Friends Seminary is an elite private day school in Manhattan. It is owned and controlled by the New York Quarterly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. The school, the oldest continuous coeducational school in New York City, serves 694 college-bound day students in Kindergarten through Grade 12. The school's mission is to prepare students “not only for the world that is, but to help them bring about the world that ought to be.” It is guided by a service mission statement and a diversity mission statement. Friends is a member of New York's Independent School Diversity Network, and diversity is a key part of its educational philosophy. Currently, Robert (Bo) Lauder is principal, the school's 35th. Lauder came to Friends in the fall of 2002 after serving as Upper School Head at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. Friends Seminary, established by members of the Religious Society of Friends, whose members are known as Quakers, was founded in 1786 as Friends' Institute through a $10,000 bequest of Robert Murray, a wealthy New York merchant. It was located on Pearl Street in Manhattan and strived to provide Quaker children with a "guarded education.