavery in the United States?
2. How was John Woolman influenced to favor abolition? What actions did Woolman take to demonstrate his opposition to slavery?
3. How did Woolman recognize that he sometimes benefited by slavery?
4. Why did Woolman wear only white clothing in the last years of his life?
5. How did Lucretia Mott act on her beliefs that slavery was wrong?
6. How did John Greenleaf Whittier act on his belief in abolition?
7. What did the Underground Railroad do?
8. What contribution did Levi Coffin make?
9. How were all the slaves in the United States eventually freed?

1. What were each of the following in the Underground Railroad: station, agent, conductor.
2. How did fugitives usually travel from station to station?
3. What was Esther Wilbur able to establish?

1. What service did Quakers perform during World War I?
2. How successful was the Quaker feeding program after the war?
3. Whom did the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) help before World War II?
4. What award did the AFSC win in 1947?
5. What kinds of groups is the AFSC helping today?
6. Give an example of "grassroots globalism."
7. How does the AFSC try to bring about a more peaceful world?

How many of these people do you know?

1. Compare your education to Clare Murphy's.
2. What was it about the Quaker faith that her family found appealing?
3. What does she do in the Quaker meetings she attends?
4. What kind of a reaction did she get when she demonstrated on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima?
5. What are some of her suggestions for volunteering to make your community a better place? What activities have you participated in to make your community a better place?

1. Do some research on Levi Coffin. Write a report on his activities as an abolitionist.
2. Research the contributions made by Alice Paul in her work to win equal rights for women.
3. Discuss whether you think the government had the right to put Alice Paul in jail for organizing and taking part in antiwar activities. Is there some issue that you believe in so strongly that you would go to jail for it?

Home

Back

Print

Updated: 2/9/10 08:20 am
Log In