Advancing the Bibliography, Bit by Bit

Distractions come in all forms--home, health, work on the NYSEC archives, holidays, and on and on.  I have not been able to work as consistently on the Bibliography of Ethical Culture as I would like in the past few months.  One advantage of a quiet holiday is time for the mind to return to whatever constitutes homeostasis.  For me, that "set point" or baseline seems to involve a chance to tinker with the Bibliography.  And so I did.

This morning's tinkering was a return to Ethical Addresses.  I am trying to track down the publication history of the articles in this serial, starting with the First Series (1895).  The volume's preface indicates that all of the lectures included were "given before Ethical Societies" and one had been published in the Forum.  Only M. M. Mangasarian's address--"The Religion of Ethical Culture"--includes specifics about its history, i.e., that it was an address given to the Chicago Ethical Society, April 8, 1894.  

Recently I found a typed list of addresses delivered to the New York Society for Ethical Culture from 1893 to 1933.  The list provided dates for Felix Adler's three addresses, all three of which appear to have been presented at Carnegie Hall:

• What Do We Stand For? - October 22, 1893
• The Modern Saint - March 11, 1894
• Prayer and Worship - December 2, 1894

The first of these was acknowledged as having been published in The Forum without providing more specific information.  I managed to track it down--The Forum, Volume 16, November 1893, pp. 379-87--with the title:  "Modern Scepticism and Ethical Culture."  At the same time, I found that the version published in EA had an addendum not included in the original essay--"A Statement as to the Attitude of the Ethical Movement toward Religion"--which is attributed to the joint agreement of the Ethical Culture "lecturers" of the period.

The Ethical Society of St Louis has inventoried and had posted a large portion of its archives online, but now that material seems to be unavailable to non-members.  I did (earlier) manage to confirm the dates (years) when Walter L. Sheldon's two lectures were given to that Society:

• What Does it Mean to Be Religious, and What Is Religion? - 1894
• True Liberalism - 1894

I was unable to find further references to any of William M. Salter's lectures in this volume.  The search will continue.

Another "area" for recent work on the Bibliography has been the result of the DDOS attack on the Internet Archive in October.  All of the issues of Ethical Addresses & Ethical Record are posted there as are many other works that have been listed in the Bibliography.  In the weeks following the attack(s), none of these works were available, which substantially hampered my ability to check references and such.  One task that I had intended to carry out was to add the link to each issue of EA&ER to each article listed in the Bibliography.  I had already provided links to the volumes, but that still required users to scroll up and down between the volume link and the individual articles.  Thinking I would make things easier to use, I started adding those links.  Since it's a tedious process, I would only complete one issue in a day and move on to something more interesting.  That work came to a screeching halt with the DDOS attacks and made me very aware of the vulnerability of a sole repository.  Now that service has returned, I am continuing to add those links.  It's still just as tedious, so it will be a while before I complete the effort, but at least it's possible.

One thing that is no longer possible with the Internet Archive is the result of another sort of attack, this one entirely legal but with lasting effect.  Hatchette v. Internet Archive resulted in the removal of thousands of books that had been made available for online lending--one hour at a time--from the site.  I can no longer remotely check out a book to look at its contents and determine whether it is relevant for the Bibliography much less spend any time reading it.  This will slow some of the work down considerably, since I have limited mobility and find it difficult to park and enter the brick and mortar libraries that are within driving distance of my home.  

Going forward (while remaining in out-of-copyright territory), I have begun looking at the International Journal of Ethics, which was published by the AEU from 1890 to 1914.  The goal will be to continue searching for overlap between EA&ER and IJE as well as to identify more primary and secondary sources related to Ethical Culture.  Hathi Trust looks like it will be my source for this material.  It should keep me busy between home, health, NYSEC archives, holidays and so on and on.

Happy new year!

Hunting the Snark in the NYSEC Archives, Part I

The Birth of Carnegie Hall

I am honored to have received the 2024 Mossler Grant from the New York Society for Ethical Culture to work on a project related to a corpus of lectures to NYSEC delivered between 1893 and 1910 at Carnegie Hall.  It is called, appropriately, The Carnegie Hall Project (and abbreviated as CH in much of my notes).  I started the project when the late Lawn'ence Miller granted me access to the digital scans of some of the CH lectures and wanted to know (and find) more.  As work progresses on converting those scanned lectures into more readable--and editable--formats, I have been searching for the hard copies of those lectures as well as the others that I am hoping also exist in the archives.

I sincerely hope that I am not hunting for a snark, or worse, a boojum.  In the meantime, I've found a fair number of clues to where we should be hunting and some fascinating information about what we are looking for.  

The most concrete resource is the digital file folder of CH lectures that L (as we called him) gave me.  I have already referred to that corpus is earlier posts, so I will try not to repeat myself, but there has been some progress in at least defining the scope of the project.

• Two typewritten lists of lectures to NYSEC have been discovered in the archives and the Adler Study.  I have compared the archive "record" to the AS "ledger" for the period between 1893 (when NYSEC began meeting at CH) and 1910 (when the Meeting House was completed).  
• The "record," with corrections and additions from the "ledger," has now been entered into a spreadsheet, recording date of delivery, title, speaker, and any other information available at this time about the venue, the text, or the speaker.  There is, of course, very little additional information at the moment, but I hope that will change in the coming days as I review other online sources.
• There were seventeen seasons of lectures given at Carnegie Hall.  All of the seasons began around the third Sunday in October (except the 1894-95 season, which began on the first Sunday of November).  Most of the seasons ended around the second Sunday in May with an anniversary address, almost always given by Felix Adler.
• The number of addresses given during a season ranged from 28 to 31, with most having 30 addresses.  Occasionally a late steamer or illness would cause a change in plans for addresses, and a substitution would be listed, but one or two lectures may have been cancelled--or records lost.  The total number of addresses appears to be either 505 or 507.  Until further records--or the lectures themselves--are recovered, the actual total is inexact.
• Adler himself delivered about 60 percent of the lectures (296).  A significant portion of the remainder were given by other leaders of the Movement, including John Lovejoy Elliott (33), Alfred W. Martin (21), Stanton Coit (17), William M. Salter (8), Walter L. Sheldon (10), David S. Muzzey (4), M. M. Mangasarian (30), Leslie Willis Sprague (16), Percival Chubb (9)--and Anna Garlin Spencer (9).  (These numbers do not reflect 5 meetings with untitled presentations from one or more of these leaders speaking with a group of presenters.)
• About 10 percent of the addresses at CH were delivered by guest speakers, including several notables (e.g., Gifford Pinchot) and academics (Nathaniel Schmidt, Edward Howard Griggs, and Charles Zueblin).  Only four women took the platform alone:  Enid Stacy Widdrington, Ethel M. Arnold, Caroline Bartlett-Crane, and Anna Garlin Spencer.  Several platforms were devoted to race-related issues.  Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois spoke as individual lecturers, but there were more than one panel of presenters on this recurring topic.
• As for topics, the CH lectures ran the gamut from Ethics to politics and elections (and the ethics thereof), from contemporary literature to the sacred texts of ancient days, from the travails of poverty to the discomfort of the wealthy.  Given the times, race relations, women's issues, and labor reforms were frequent topics.  

Now that we know more about the corpus of this "collection," we have to find the collection.  There are some hints.  In the process of tracking down those hints, I am also finding out more about Carnegie Hall, cf. the video link above.

Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record: Final Series

I CAN'T FIND A PICTURE OF

FLORENCE KIPER

BUT

I WANTED TO

The final series--the twenty-first--of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record was published in 1914.  The American Ethical Union immediately launched a new serial publication--The Standard.  The AEU also announced that it would no longer publish the International Journal of Ethics, a more scholarly publication that began as the Ethical Record and continues today as Ethics.

The addresses included in this final issue represent a wide range of focus.  The first is "Must We Believe in Immortality?" by Henry Neumann (pp. 1 -19), summed up in the sentence:  "While life remains, live nobly."  In a similar philosophic vein, David Saville Muzzey questions "Have We Religious Duties?" (pp. 67-79).  Shifting to current events and practical issues, Felix Adler talked about "False Ethics in Social Reform Movements" (pp. 45-56).  In this he focused on good intentions that have a bad outcome, e.g., when violence is used to gain justice. Horace J. Bridges focused on "The Victorious Death of Captain Scott," (pp. 91-106) referring to the death of Robert Falcon Scott on (or about) March 29, 1912 as he returned from the South Pole.  Bridges' message speaks to us today:

May we so live that at the last — in utter desolation, if so it must be — both we and those who look to us for example and strength, shall be able to find nothing for regret in our journey through the wilderness of this world. (p.106)

John Lovejoy Elliot and Florence Kiper focus on what I believe we can call "equity," or, just as easily, "women's rights."  Elliott speaks of working women and their (inadequate) wages.  Florence Kiper's essay was reprinted from The Forum.  While the title is "The Jewish Problem in America," her argument for an end to discrimination against Jews is presented with careful parallels with discrimination against women.  NOTE:  Florence Kiper [Frank], poet and playwright, does not have a Wikipedia page, but her husband, Jerome Frank, does.  (Just saying.)

There are still some "loose ends" to tie up regarding this serial; later posts will do that, I hope.  Then comes the question of "What next for the Bibliography?"  An obvious step would be to begin documenting the two serials that bracket EA&ER, that is, the short-lived Ethical Record or the somewhat longer-lived The Standard.  However, there is some urgency in documenting our living thinkers and writers while we can still discuss their work with them.  As well, there is the matter of hundreds of archive boxes waiting for documentation at NYSEC and AEU.  

The current focus on EA&ER had a beginning and an end in the space of 21 volumes.  A similarly finite project relates to the so-called "Carnegie Lectures."  These are the addresses delivered at Carnegie Hall during the 1895 and 1896 seasons at NYSEC.  A handful of them have already been published in EA&ER and possibly elsewhere.  How to make the others both readable and accessible to more readers in a significant part of that project.  

The next few weeks will tell us more about "more hands and more eyes" as well as funding/institutional support for the ongoing work.  

For now:  Happy New Year (almost)!

Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record - Twentieth Series (1913)

 

Sheldon Memorial Hall, dedicated in 1912

The Twentieth Series of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record was published in 1913.  The issue provides extended focus on the dedication of the Sheldon Memorial in St. Louis and for the Moral Education Conference held in The Hague.  In addition, the volume shows the transition to a new generation of leaders for the Movement.

Felix Adler's "Ethical Development Extending Through Life" (pp. 1-19), two posthumous addresses from Walter L. Sheldon ("Hawthorne's 'Scarlet Letter'" (pp. 51-74) and "The Spirit of Human Fellowship" (pp. 191-199), and a brief note from Stanton Coit ("The Ethical Movement Explained" [pp. 233-235]) represent the first group of leaders.  In the second "wave" of leaders we see:

• Horace J. Bridges - Chicago (1913-1945)
• "From Custom to Conscience:  The Trend of Twentieth Century Religion" (pp. 90-106);
• "Mary Antin's 'Promised Land'" (pp. 127-147);
• Percival Chubb - New York, Associate (1897-1910) and St. Louis (1911-1932);
• "Religion and Social Reform" (pp. 201-218);
• Alfred W. Martin - New  York, Associate (1907-1932)
• "The Ethical Message of Robert Browning" (pp. 75-89);
• "Distinctive Characteristics of the Ethical Movement" (pp. 149-175);
• David Saville Muzzey - New  York, Associate (     );
• "Discipleship" (pp. 219-232);
• Henry Neumann - Brooklyn (1911-1961)
• "Our Ultimate Obligation, or What Gives the Moral Law Its Authority" (pp. 177-190).

Algernon D. Crapsey, a former Episcopal minister who became a frequent visitor and lecturer for Ethical Culture, spoke to the Philadelphia Society about "Commercialized Vice in Cities" (pp, 107-126).  

The copy of this volume archived online by the Internet Library includes some lists of publications by the AEU or by Society leaders.  I have confirmed that all of the items listed are in documented in the Bibliography except for two books by Walter L. Sheldon.  These books are:  Class Readings in the Bible and The Life of Jesus for the Young.  The St. Louis Society may have more information for us.  In the meantime, the search for these books online was productive in other ways.  Class Readings was reviewed in The American Journal of Philology.  Continued searching showed Sheldon also published two editions of The Story of the Bible, From the Standpoint of Modern Scholarship.  Originally published in 1899, his wife called on Morris Jastrow, Jr., and James A. Montgomery to assist with revisions and updates, which Nathaniel Schmidt discussed in his review of the second edition in the International Journal of Ethics.  As time permits, I hope to seek out more reviews of the works of Ethical writers for the perspective they provide on the context in which these writings were being considered.

Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record - Sixteenth Series

 

Alfred R. Wolff was an early proponent of wind energy

The Sixteenth Series of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record was published in 1909.  It is marked by the republication of a couple of important addresses, a memorial service, summaries more and less brief of national and international meetings, statements from four major Societies about their aims and ideals (St. Louis, Chicago, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia), as well as a number recent platforms presented at various Ethical Culture Societies in the 1908-1909 season.

The image above is a tribute to Alfred R. Wolff, heating and cooling engineer, who was an advocate of wind energy (The Windmill as Prime Mover) and a friend of Ethical Culture.  His death in 1909 was commemorated with Memorial Addresses from Percival Chubb and John Lovejoy Elliott, both published in this volume along (pp. 178 - 187) with a telegraphed message from Felix Adler, then out of the country.

Anna Garlin Spencer provides a fulsome description of the first Summer School of Ethics, held in June and July, 1908, at and in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin in Madison (pp. 52 - 60).  Her description is supplemented with a complete program listing (pp. 255 -259).  There are online references to another Summer School held in 1910, but more searching is needed to see how this program fared over time.  A longer but anonymous report on the first International Congress on Moral Education (held September 25-29, 1909) is also provided (pp. 77-92).  Six such congresses were held in Europe between 1908 and 1934.  

An unsigned statement asserts that "The Right of Political Asylum [is] Threatened" (pp. 113-114) to explain the need to reprint two older platform addresses which referred to the US treaty with Russia (1893).  Felix Adler (pp. 115 - 135) and William M. Salter (pp. 136 - 159) had at that time protested the treaty, indicating that it would eventually place the US in the position of denying sanctuary to individuals fleeing unjust prosecution.  The statement applauds the "prophetic protests" of Adler and Salter, justifying the need to make them available again to contemporary readers.

More contemporary platforms by current and past clergy leaders provide the bulk of the volume:  Adler spoke on gambling and spiritual progress (not in the same lecture), Chubb on faith and then on Easter.  Despite his retirement from Chicago, a second address from Salter, discussed "Ethics in the Light of Darwin's Theory."  A posthumous list of things to believe, authored by Walter L. Sheldon, provides inspiring quotes from his pen.  (I rather like this one:  "Believe in the value of other men's experience and thereby save half your life from being a failure by endeavoring to show that you know more than everybody else." [p. 279])  Leslie Willis Sprague talked about moral inspiration, what an Ethical Society is, and, as part of a series on Social Ideals, the Ethical reorganization thereof.  David Saville Muzzey combined two lectures into one--"The New Paganism and the New Piety" (pp. 189-218)--and presented a paean to Milton as an apostle of Liberty (pp. 93-112).  The latter, a combination of history and poetry--the historian waxing poetic about the poet and his crucial role in the history of democracy--inspires me to set aside my disregard for Puritanism to see the deeper (nonreligious) issues that inspired Milton.

One additional note of interest (to me!) comes from Sprague's pen as he attempts to correct some "misapprehensions" about Ethical Culture (pp. 48 - 51).  His defense covers these mistakes:

1.  "[T]he Ethical Culture movement is merely a development of the Jewish religion";
2.  "Ethical Culture is irreligious, is opposed to the development of the religious life and to the expression of the religious aspirations of mankind";
3. "Ethical Culture is only an emasculation of older religious systems, especially Judasim (sic) and Christianity, the appropriation of their ethical principles without accepting the theological and sacerdotal elements which have accompanied these principles in the past";
4. "Ethical Culture is very readily and very naturally misunderstood by those who are concerned with the letter rather than with the spirit of the moral law"; and
5. "Ethical Culture is another sect."

It's worth a read, I think, even if one disagrees with Sprague.

Finally, this issue provides another change in the publisher.  Same address in Philadelphia, but now formally acknowledged as "American Ethical Union."

Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record - Series 15

Volume 15 of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record (1908) is a rich resource, not only for the material published in it, but for the large number of pages devoted to listing other publications of the Ethical Culture Movement.  Oddly enough, I seem to have stumbled across two different scans of this volume.  One, downloaded more than a year ago and safely on my hard drive is a bit of a mess with several blurred pages; it was scanned at the New York Public Library.  The second, resides online in the Internet Library and seems to have only clear and error-free scans; it was scanned at the University of Toronto Robarts Library.  What is missing in the second are all the pages, presumably from the covers of the separate issues, which list available publications.  Despite the frustration of the blurred pages, I am finding the promotional pages for more pamphlets, books, and journals a useful extra resource for identifying the literature of Ethical Culture.  What luck to have found both copies!

Walter L. Sheldon, founder and Leader of the Ethical Culture Society of St. Louis, died on June 5, 1907.  Memorial services were held at several Societies and locations.  Memorial Addresses included in this volume of EA&ER were provided by Felix Adler, M. Anesaki (from the Tokyo Ethical Society), Fanny M. Bacon, W. A. Brandenburger, George R. Dodson, John Lovejoy Elliott, Robert Moore, Samuel Sale, William M. Salter, William Taussig, and S. Burns Weston.  At Sheldon's request, the St. Louis memorial service did not include eulogies and speeches; instead, previous memorial services conducted by Sheldon for others provided appropriate passages in Sheldon's own words.  Those passages and selections from his favorite readings are included in this volume.  

Altogether, Sheldon's memorial presents a thorny set of bibliographic problems--whether to list every single tribute and address as a separate item (serving also as an index to contributors) or whether to group the speeches together as printed in EA&ER.  The list of Contents suggests the former, but the order and manner of printing suggests the latter.  I have opted for the latter, attempting to be true to the events of the time, but recognize that future research seeking the works of specific authors may not be served by this approach.  

The inclusion of selected addresses from the 1907 AEU Assembly provides a window into the continued focus on defining the religious nature of Ethical Culture:

"The Character of the Ethical Movement," Edwin R. A. Seligman (NYSEC and AEU President);

"The Need of a Religion of Morality," William M. Salter;

"The Inspiration of the Ethical Movement," Nathaniel Schmidt;

"The Value of Ethical Organization," Charles Zueblin.

William M. Salter contributed a number of lectures, including his last at the Ethical Society of Chicago (December 22, 1907).  "The Good Fight--With a Closing Word" (pp. 115-134) is filled with martial imagery which likened his service to the Chicago Society as fighting the good fight.  Salter vowed that he had few regrets and left his audience with a final call for courage in continuing the fight in his absence.  Salter continued his own career for the next few years as a special lecturer in philosophy at the University of Chicago. 

Charles Zueblin's "Religion and the Church" is one of a series of six lectures that he gave at the Philadelphia Ethical Society.  While only one was published in this volume of  EA&ER, all six were collected and published as The Religion of a Democrat (New York:  B. W. Heubsch, 1908).  Additional contributions are provided from Anna Garlin Spencer, David Saville Muzzey, and Henry Moskowitz.  The volume is rounded out with a collection of songs (lyrics only) and responsive readings.

Given the earlier kerfuffle with the two scans, I have paid closer attention to the title pages (and library stamps) of this volume.  I missed the shift in publisher between the Eleventh and Twelfth Series!  S. Burns Weston served as the publisher for the first eleven volumes of the series.  With the twelfth volume, the name of the publisher is changed to "Ethical Addresses," albeit with the same location in Philadelphia as before.  I will correct the Bibliography ASAP and do apologize for the error.

Series Thirteen - Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record

Series 13 - Partial Contents

The Thirteenth Series of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record, published in 1906, begins with eight addresses from the Tenth Convention of Ethical Societies, held in Philadelphia in May, 1905 (pp. 1-57).  The opening address was given by S. Burns Weston, followed by speeches from Walter L. Sheldon, William M. Salter, David Saville Muzzey, Leslie Willis Sprague, and John Lovejoy Elliott.  Felix Adler gave a convention address on "The Independence of Morality and What It Implies" as well as the closing address.  Anna Garlin Spencer also stood on the platform to deliver a brief address ("The Ethical Movement as an Experiment Station in Education"), her first appearance in these volumes.

Gustav Spiller, Secretary of the International Ethical Union, provided historical notes on the progress of Ethical Culture as well as an extensive list of recent publications by leaders and members of the Movement.  He also provided a lengthy statement of "Suggestions for the Coming International Ethical Congress" (pp. 151-160).  

Nathaniel Schmidt, Professor of Semitic Languages and Literatures at Cornell University, gave two addresses to the Philadelphia Society:  "The Persecution of the Jews" (pp. 131 - 150) and, reflecting on the long ago presence of Nones, "The Religion of the Unchurched" (pp. 263 - 284).  Adler's treatise on "The Punishment of Children" (pp. 65-100) is reprinted in full.  Muzzey provided three separate perspectives on Ethics, including an early twentieth century look at the effect of labels in "The Ethics of Epithets" (pp. 115 - 130).

A couple of printing errors show up in this volume.  Incorrect page numbers are given on the list of Contents for Sheldon's convention address:  pp. 6 -15, not p. 67.  Spiller's IEU Report is inserted between two addresses by Adler ("Moral Conditions in American Life in the Light of Recent Revelations" [pp. 189 - 202] and "Self-Help in Affliction" [pp. 203 - 216]) and given duplicate page numbers (pp. 203 - 216).  

Two promotional pages include a (repeat of a) list of Salter's Ethical Lectures which seem to have been reprinted as individual pamphlets (p. 64) and an interesting list of the contents of the Twelfth Series of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record.  Since I am working from online versions of bound serials, I found it helpful to see the publishing patterns (monthly issues, published September to June, three to four addresses or articles per issue).  Salter's "Moral Aspiration and Song" was published as Volume XII, Numbers 8, 9, 10--presumably in one volume.  [NOTE:  I did find a copy of the volume at the Brooklyn Ethical Society this past week.  It's in fragile condition, but appeared to be--in its day--a handy adjunct to Sunday meetings.] 

Wisdom Gems from Walter L. Sheldon

⏩ September 27  ⏪

Morning. There is no condition of life that excludes a wise man from discharging his duty. —Seneca.

Evening. We cannot now prevent this moment from forming an epoch in our lives; but it depends on us to bear ourselves in a manner which shall be worthy of us.— Goethe.

 ________________

Walter L. Sheldon, Founder and Leader of the St. Louis Society, was a prolific writer and collector of wise words.  In Series Eleven of Ethical Addresses, a substantial portion of the issue (pp. 35 -108) is devoted to his collection:  "A Morning and Evening Wisdom Gem for Every Day of the Year."  Each of these Wisdom Gems are drawn from the writings of Classical and contemporary authors as well as "the Chinese sages."  True to the title, there is a morning and an evening "wisdom gem" for each day of the year.  The selection for September 27 is shown above.  

The list of authors for January is comparatively short, with quotations drawn from:

• T. H. Huxley
• Marcus Aurelius
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Thomas a Kempis
• Goethe
• (Henri Frederic) Amiel's Journal
• Ecclesiasticus
• Plato
• Epictetus
• Shakespeare 
• The Book of Proverbs

Later months will show the same authors with a sprinkling of quotations from John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle, Baruch Spinoza, Seneca, the Chinese Sages, and one entry from Socrates.

Much like daily Bible readings or fortune cookies, these sententiae are presented without commentary. Nor is there any attempt to reconcile the quotations to Ethical Culture.  The reader must find the meaning(s) in his own heart.  Several of the authors had already been the subject of platforms from various leaders (reflected in the content of past volumes in this serial), and, one assumes, members of the various Societies might also be familiar with the authors through their own reading.

"Wisdom Gems" is the first, but not the last, instance of the inclusion of a collection of resource materials in Ethical Addresses.  

Ethical Addresses - Tenth Series

 

Series Ten:  Contents

The Tenth Series of Ethical Addresses, published in 1903, presents 10 lectures and writings from Felix Adler, William M. Salter, Walter L. Sheldon, David Saville Muzzey, and Percival Chubb.  Their contributions continue to focus on religious concepts and the Ethical and moral reflections in literature,  social issues, and the care and education of children.

My attention was drawn to Adler's first contribution to the volume:  "Ethics and Culture" (pp. 1-16).  The "Culture" in Ethical Culture is a puzzling term in this century.  My interest was caught by this title along with the hope that clarification would be forthcoming, and, to some extent, it was.

The address was originally given at the Harvard Philosophical Club fifteen years prior (January 9, 1888) to this (re)publication.  Adler begins by noting that Ethics, as a concept is well defined in the literature, but Culture is less so.  He offers the common notion of Culture as a baseline:  "The marks of culture as commonly understood are three: literary taste, aesthetic sensibility, and fine manners" (p. 1). Then he dismisses that notion and several others before asserting that the notion of culture is an ethical notion, that is ". . . the laws by which we fashion this human world are called the ethical laws" (p. 8), and, a bit later, ". . . we must be strong enough to judge for ourselves what is right and live according to the leadings of our own reason" (p. 10).  Seeking to be cultured, Adler says we must work on our inner moral life without expecting perfection or indeed that we have all the information needed to guide us.  Instead, we are to act and, in the process, learn what the practical actions we pursue have to teach us--both when we are successful and when we fail.  Without Adler explicitly saying so, the implied meaning of culture does include the work of developing our inner selves with the aim of improving our own moral character, doing so, however, in community and through action.

"Ethics and Culture" was first published April 1888, according to M. G. Singer ("The History of Ethics," Ethics, 98, no. 3 [April 1988]), who determined that the lecture was the first article in the first issue of the Ethical Record, which was the predecessor of the International Journal of Ethics, which was the predecessor of Ethics.  I would need better access to an academic library to be able to retrace that path, but I hope to see relevant archives for the Ethical Record when next I am in New  York.  

Also of interest regarding this address is that it was given at the Harvard Philosophical Club at a time when W. E. B. Du Bois was a student at Harvard and a member of the Club (Du Bois, W. E. B. “A Negro Student at Harvard at the End of the 19th Century.” The Massachusetts Review 1, no. 3 (1960): 439–58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25086526).  Whether Du Bois attended this particular address or whether this address provided an initial link between the two men is an open question, but it does suggest potential pathways for their connection.  It also makes a later lecture in this same volume more troublesome even than it first seemed.

I always cringe when I see something written in earlier years that refers to "the Negro Problem."  Whatever I find always seems to imply that the "problem" is more the fault of Black folks for choosing to wear the wrong skin than it is the fault of non-Black folks for constructing a false division among humans because of skin color.  Perhaps I oversimplify, but I did cringe to see Salter's lecture--"The Negro Problem:  Is the Nation Going Backward?" (pp. 163-180) in the table of contents.  The question of the title would lead one to think that there will be less patronizing and, well, racist perspective here than the initial words suggest.  Salter does make an effort to assert the brotherhood of all humans, but he also immediately lapses into hierarchical thinking:  "Yes, there are advanced races, and there are backward races; there are civilized races and there are savage races ; there are white races and yellow races and brown races and black races ; but all alike are men — all alike belong to the greater brotherhood of the human race" (p. 164).  The lecture is in line with Ethical thinking regarding intrinsic human worth and includes some soaring passages expressing our shared commitment to that worth in every human being.  Even so, it is set very firmly in its time of writing and is freely larded with bias and stereotype and diminution of the very people it seeks to uphold as equal.  Again, it is not my purpose here to judge the values of the past by the values (and knowledge) of the present, so I must leave it others to place this lecture in its proper context for Ethical Culture. 

On a more bibliographic note, the promotional pages included in this volume led me to two more volumes of Ethical resources:

• Walter L. Sheldon, The Old Testament Bible Stories, as a Basis for the Ethical Instruction of the Young (1902).  Available online for free download from Archive.org.
• Stanton Coit (ed), The Message of Man:  A Book of Ethical Scriptures (1902).  Also available for free download from Archive. org.  

There were also promotions for Ethical Record and the International Journal of Ethics, both of which deserve more and separate attention.

Ethical Addresses - Ninth Series

A Silence Not Empty

The ninth volume of Ethical Addresses, published in 1902, includes 10 lectures by four leaders.  Felix Adler, Walter L. Sheldon, and William M. Salter each contributed 3 lectures, and a new leader, David Saville Muzzey, provided a single lecture.  

Intending to skim Salter's first lecture ("'Thy Commandment Is Exceeding Broad;' or, The Scope of Morality," pp. 1 -15), I encountered a sentence that made no sense.  It took a few minutes to see that two lines of type had been reversed in the printing of page 5.  This section of the lecture is referring to "'good, moral,' people." As printed, it reads:  

They are satisfied 
never be. They may die as they lived, simply respectable
 — and their satisfaction may be broken up and it may 
members of society.

 A few moments of study revealed the error.  The lines should be written as:  "They are satisfied--and their satisfaction may be broken up and it may never be.  They may die as they lived, simply respectable members of society." 

Having gained the meaning of that sentence, I was curious to continue reading the lecture, to see more of the direction that Salter was marking from his initial exegesis of Psalms 119:96.  His trail, if I may call it that, passed by those "good, moral people" who live blameless lives as respectable members of society but fail to pay attention to improving the virtue of their private selves; moving on to those who focus on their private morality and, in some cases, future hope of reward but fail to apply themselves to making this world a better place; and finally noting that those who focus on social justice and change may fail to address their personal lives in ways to bring themselves in line with the better world that they seek to shape.  In passing by these people, Salter praised them all for the good that they practiced, whether publicly or privately, but he challenged their narrow point of view.  He interpreted the message of the psalmist to suggest that there is no one best way to be moral because our world, our universe, is so broad and endless.  Salter seemed to be suggesting that that vastness is our mandate to take a broader approach to morality and engage in both personal and public spheres to develop excellence and justice in all ways.

The tension which Salter reveals between our public and private selves and between our desire for self-development and community action is still present today in Ethical Culture.  Active discussions in the AEU, 121 years after Salter's lecture was published, include ongoing debates concerning whether our focus should be on social justice or on changing our attitudes and understandings instead.  Salter's everything, everywhere (but maybe not all at once) approach would fit right in.

Other lectures in this series focus on marriage, children, religious teachers and systems of belief.  David Saville Muzzey makes his debut with "The Ethics of the New Testament" (pp. 149-170).  Adler raises two ethical questions in regard to the Philippine War (p.171):

1. Is it treason to condemn a war waged by our country while the war is still in progress?

2. Are civilized nations justified in adopting uncivilized methods of warfare?

One other lecture--Adler's "The Moral Value of Silence" (pp. 77-92) also caught my attention as I was considering what graphic could be used to highlight this volume of lectures.  As I focused on "silence," I read this passage at the conclusion of Adler's talk:

Out of the silence have we come, and into the silence shall we pass. A silence not empty, but, like the star-sown canopy of night, replete with light, and power, and law. Vainly, as I think, do men seek to frame the meaning of the Universe into a word. Let us desist from such useless efforts. Let us deepen in ourselves the sense of the infinitude and the majesty of it all, and revere the radiant mystery in a silence like its own!

It took less than a moment to grasp how refreshing it would be to sit for a while with that "silence not empty." 

Nonetheless, here is a final note for the Ninth Series, which inaugurates the practice of promoting other publications by Ethical Culture leaders and a directory of the existing Ethical Culture Societies.  Happily the listed publications are also available online through various sources and will be added to the Bibliography.

• The Moral Instruction of Children By Felix Adler.
• Creed and Deed By Felix Adler. 
• Ethical Religion By W. M. Salter. 
• Anarchy or Government By William M. Salter. 
• An Ethical Movement By Walter L. Sheldon. 
• An Ethical Sunday -School A Scheme of Moral Instruction for the Young. By Walter L. Sheldon. 

Ethical Addresses - Seventh Series

The Seventh Series of Ethical Addresses, published in 1901, included lectures from Felix Adler (1), William M. Salter (3), Walter L. Sheldon (4), and Percival Chubb (2). The lectures range from philosophy (Marcus Aurelius to socialism) to literature (Ruskin to Kipling) to practical matters related to self-culture clubs in St. Louis with a special bonus review of the Nineteenth Century as the Twentieth Century begins. 

Walter L. Sheldon's two-part "sketch" of the history of the Wage-Earners' Self-Culture Clubs of St. Louis (pp. 39-78) is a noteworthy contribution both to the history and the philosophy of Ethical Culture. The idea of self-culture--personal development--is central to the Movement founded by Felix Adler.  The self-culture clubs of St. Louis reflected motives similar to those that inspired the settlement work in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere.  Sheldon is careful to explain how St. Louis differed from those areas and how it is less suited to the solutions offered through settlement houses.  Instead he details the genesis and inspiration of the self-culture clubs, emphasizing that the goal for the clubs was personal development without any religious proselytization and without the element of training for economic advancement.  The clubs depended on hundreds of volunteers and became well respected in the larger community of St. Louis.  Sheldon adds the practical reasons for legally incorporating the clubs as entities separate from ECSSL, matters of governance and funding, and detailed examples of programming.  Readers today may find interest both in the historical record that Sheldon presents and a model that can be applied--with a few updates--to current needs for community engagement in other cities that are home to Ethical Culture Societies.

Although the St. Louis clubs began with programs for men, they did eventually include programming for women and youth.  Sheldon admits that the racial history of St. Louis, a city located at a point of strategic value in the US Civil War and divided in its loyalties throughout the war, added difficulties in providing similar clubs for "the large colored element of St. Louis."  He does, however, note that doing so would be "the next step, probably," indicating awareness of need and a desire to serve the whole community of "wage-earners" in St. Louis.

Another notable lecture from Sheldon was delivered on "the last Sunday of the Nineteenth Century," presumably also in St. Louis.  His "A Survey of the Nineteenth Century" is an eye-opening review of the accomplishments of a century that Sheldon nonetheless asserts was not a creative age.  Instead, he argued that the 19C was a period of reaping the seeds that were sewn in previous centuries in science, philosophy, etc.  (Hence the self-rake reaper shown above.)  This reaping included the expansion and development of democracy, scholarship that established the Bible as literature, application of the principles of evolution, development of the novel, and on to the applied arts that led to so many inventions.  Sheldon likened the product of earlier centuries to great thinkers with great ideas, but the 19C proved more powerful by the spread of those ideas to the many.  His analogy with the growth of a coral island made that notion of the strength of multitudes even more vivid.  Sheldon's conclusion about the 19C, however, sounds an alarm:

The first effect of the mighty achievements of the nineteenth century has been to set up such a worship of the body-side of life, such a care for physical comfort, for the good things of life, as they are called, for the surface-side, for external pleasures, the play-side of life, that the spirit of man or in man has been in a process of decay. In a sense, this has been the most unspiritual age for the last two thousand years.  

Sheldon ends his survey with hope but also a clear call for more attention and care for the "spirit-side" of life.   

Ethical Addresses -- Sixth Series Continued

 

Enid Stacy (Widdrington)

The non-Adler articles included in the Sixth Series of Ethical Addresses (1900) were written by Leaders of the Western Societies in Chicago and St. Louis, with the exception of a new voice from England:  Enid Stacy Widdrington.

William M. Salter, founder of the Chicago Society,  provides a platform delivered to multiple Societies in existence at that time (St. Louis, Chicago, and Philadelphia):  "The First Thing in Life," pp. 1-16.  He also provided a set on two "opposing" analyses of Walt Whitman:  "The Great Side of Walt Whitman" (pp. 121-144) and "The Questionable Side of Walt Whitman" (pp. 145-166) as well as lecture on "The New Militarism" (pp. 85-104).  The latter lamented the rising pressure from religious and economic leaders to the arm the US in anticipation of greater involvement in expansionist actions.

Walter L. Sheldon, founder of the St Louis Society, contributed a two-part summary of a series of eight lectures originally titled "The Bible from the Standpoint of the Higher Criticism" as well as a single platform--"Why Prosperity Does Not Always Bring Happiness" (pp. 167-186).  NB:  As gloomy as the latter may sound, Sheldon's recommendation is to be more temperate in one's expectations.  "Money can buy a certain degree of happiness," Sheldon says, "But money cannot guarantee happiness."

The new voice that Enid Stacy (Widdrington) provides for Ethical Addresses is the experienced voice of a British activist and lecturer.  She provides an interesting history of the issues arising from the strategic importance of the southern tip of Africa to colonial commercial and military ventures.  Widdrington's clear and detailed recital of the history of settlement and government in southern Africa point, at the time of a rebellious war in that area, to the role of the British government in making peace impossible.  Her lecture on "The Moral Issues of the Transvaal Question" leads ultimately to an expression of hope for a British victory, but one which is worthy of the higher values of her countrymen:  

The only kind of British supremacy I care for is that my country may lead the world, not in territorial expansion, military strength or commercial greatness, but in the purity and honor of its government, the happiness of its citizens, the high character and ennobling influence of its civilization. If with these qualities, and by means of them, comes imperial expansion, well and good. It will mean that countries are attracted to our flag by respect for our laws and desire for our protection. If we degrade the higher and nobler elements in our civilization by love of power, greed for gold and the desire to outstrip trade rivals, such supremacy is not worth fighting for.

The lecture was given on November 12, 1899, at the Philadelphia Society, two months into the Second Boer War, which did not end until May 31, 1902.

Ethical Addresses - Series Five

 Series Five (published 1899) was added to the Bibliography more than a year ago, but I had to set further work on the project aside while I undertook other duties on behalf of the American Ethical Union.  I am grateful, at last, to return to this much loved project and my hope to compile a Bibliography fit to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Ethical Culture on May 15, 2026.

The fifth volume of Ethical Addresses adds one new writer to the table of contents (Percival Chubb) and includes several lengthy studies that extend for two or three articles.  These include Adler's work on the discipline of children, Salter on the value of the Bible, and Sheldon on the plan of the Sunday School.  Individual contributions come from Adler ("The Ethical Culture Society as the Meeting Ground of Jew and Gentile"), Salter ("A New Nation and a New Duty"), as well as Chubb ("The Conservative and Liberal Aspects of Ethical Religion").

Chubb was a founding member of the Fabian Society in London and soon after a member of the Ethical Society there.  When he immigrated to the US, he eventually became an associate Leader for the New York Society for Ethical Culture (1897 - 1910) and then senior Leader for the Ethical Culture Society of St. Louis (1911 - 1932).  After his retirement, he served as President of the American Ethical Union from 1934 to 1939.  

Looking for a copyright-free picture of Chubb, I did run across this blog post about his early efforts to reform the "comic supplement," about which, he opined, there is "no single influence that is poisoning America at the fountain sources more than the so-called comic supplement.” [“The ‘Comic’ Nuisance,” The Outlook, March 6, 1909, pp. 527-529.  Authorship is not attributed in the journal itself, so it is yet to be confirmed.]

Adler's work, The Punishment of Children, was published by Abingdon Press (New York, 1920) as one volume.  It is available as a reprint from multiple publishers through Amazon.  Scanned copies are available for free download from Project Gutenberg as well as from Google Books.

Ethical Addresses, Series Two (1896) - Part I

Series Two!  It's beginning to feel like the Bibliography for Ethical Culture project might become a reality, but Series Two also introduces some new bibliographic and style issues.  At the moment there are also the logistical issues of where to put the Bibliography for public access, whether to continue entering the citations in a Word document or consider some other editing platform, how to involve more participants in the project, and so on.  For now, I'll stick to the bibliographic work itself and think about logistics tomorrow at Tara.

The bibliographic entries are organized by author's last name.  I have avoided (but not ignored) the convention of using a line in place of the author's last name to show the second and subsequent articles to indicate that all are written by the same author.  Because, for example, Felix Adler will show up on the bibliography many times, there is as yet no way to know which will be the first entry from which all others will derive their status as secondary publications.  At the moment, it seems easier to avoid the question and enter the author's name.  If there comes a day when we (I hope there's a "we") will want to add that line in place of last names, it will, no doubt, be a massive project to do so.  Perhaps a little hassle now would be worth avoiding that project?

I am also adding a List of Authors as I work through the various volumes of the series.  As unfamiliar as many of us seem to be with EC history, it may be that, through the accumulation of these author's names, we will learn more of the associations and interactions that served the early days of the Movement.  

In Series Two, we have the same contributors as for Series One:  Felix Adler, M. M. Mangasarian, William M. Salter, and W. L. Sheldon.  However, a new set of authors is listed as having spoken at a memorial service for Octavius Brooks Frothingham.  While I have been unable to locate any information (in a very brief internet search) that shows a direct link to Ethical Culture, Frothingham was the first President of the Free Religious Association.  Felix Adler and Ralph Waldo Emerson also were active in this association as were other members the Ethical Culture Movement.  In addition to Adler, Edmund C. Stedman, George Haven Putnam, and George C. Barrett also gave eulogies.  Adler shared the platform with a poet/critic, a publisher, and a New York Supreme Court Justice.  One cannot but wonder at the discussions these men would have shared in the years before this occasion, whether and how their associations continued.  

The graphic above shows an earlier political cartoon (Thomas Nast) lampooning the FRA and Frothingham (upper right).  I added Emerson (bottom) and Adler (upper left) to suggest connections.  Emerson's transcendentalism is also skewered by Nast's cartoon.  The text of the cartoon reads:

Principles of the Free Religious Association

No churches free from taxation

No churches at all

No Bibles in public schools

No Bibles anyway

No chaplains for the prisons, Army or Navy

No creed

No faith

No nothing 

The cartoon was published three years before Adler's Founding Address, so it is an anachronism to associate him with the cartoon, but I think it is fair to remind ourselves that Ethical Culture also drew some criticisms not so long afterwards. 

The record of Frothingham's memorial service marks an early departure in the larger series from including only platforms.  In later issues of Ethical Addresses, we will see reports of other memorial services, some celebrations, and some business meetings.  This issue is also noteworthy for the inclusion of three articles previously published in journals or pamphlets.

There's more yet to say about Series Two, but I will save that for next week, by which time I hope also to have found an online home for the Bibliography. 

Ethical Addresses - First Series - 1895

 

Ethical Addresses was a serial publication presented by the American Ethical Union.  The AEU was formed in 1889, 13 years after Felix Adler's Founding Address, which established the New York Society for Ethical Culture.  In those intervening years, three additional Societies were founded in Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Chicago.  The Leaders for each of these three newer Societies apprenticed under the supervision of Adler in New York and then set out to found their own Societies in those cities.  In 1889, they formed the Union, and in 1895 they began assembling an annual series of volumes which collected selected platforms (speeches) given by the Leaders.  

The First Series, published in 1895, included three essays each by Felix Adler (New York) and William M. Salter (Philadelphia) and two essays each by Walter L Sheldon (St. Louis) and M. M. Mangasarian (Chicago).  The topics tend to cluster around general questions of religion and philosophy and where Ethical Culture fits in.  I have yet to read all of these essays, but I expect there will be some interesting variations among the different Leaders' viewpoints and our thinking in the present day.  I personally find it interesting to consider where we began, with the emphasis on idealism, and how we've changed, with more emphasis on pragmatism.  Naturalism in one form or another does seem to have endured.  

Two essays struck me as different from the others, so I've read them first.  One, by Adler, was "Prayer and Worship."  I rather expected that Adler would have condemned both prayer and worship as futile, there being no evidence of a deity and Adler himself urging us to put creed aside for the sake of common action.  His Founding Address, moreover, had emphasized that our Ethical Culture meetings would be "simple and devoid of all ceremonial and formalism."  In the same address, he added:

We propose to entirely exclude prayer and every form of ritual. Thus shall we avoid even the appearance of interfering with those to whom prayer and ritual, as a mode of expressing religious sentiment, are dear. [Emphasis added.]

I have seen nothing in any Ethical Culture Society meeting that I have attended (so far) that sounds like prayer or smacks of worship.  Adler surprised me in this platform.  He did find some space for both prayer and worship--as functions--within Ethical Culture, and what he came up with might even have qualified as religious experience to John Dewey.  In any case, I found it a lovely way to accept those concepts into Ethical Culture.

The second essay, by Mangasarian, is an interesting and sometimes practical discussion of "Teaching and Teachers."  Coming from a family of teachers and having some experience in the area myself, I was curious to see what Magasarian had to say.  As expected, there were some attitudes that fit in well with the period, including comments about women teachers and their need to be, well, more ladylike.  He did, however, make some very astute comments about both the value of education and the degree to which informal behaviors become lasting influences.  I'll probably read it again for the sake of its relevance to current discussions about education, the role of parents, and the influence of religion and politics on a, presumably, areligious and apolitical institution.

With this First Series came an immediate set of questions related to bibliographic style and the logistics of the project.

• Ethical Addresses is a serial.  It is an annual collection of speeches by different authors.  There is no named editor.  I am using the Chicago style for bibliographic entries, citing both the individual volumes of the series and each essay title as separate entries. 

         Author Last Name, First M. "Chapter or Essay Title." In Book Title, edited by First M. Last Name, page range.     Place of Publication: Publisher, date.

• Ethical Addresses is long out of copyright.  The entire series has been "digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from Microsoft Corporation."  All of the volumes are available in the Internet Archive (archive.org), some from multiple scan sources.  The First Series can be seen here.  The entire volume can be downloaded in PDF and other formats to read offline.
• It is possible with current technology to extract individual articles from the original volume.  I have, for my personal use, extracted both the Adler and Mangasarian articles discussed above so that I can look at them more closely to refer to them in my writing.  I would be interested to discuss the ethics of reposting those or other articles on a different website might be.  
• The First Series (and others in the series) has been reprinted from the Internet Archive scans by Leopold Classic Library and can be ordered on Amazon and other sources.

Next week I hope to have found a home for the bibliography so that others can use it as a resource.  Each iteration will be dated to reflect its current status (later dates will reflect more entries having been added).  I have begun adding the entries for Series Two; One and Three are completed; the background research on authors and subjects may take a bit more time to complete.