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.

Carnegie Lectures and Ethical Addresses

Octavius Frothingham, NYSEC Member

One step in determining whether and what to publish from the body of lectures presented at Carnegie Hall (1894 -1896) is checking whether an individual address has already been published elsewhere.  Using keywords to search between the list of Carnegie Lectures and a summary of the Contents of Ethical Record and Ethical Addresses, I have identified 9 Carnegie lectures that may have been published in EA&ER.  

1.    December 2, 1894, Felix Adler delivered the address "Prayer and Worship" at Carnegie Hall.  The same address was published in Ethical Addresses in 1895, First Series, pp. 159-176.

2.    February 17, 1895, William M. Salter delivered the address "The Ethics of Agnosticism" at Carnegie Hall.  The same address was published in Ethical Addresses, Second Series (1896), as "Ethical Agnosticism" (pp. 49-64).  

3.     April 14, 1895, Felix Adler delivered the address "The Teachings of Jesus" at Carnegie Hall.  An address with a similar title was published in Ethical Addresses, Sixth Series (1900), i.e., "The Teachings of Jesus in the Modern World," pp. 105-120.  The latter, however, carried the footnote that its text is from "An Easter discourse before the Society for Ethical Culture of New York, April 2nd, 1899."  A comparison of these texts might prove interesting.  Indeed, given the number of addresses that focus on the life, teaching, or ethics of Jesus given by various speakers and published over the years in various publications associated with the Movement, I daresay an article on "Four (or More) Ethical Views of Jesus" would be just as interesting as an indication of how thought has evolved--or not--regarding Jesus.

4.    November 24, 1895, Felix Adler delivered the address "The Attitude of the Modern Mind Toward the Belief in God" at Carnegie Hall.  An address (actually a compilation of three addresses) was published in Ethical Addresses, Tenth Series (1903) with the title "Changes in the Conception of God" (pp. 47-90).  A closer examination will be needed to determine whether the earlier address in incorporated into the later article or, indeed, whether and/or how Adler's thinking may have evolved over the years between these addresses.

5.    December 8, 1895, Edmund C. Stedman, George Haven Putnam, George C. Barrett, and Felix Adler provided addresses in honor of Octavius Brooks Frothingham at Carnegie Hall. The same addresses were published as "Octavius Brooks Frothingham Memorial Exercises" in Ethical Addresses, Second Series (1896), pp. 169 - 194. Reported in the New York Times on December 9, 1895, p. 6.

6.  January 5, 1896, Felix Adler delivered the address "The Monroe Doctrine and the War Spirit in the United States" at Carnegie Hall.  The same address was published in Ethical Addresses, Third Series (1897) pp. 1-20.  Reported in the New York Times (December 3, 1896), p. 3.

7.    May 10, 1896, Felix Adler, along with Camille Solomons and John Lovejoy Elliott, delivered the "Anniversary Exercises" at Carnegie Hall.  This address was followed by additional "exercises," also at Carnegie Hall on Friday, May 15.  The evening ceremony featured addresses by Alfred R. Wolff, William M. Salter, and M. M. Mangasarian as well as Adler.  The May 15 addresses were published in Ethical Addresses, Third Series (1897), pp. 99-116.  However, no typescript for these addresses seems to be included in the collection for Carnegie Hall.  Reported in the New York Times on May 16, 1896, p. 5.

8.    December 26, 1896, Felix Adler delivered the address "The Spiritual Meaning of Marriage" at Carnegie Hall.  A revised version of this address is published in Ethical Addresses, Sixth Series (1900), pp. 17-36.  Again, a textual comparison might prove interesting.

Since Ethical Addresses was being published at the same time as the Ethical Record before being merged into a single serial, both were succeeded by The Standard, and various books and collections of addresses were also being published around this period, more research is yet needed to confirm the publication history of these addresses.  At this point, my focus is on pushing forward with the Bibliography and entering the Carnegie Lectures.  More volunteers to assist in the publication research would be quite welcome!

Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record 18 (1911)

The 18th Series of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record was published in 1911.  A substantial portion of the volume was devoted to the speeches offered at the dedication of the Meeting House of the New York Society for Ethical Culture.  Another substantial portion of the volume includes discussion of moral education and actual lessons for the mid-primary grades.  As well there is news of the Ethical Summer School, the Universal Races Conference, and other initiatives.  

The dedication of the NYSEC Meeting House is covered in three parts (history of the project, dedication for ethical and religious purposes, dedication for civic uses) with multiple speeches, poems, and descriptions of the music and symbolic activities.  Bibliographic issues arise in how to document the varied sections and credit the speakers.  In the end, I used the three parts listed above and cited the various parts under "No Author."  The pagination was not consecutive over the various issues of this volume; the binding of the volume scanned for the Internet Library placed them together (but out of order from the remainder of the volume).

One address that caught my attention was William Mackintyre Salter's "The Culture of the Moral Nature" (199-214).  This address had originally been given in 1883 but recently "rewritten" to be given again before the Societies in Chicago, St. Louis, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and New York.  Salter takes time to explore the meaning of "ethical" and "culture" before he focuses on the difference between action that is for one's own benefit or for one's fellow human--the latter being inherently more moral than anything one does for oneself.  He then talks about the "shape" of morality--wherein does it manifest itself?--as he talks about truth (and keeping truth, or faithfulness), mercy (or pity) manifesting as charity, and public spirit.  In the latter, Salter talks very pointedly about public policies that have a negative effect on the community and the lack of public spirit that might otherwise inspire Ethicals to challenge those policies (and thereby grow in their own moral nature!).  It doesn't take much to read this address as clear justification for contemporary Ethical Action and greater involvement in the world around us.

In addition, Henry Moskowitz' address on "The Moral Challenge of the Industrial Struggle" (223-241) bears some further investigation by those interested in the early influence of Ethical Culture on public policy.  He mentions the establishment of a Joint Board of Sanitary Control, "suggested by one of the members of our Society" (p. 233).  This Board appears to be an early attempt to investigate and establish standards for worker health and safety.  It would be interesting to know how deeply members of the Society became involved in this work.

On a sadder note, two reports by Anna Garlin Spencer appear to mark her exit from this serial.  She reported on the Summer School of Ethics (23-32, 242-247) and gave an address at the Summer School on "The Need for Schools of Ethics" (1-12).  Having read elsewhere that she may have felt constrained by the narrow role that Felix Adler allowed her to play in the Ethical Society and left the Society around this time, I checked the final volumes in Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record and see no further items listed to her credit.  That discovery led me to look further for her work, since so little is evident at this point in my research into Ethical Culture.  I found, with help from Hathi Trust and the Internet Library a lengthy trail to AGS and the "social housekeeping" movement (related to the Sanitary Board described in Moskowitz' address?) as well as an extensive body of work by her and about her.  

Regarding the two covers included in this bound copy which show lists of books and pamphlets, almost everything listed has been shown in the Bibliography as it was published separately or in Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record.  Several addresses that were part of a memorial or anniversary program have not been listed separately in the Bibliography.  Without seeing the pamphlet listed as "O. B. Frothingham--Memorial Address," for example, we cannot know whether the pamphlet includes only Felix Adler's address on that occasion or the entire body of the memorial program.  A similar situation exists for the pamphlet listed for "Twentieth Anniversary of the Society for Ethical Culture of New York"  Some pamphlets show changes in titles from what was published in EA&ER:

• "The International Ethical Congress" may be "The Recent Congress of American and European Ethical Societies at Zurich" from the Third Series;
• "Our Hopes for the Twentieth Century" is published as "Our Hopes for Humanity in the Twentieth Century" in the Eighth Series;
• "The Moral Value of Science," an apparent typo, continues to be listed rather than "The Moral Value of Silence," published in the Ninth Series; and
• "Immortality:  Whence and Whither?" seems to be "A Modern Scientist's Answer to the Questions:  Whence and Whither?" published in the Twelfth Series.

I had quite a search to locate Percival Chubb's "Ruskin's Message to Our Time."  Without belaboring the drama of the hunt nor the nobility of my own perseverance, I found the address--all two parts of it--in the Seventh Series of Ethical Addresses, published in 1901.  I was entering the addresses from this volume in the Bibliography in the summer of 2022, but something seems to have distracted me from the work enough to completely omit most of them!  Once I finally located Chubb's address(es) on Ruskin, I checked all of the entries for that volume (and they are all now fully entered).  Ironically, I blogged at length about addresses from Walter L. Sheldon in the Seventh Series and never posted those items in the Bibliography--before now.  Clearly this work needs more eyes as well as more hands.

Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record -- Series 17

Stanton Coit, c. 1906.

Series 17 of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record, published in 1910, brings both changes and reprints, new and old.  For the "new," the editors seem to have created a separate section for the items that would, in the past, have been published in The Ethical Record.  The new section is called "Record Supplement" and includes reports, reading lists, and sample ceremonies for Ethical Societies.  

The reprints include the opening item--an excerpt from Stanton Coit's book, National Idealism and a State Church, A Constructive Essay in Religion--meant to familiarize American members of Ethical Culture in anticipation of Coit's impending visit to the US.  Looking for Coit's book, I found a review in the International Journal of Ethics.  

Another book excerpt is reprinted from William M. Salter's Ethical Religion:  "Why Unitarianism Does Not Satisfy Us" (105-126).  In a later number, this statement was offered as an attempt to soothe ruffled feelings in the Unitarian community:

By an unfortunate oversight, a footnote was omitted from the first page of Mr. Salter's "Why Unitarianism Does Not Satisfy Us," which formed the December issue of Ethical Addresses, stating that it was a reprint from Mr. Salter's volume entitled "Ethical Religion." As a consequence several communications from Unitarian ministers were received, protesting against the republication of a criticism which, even if it had been warranted twenty years ago, was no longer justifiable. We are anxious that no injustice should be done, and are, therefore, glad of the opportunity to print the following article from the pen of the Rev. Minot Simons, of the Church of the Unity in Cleveland: . . . (p. 178).

Oddly, I had some difficulty locating an address in the contents of Ethical Religion that matches Salter's title. A keyword search of the volume did not produce a single instance of the word "Unitarianism," apparently giving us yet another mystery, a reference to a missing address.  As it turns out, Ethical Religion was published in Boston in 1889 and in London in 1905.  The Boston edition included the controversial reprint (pp. 266-286) as well as another address ("Good Friday from a Modern Standpoint," pp. 227-243) that the London edition omits.  I was looking at the wrong edition!

Indeed, it took some searching online before I figured out the edition problem, but, happily, that search led me to some additional secondary sources that provide both commentary and context for the intersection of Salter, Unitarianism, and Ethical Culture.

• Baker, Ray Stannard[?].  "The Spiritual Unrest: The Faith of the Unchurched," 1909, Sept.  Ray Stannard Baker Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division.  https://lccn.loc.gov/mm78011593.
• Kittelstrom, Amy.  The Religion of Democracy:  Seven Liberals and the American Moral Tradition.  New York:  Penguin, 2015.
• Weisenberger, Francis P.  Ordeal of Faith:  The Crisis of Church-Going America, 1865-1900.  New York:  Philosophical Library, 1959.

The latter is available online through the Internet Library and can be checked out by the hour.

A final reprint, "The Catholicity of the Ethical Movement," by Charles Callaway, comes from a more recent issue of The Ethical World (London), and seems also to draw a rebuttal.  Callaway argues that Ethical Culture should focus on growth rather than social justice (203-206).  A later number of EA&ER includes a statement from the Ethical Societies in England to the effect that they should instead be deeply involved in the issues of the day and lists a broad range of stands to be taken (votes for women, but no marriage/children for "imbeciles") (252-256).  

The Seventeenth Series includes a number of addresses and articles that continue to define, so to speak,  Ethical Culture.

• Felix Adler offers another description of an Ethical Society as well as "A New Type of Religious Leader";
• Percival Chubb addresses the First Congress of the National Federation of Religious Liberals and asserts "The Spirit of Ethical Fellowship"; and
• Alfred W. Martin lists the "Cardinal Points on Which Ethical Societies Are Agreed."

In addition, Adler delivered an address about his year as Roosevelt Exchange Professor in Berlin (a mission of peace), Chubb discussed the ethics of Thomas Carlyle and Matthew Arnold, and Nathaniel Schmidt looked at Dante's ethics.   On a practical note, John Lovejoy Elliott spoke of housing conditions in New York and argued for a concrete solution.

For anyone interested in the history of thought in Ethical Culture--or even the history of its various unions and alliances--this volume seems like a good waypoint in the research.

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 Fourteen - Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record

Ed Porter Explaining the Importance of Archives

I've now had a chance to see the originals of some of the items to be included in the Bibliography, and it was quite interesting, especially when the originals had not yet been bound together into a large volume.  These small sections devoted to inspirational readings or music were originally separate books that could be tucked into a pocket or purse.  Seeing the originals in the archives of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture (thank you, Ed Porter and Team for allowing me to join you for a couple of hours) and in the Adler Study and general archives at the New York Society for Ethical Culture also gave me a better sense of the magnitude of the task.  "We're gonna need a bigger boat" doesn't begin to touch it!  Still it was wonderful to meet all the folks who are involved in preserving the archives of Ethical Culture.  I know there are others that I have yet to meet--and I look forward to doing so.  I will write more about the project and potential plans for the work as they develop.  In the meantime, this part of the project continues.

Series Fourteen of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record (EA&ER) continues the transformation of that AEU publication into an omnibus for development of thought about Ethical Culture, practical discussions of moral education for children and youth, and documentation of the progress and development of the Movement.  As well, this volume includes an independent section of inspirational verse, widespread focus on international strife and hopes for peace, and the full constitutions of the International Union of Ethical Societies and the American Ethical Union (with a bonus listing of the officers of the AEU on p. 314).  Promotional listings of additional printed material are included on pages 142 and 286.

The AEU held a conference, entitled "The Moral Education of the Child," May, 1907.  Three presentations from that conference were included in the final issue of EA&ER for that year.  James H. Leuba contributed a discussion of the moral nature of the child; Alice L. Seligsberg reported on moral instruction in the public schools; Robert A. Woods commented on ethical construction as part of Ethical instruction.

Another set of entries focused on "The Russian Situation," with two speeches by Alexis Aladin and Nicholas Tchaykovsky with that title.  The speeches are prefaced thusly:

[The following addresses by Alexis Aladin, leader of
the peasants, and member of the Group of Toil in the first
Duma, and Nicholas Tchaykovsky, were given before the
Philadelphia Ethical Society, Sunday, March 17th, just
after a lecture by Mr. William M. Salter, of Chicago, on
"The Russian Revolution." Mr. Salter's lecture will be
printed in the April number of the International Journal
of Ethics.]

Salter's lecture, in IJE 17/3 (1907), is available through JSTOR.  In that lecture, he explained why he felt that a revolution--like those in France and colonial America--was needed in Russia, leading to a democratic government and new hope for those then oppressed by the Czar.

One additional point of interest in this volume:  David Saville Muzzey was at this point in his career on the verge of becoming a major influence in the US by virtue of the high school history textbooks that he would publish.  These books would eventually dominate the entire nation as means of educating youth in the the history of their country.  That these books were racist in their orientation toward Native Americans and former enslaved persons should not take away from the Muzzey's contributions to the thought and practice of Ethical Culture.  Except they do.  It is hard to read his lecture ("Three Hundred Years of English Settlement in America") without sensing the taint of what is unspoken in his praise of "the glorious freedom of such a faith" (as Ethical Culture) and cringing.

And, finally, there are the Constitutions.  That of the AEU mirrors that of the IUES in several ways, most notably as to "Objects":

AEU Constitution, 1907

The AEU General Aim says "any," the IUES General Aim says "all" when referring to "theological and metaphysical considerations."  In Special Aims, the two organizations refer to their specific geographical areas (the US vs. the world), and IUES takes on the additional task for its (g):  "To maintain an International Ethical Library."  Otherwise the two organizations share the same General and Special Aims on different scales.

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.] 

Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record - Series Twelve

Series 12, Partial Table of Contents

Series Twelve of Ethical Addresses (published in 1905) makes a significant departure from previous volumes in several dimensions.  With this issue, two publications, Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record are combined (with an appropriate name change to Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record).  Page 44 invites readers to purchase the "Farewell Edition" of Ethical Record; page 80 lists the contents of that volume.  The Table of Contents lists the contents by the author/contributor last name but does not consistently list those items in the order of printing.  (This practice continues for the remainder of the series.)

The Ethical Record was a quarterly publication of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, edited by Percival Chubb, independently published from April, 1888, until the last issue in December, 1904.  The Hathi Trust shows digital copies of the first two (or three?) volumes available from multiple libraries.  The Internet Archive shows several volumes digitized and available for download.  Does NYSEC have more records of this serial? 

The twelfth issue of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record (ES&ER) also includes notice of a change in reporting from the International Ethical Union.  In "The Ethical Movement in Various Countries" (pp. 167-180), Gustav Spiller (Secretary of the International Ethical Union) reports that, to reduce the costs of a separate publication in three languages, the IEU would begin sending its reports to the various "Ethical Centres" for publication in their local journals and newsletters.  Spiller then reported on the activities of Ethical Societies in the US, England, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, Italy, New Zealand, and Japan.

A substantial portion of the volume is given over to a resource and guide for Ethical meetings created by William M. Salter:  "Moral Aspiration and Song" (pp. 245-324).  This sections includes readings for meditation, opening and closing words, responsive readings, and songs (with music).

On Sunday, January 1, 1905, three scholars addressed the Philadelphia Ethical Society from their diverse professional perspectives on the same topic:  "The Ethical and Religious Outlook."

• Professor James H. Leuba (then at Bryn Mawr) was known for his work on the psychology of religion.  His message on the shared topic was that, since the advance of scientific knowledge had rather thoroughly disproved the existence of a "transcendent" and "immanent" god, humankind would be much harmed if there no substitute for the "constant friend" on which so many had come to depend.  Leuba argued that belief in god needed to be replaced, and that we have a duty to step into the gap created by science with the moral support needed by our fellow humans:

The "divine" duty now falls upon the individual, the family, and society at large. It belongs to them to so perfect themselves, to so organize their boundless physical and moral resources as to multiply steadfast and intelligent friendships, to generate a broad and deep confidence in the benevolent righteousness of their intentions and in their inexhaustive power. Physical want, absence of sympathy, moral isolation, and the varied unsatisfied cravings of a yearning soul, are to find their remedy in human fellowship and in varied social activities. (p. 149)

Leuba specifically identifies Ethical Societies as capable of filling these needs.

• Dickinson S. Miller (then at Columbia University) was known for his focus on the philosophy of mind and his criticism of William James.  His message highlighted contemporary changes that he saw in Christian belief and practice, arguing that the ethics of Christianity would make a welcome partner for interfaith action with the Ethical Society.  

• Morris Jastrow, Jr. (University of Pennsylvania) was known for his work in Eastern language philosophy, and history.  Jastrow's message looked at the ongoing war between Russia and Japan (1904-1905) and the ethics of combatants:  ". . . we are indeed entering on an era when higher ethical standards will be adopted in framing an international policy" (p. 160).  Pivoting to the outlook for religion, Jastrow saw an increased emphasis on ethics in contemporary religions and gave a nod to Adler in that regard:  

The career of this leader furnishes perhaps the greatest source of hopefulness for the ethical and religious outlook, for his achievements demonstrate that the world is as ready to listen to-day as it always has been to the teacher whose lips have been unsealed by the touch of the divine seraph, and whose fiery words, proceeding like swift arrows directly to our hearts, have the genuine ring of the prophet, inspired by the sense of the responsibility of each individual for his life and the life of others. (p. 166)

In addition to the above, two other new contributors are included in this volume:

• John Lovejoy Elliott - then an Associate Leader and Superintendent of the NYSEC Sunday-school; 
• Zona Vallance - erstwhile Secretary of the Union of Ethical Societies (England).

Finally, the promotional inserts (pp. 44, 80, 212, and 244) lead to more entries for the Bibliography.  Of special interest are the lists of individual lectures by Felix Adler and William M. Salter, which had been printed as separate pamphlets and available by mail order or at the library tables of their respective Societies during Sunday meetings.  Many of the lectures on these lists can be determined to have been published in ES&ER, but others had not been so published as of 1905.  One hopes that copies of these lectures have been sequestered in the archives of of NYSEC and Philadelphia (if not Chicago) and, if located, digitized for greater access.

Now, really finally, I note that my personal attention was snagged by Adler's lecture, "Shall Ostracism be Used by Religious Societies in the Struggle Against Public Iniquity?" (pp. 181-202).  TBH, I thought it looked like Adler would be giving early support to cancel culture, but he surprised me.  (Don't scold.  I'm still getting to know the guy.  He's actually full of surprises.)

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 Four (Still) - 1898

W. Sanford Evans

Series Four of Ethical Addresses, published in 1898, starts out with a problem.  That is, my source for these volumes, the Internet Archive, has all 21 volumes of the series, "Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from Microsoft Corporation."  This particular volume skips directly from the table of contents to page 2 of the text, omitting the first page of William M. Salter's platform:  "The Cause of Ethics."  A better scan of the volume is needed.  (No doubt this statement will be repeated at we progress through the Bibliography.)

Several new authors appear in the Fourth Series:  S. Burns Weston, W. Sanford Evans, F. W. Foerster,  and Morris Jastrow, Jr.  I have already written a bit about the "adventures" of tracking down information about Foerster and the bibliographic rabbit trails that I followed in learning more about him.  The adventures continue.

• S. Burns Weston (1855 - 1936) appears in the Bibliography as the publisher of Ethical Addresses through the eleventh volume.  Weston helped found the Philadelphia Ethical Society in 1885 and served there as clergy leader.  He edited the International Journal of Ethics from its founding in 1890 until 1914.  An editorial in Ethics, the successor to IJE, sets the founding date in 1888 and actually identifies Ethical Addresses as the source of the later versions of the journal. [Singer, M. G. “Editorial: The History of Ethics.” Ethics 98, no. 3 (1988): 441–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2380959.]  Ethics is, according to Singer, "the oldest continuously published philosophical journal in the English language"--and it all started with Adler, Weston, and the "Ethical Union."
• W. Sanford Evans (1869 - 1949) was later known as a conservative politician in Canada.  According to Bradley J. Milne, Sandford's "early years were marked by success as a philanthropist, journalist, platform performer and lecturer for the Society of Ethical Culture in New York." (U Manitoba MA History Thesis, 1997).  His youthful platform on "Moral and Spiritual Education of Children" was a theme that he repeated in his later political career, i.e., that public schools should also teach ethics.
• Morris Jastrow, Jr. (1861 - 1921) was a noted scholar of "Oriental religions."  An assistant lecturer at Rodef Sholem Synagogue (Philadelphia), he resigned both from his position there and from Judaism in December 1886.  When he spoke at the Philadelphia Ethical Society in April, 1897, he was a librarian at the University of Pennsylvania and soon to become known as the author of numerous works on ancient and modern religions of the Middle East and other subjects.

In order to account for the historical perspective now gained from seeking more information about these contributors to Ethical Addresses, I have begun adding the appropriate source references to the Bibliography.  While my main focus (for now) remains on completing the catalog of the twenty one volumes of Ethical Addresses, I can already see a wealth of new (to me) resources coming to the fore.

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.