<P> In the early days of the Society of Friends, Quakers were not allowed to get an advanced education . Eventually some did get opportunities to go to university and beyond, which meant that more and more Quakers could enter the various fields of science . Thomas Young an English Quaker, did experiments with optics, contributing much to the wave theory of light . He also discovered how the lens in the eye works and described astigmatism and formulated an hypothesis about the perception of color . Young was also involved in translating the Rosetta Stone . He translated the demotic text and began the process of understanding the hieroglyphics . Maria Mitchell was an astronomer who discovered a comet . She was also active in the abolition movement and the women's suffrage movement . Joseph Lister promoted the use of sterile techniques in medicine, based on Pasteur's work on germs . Thomas Hodgkin was a pathologist who made major breakthroughs in the field of anatomy . He was the first doctor to describe the type of lymphoma named after him . An historian, he was also active in the movement to abolish slavery and to protect aboriginal people . John Dalton formulated the atomic theory of matter, among other scientific achievements . </P> <P> Quakers were not apt to participate publicly in the arts . For many Quakers these things violated their commitment to simplicity and were thought too "worldly". Some Quakers, however, are noted today for their creative work . John Greenleaf Whittier was an editor and a poet in the United States . Among his works were some poems involving Quaker history and hymns expressing his Quaker theology . He also worked in the abolition movement . Edward Hicks painted religious and historical paintings in the naive style and Francis Frith was a British photographer whose catalogue ran to many thousands of topographical views . </P> <P> At first Quakers were barred by law and their own convictions from being involved in the arena of law and politics . As time went on, a few Quakers in England and the United States did enter that arena . Joseph Pease was the son of Edward Pease mentioned above . He continued and expanded his father's business . In 1832 he became the first Quaker elected to Parliament . Noah Haynes Swayne was the only Quaker to serve on the United States Supreme Court . He was an Associate Justice from 1862--1881 . He strongly opposed slavery, moving out of the slave - holding state of Virginia to the free state of Ohio in his young adult years . </P> <P> Quakers found that theological disagreements over doctrine and evangelism had left them divided into the Gurneyites, who questioned the applicability of early Quaker writings to the modern world, and the conservative Wilburites . Wilburites not only held to the writings of Fox (1624--91) and other early Friends, they actively sought to bring not only Gurneyites, but Hicksites, who had split off during the 1820s over antislavery and theological issues, back to orthodox Quaker belief . Apart from theology there were social and psychological patterns revealed by the divisions . The main groups were the growth - minded Gurneyites, Orthodox Wilburites, and reformist Hicksites . Their differences increased after the Civil War (1861--65), leading to more splintering . The Gurneyites became more evangelical, embraced Methodist - like revivalism and the Holiness Movement, and became probably the leading force in American Quakerism . They formally endorsed such radical innovations as the pastoral system . Neither the Hicksites nor Wilburites experienced such numerical growth . The Hicksites become more liberal and declined in number, while the Wilburites remained both orthodox and divided . </P>

Who were the quakers and why were they important