1856 - The Main Schoohouse
It wasn’t until 1856 that the need was seen for a new school building, and another ninety perches of land was deeded to the Meeting. The first room of what is now the main school building was constructed on this property. Plymouth Meeting Friends School was still a small country school, averaging enrollment of about 25 with one teacher, usually a member of the Society of Friends. The school faced financial difficulties in the early 1870s and closed briefly from 1877-80, but it re-opened in 1881 and has been open continuously ever since.
1891 – Re-organization of PMFS
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Committee on Education took an interest in Plymouth Meeting Friends School, and in 1891 helped to re-organize PMFS into a graded school with three levels, primary, intermediate, and high school, and three teachers.
In 1895, Benjamin Smith became the school’s principal and served for sixteen years. By this time the school had grown large enough to require adding a second story to the main building. Under Smith’s leadership the school offered high school classes that included Latin, French and German, algebra, rhetoric, Roman and Greek history, bookkeeping, astronomy, elocution, geometry, English grammar, geography, drawing, physics and chemistry, among others. Sixty-four pupils were enrolled for the 1901-1902 school year.