MA S TER NEGA i IV E NO 91-80442-1 MICROFILMED 1992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States -- Title 17, United States Code -- concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material... Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfrilmenc of the order would mvolve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: CHUBB, PERCIVAL jl M M. .M^.MJj m THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF .... PLACE: DA TE : lNEW YORK ?] [189-?] COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record .1^ 11 , 1 pi n I .. i n iii .inn 170 Zl V.2 n Chubb, Percival, 1860- 1S50 The origin and growth of the ethical movenentf by Porcival Chubb,.. ^Hew York? 189- ?3 8 p. 22 on in 2Cr7 en. (Ethical pamphlets. no« 4r) Volune oT panphlct^ Restrictions on Use: \ TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO:__/j^ B IIB i/9Z INITIALS flO FILM SIZE: Z_^^_ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA DATE FILMED: 2- HLMEDBY: RESEARCH J^UBLICATIONS, INC WOODBRIDGE. CT iA c Association for Information and Image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 2 ! 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JAN Ethical Pamphlets No. 4 THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT By Percival Chubb Assistant Leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture I i THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT. By PERCIVAL CHUBB. {Reprinted by permission from the Encyclopedia Americana.) The first Ethical Society was established and the Ethical Movement inaugurated in 1876 in New York by Felix Adler, then a lecturer at Cornell University. In response to a call, several hundred persons met in May at Standard Hall, and at the con- clusion of Prof. Adler's address, outlining the purpose and spirit of the proposed organization, the Society for Ethical Culture of New York was constituted. In this address he appealed to his auditors to unfurl a new flag of peace and conciliation over the bloody battlegrounds where religions had fought in the past ; he laid stress upon the urgent need of a higher and sterner morality to cope with the moral perils of the hour, especially noting the growing laxity that accompanied the decline of discredited forms of religious belief ; and he placed peculiar emphasis upon the duty of caring for the moral education of the young. The society thus initiated grew rapidly, and soon gave practical effect to his programme. Within a few years it had established a free kinder- garten for the children of the poor, the first of its kind in New York; and this developed into a workingman's school, based upon the Froebelian pedagogy, which was the first school to introduce manual training and systematic ethical instruction into the curriculum. It also inaugurated a system of trained nurses for the poor, which has since become an adjunct of dispensary out- door relief in the city. Nor were the larger social and political applications of morality to contemporary life neglected ; its leader devoting special attention in his platform utterances to the labor problem and specific social reforms, as being at bottom great moral issues. His vigorous exposure of the evils of the tenement houses bore fruit in the creation of the Tenement House Com- mission of 1884, of which he was appointed a member. He also was among the first advocates of small parks in the congested districts, of public playgrounds and public baths ; and, above all, of greater justice and humanity in the relations between labor and capital, employer and employed. The Labor party here found a new type of advocate ; and reformers and politicians a platform from which the issues of the hour were brought to the touchstone of ethical first-principles. Meanwhile, the society filled more and more the place of a church in the lives of its hitherto unchurched members. It did not neglect the problems of the personal life ; but aimed to illum- inate and inspire its members in their dealings with the problems of the home and the vocation, family relations, marriage, the training of the young, etc. Its position as a distinctive religious organization became better understood and its religious appeal more forcibly felt, while its practical educational and philanthropic activities continued to multiply. Its schools, testifying to its con- viction that moral improvement must begin with the care and education of the young, expanded until kindergarten, normal and high school departments were added. These have for some time been inadequately housed. The Sunday audiences, too, have twice outgrown their accommodations. To meet its requirements, the Society has erected at Central Park West and 63d Street, a thor- oughly modernized school building, next to which an appropriately dignified meeting place and society-house will later on be added. The very thoroughly equipped school-house will enable the so- ciety, in greater measure even than in the past, to fulfil its cherished aim of having a model and experimental school, stand- ing for the highest ideals of non-sectarian education and the most efficient pedagogical methods of realizing them. What distin- guishes these from many other similar schools is their democratic organization and spirit : like the public schools, they educate chil- dren both of the well-to-do and of the poor, that is, an equal pro- portion of pay pupils and pupils admitted under a system of free scholarships endowed by the Society. To give further effect to its conception of a religious society as a body of workers, bent upon learning by doing and promoting piety by service, the society opens to its members many other fields of education and philanthropic activity. Here the women of the society take a prominent part. Most of the philanthropies are affiliated under a general representative body known as the Wom- en's Conference, through whose recent initiative and effort the Manhattan Trade School for Girls was established. Fortunate in drawing an unusual number of young men to its ranks, the So- ciety has a strong Young Men's Union which contributes largely to the support of two neighborhood houses : the Hudson Guild, on the West Side, of which Dr. John Lovejoy Elliott, one of Prof. Adler's associate lecturers, is the head worker ; and the Down- Town Ethical Society, on the lower East Side. The Union also owns and supports a summer home on its farm of 70 acres at Mountainville, N. Y., where a farm school is held, and a summer holiday is given to groups of the boys and girls who belong to the Neighborhood clubs. The larger policies and relations of all the working bodies of the society are considered and shaped by a Council of Fifty, composed of representatives from all of them. One other event in the history of the society that calls for mention is the recent appointment of Prof. Adler to the newly created chair of poHtical and social ethics at Columbia University. As the chair was endowed with a view to Prof. Adler's tenure of it at the in- stigation of some members of the well-known Committee of Fif- teen appointed by the Chamber of Commerce to deal with the social evil in New York, of which committee Prof. Adler was an active member, this appointment is a remarkable public tribute to the large public place which the founder of the ethical movement the large public place which the founder of the Ethical Movement Early in the history of the society, a number of young men were attracted to it, and, after a period of apprenticeship in New York, went forth to found societies in Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, and across the seas in London. These American societies are under the leadership respectively of William M. Salter, S. Burns Weston and Walter L. Sheldon ; and, while loosely feder- ated in a union, they maintain an individuality of their own, and have developed different forms of activity according to local needs and circumstances. They all hold Sunday exercises, which consist for the most part of music, readings, and an address. All admit to membership on a simple declaration of devotion to the ethical ends set up. All attach great importance to the moral and re- ligious education of the young, and maintain well-organized Sun- day schools and associations and clubs of young men and young women devoted to the same end and to various kinds of practical work. From the publishing and literary headquarters of the Ethi- cal Union in Philadelphia (S. Burns Weston, 1305 Arch Street) is issued monthly ''Ethical Addresses," containing the more im- portant lectures of the leaders ; and the "International Journal of Ethics," under a committee of ethical specialists in America and Europe, with Mr. Weston as managing editor. The New York society publishes bi-monthly the ''Ethical Record," a journal of practical ethics, edited by Percival Chubb, also one of Prof. Adler's associate lecturers. Among the literary products of the American societies are Prof. Adler's "Creed and Deed," "Moral Instruction of Children," and "Life and Destiny" ; Mr. Salter's "Ethical Re- ligion" ; Mr. Sheldon's "An Ethical Movement," "An Ethical Sun- day School," and "Old Testament Bible Stories as a Basis for Ethical Instruction of the Young." That the movement initiated in America expressed no merely local phase of religious development is evident by its still more rapid spread in Europe. American influences led to the establish- ment in 1886 of the London Ethical Society, with which Profs. Muirhead, Bosanquet, Bonar, and others, upon whom the ethical influence of Thomas Hill Green, of Oxford, had been profound, were identified; and under its auspices lectures were given at Toynbee Hall and elsewhere by many men at the universities and I (4 in public life who felt the importance of the new ethical propa- ganda, such as Seeley, Caird, Leslie Stephen, etc. About the same time Dr. Stanton Coit went over from New York to assume {vice Mr. Moncure D. Conway) the leadership of the congregation at South Place Chapel, then renamed the South Place Ethical So- ciety, which, after a brief pastorate, he resigned to push the ethical cause in other ways. Under his energetic leadership, the ethical societies have multiplied rapidly in London and in the provinces, where also several of the Labor Churches have affiliated them- selves with the ethical movement. A Union of Ethical Societies (14 or more), and a Moral Instruction League (to introduce systematic non-theological, moral instruction into all schools) are in vigorous activity ; a weekly paper, "Ethics," has been main- tained for several years ; and there has been a considerable output of literature, including Dr. Coit's anthology, "The Message of Man," a "Collection of Ethical Songs," and, edited by him for the Society of Ethical Propagandists, a volume of essays by different writers, entitled "Ethical Democracy"; Quilter's "Upward and Onward," a book for boys and girls ; Sander's "Reorganization of the People"; McCabe's "Discipline in the Roman Church." In London there is also an independent Ethical Religion Society, founded and led by Dr. Washington Sullivan. Ireland, likewise^ has been reached, where there is an ethical society at Belfast. At Leicester, Eng., F. J. Gould, the leader of the Secularist Society there, has advanced the ethical instruction of the young by his "Children's Books of Moral Lessons" (two series), and by his effective advocacy of the cause on the Leicester School Board, which he has forced to take an advanced position on the subject of moral mstruction in the board schools. The new movement was finding, meanwhile, favorable soil on the Contment. A centre of activity was established at Berlin, where Prof. Gizycki, Prof. William Foerster, and others identified themselves with the cause. Societies were in time established at Munich, Dresden, Danzig, Freyburg, Stuttgart, Breslau, Frank- tort, Jena, Magdeburg, Strassburg, Ulm, Konigsberg; and in Austria at Vienna, in Italy at Venice and Rome, in Switzerland at Zurich and Lausanne; and in France through the Union pour L Action Morale (1891) which found spokesmen in M. Emil Uesjardins (notably in his stirring brochure "Le Devoir Pres- ent ), and in other well-known writers. Among the latest addi- tions to the ethical societies is one at Tokvo in Japan. The Ger- man societies support a weekly paper, "Ethische Kultur," pub- li^shed at Beriin ; and the Parisian society a monthly, entitled "La Cooperation des Idees." The increasing activity in these European centres led to the establishment of an international organization, with a central sta- tion at Zurich, and Prof. F. W. Foerster as secretary and or- ganizer. Here in September, 1896, an International Congress was held, which issued a representative manifesto. It is largely colored by a continental sense of the urgency of applying ethical principles in the domain of social and political affairs. It an- nounced its sympathy with the efforts of the populace to obtain a more human existence, but recognized as an evil hardly less seri- ous than the material need of the poor, the moral need which exists among the wealthy, whose integrity is often deeply im- perilled by th^ discords in which the defects of the present in- dustrial system involve them. It demanded that the social con- flict should be carried on within the lines prescribed by morality, in the interest of society as a whole, and with a view to the final establishment of social peace. It appealed to the ethical societies to provide the intellectual armor for this struggle, and to all their members to promote the progressive social movement by sim- plicity in the conduct of life and the display of an active social spirit. It declared (in view, doubtless, of prevailing scepticism and license) the pricelessness and indispensableness of the insti- tution of pure monogamic marriage ; demanded opportunity for the fullest development for women ; advocated the improvement of the lot of female wage-earners in industrial establishments ; and made a strong plea for the restoration of lost unity in the educa- tional system by setting up a common ethical purpose as the aim of all culture. It declared for universal peace, and against mili- tarism and the national egotism and jealousy which precipitate war. Finally, it urged upon all ethical societies not simply to con- cern themselves with these practical issues, but to devote their ut- most energy to the building up of a new ideal of life in harmony with the demands of modern enlightenment. This manifesto rep- resents most, but not all, of the leading interests of ethical so- cieties. It expresses their almost universal interest in the social question, and their desire to bring theories, policies and measures of reform to the test of ethical principle ; it expresses also their in- terest in promoting peace and an education animated and unified by an ethical purpose. It does not, however, lay stress upon the relation of the movement to modern liberalism, its frank accept- ance of the spirit and results of modern science, and its repudia- tion of the supernatural, miraculous, and priestly elements in re- ligion ; nor does it voice the deeper religious seriousness and spirituality of the movement. By some of the leaders this latter is very strongly emphasized ; and some of the ethical societies are primarily churches for inspiration and guidance in the difficult effort to lead the good life. While the inception of the ethical movement was due to the in- sight and prevision of Felix Adler, and its first powerful impact t due to his attractive eloquence and personal power, its rapid growth to international dimensions is clear evidence that it met a deep and widespread need. It was fitly born on American soil ; for a new ethical religion and ethical church for America had been definitely prophesied and sketched by Emerson in his later essays on ''Worship" and ''The Sovereignty of Ethics." He had said: "The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals. . . . It accuses us that pure ethics is not now formulated and concreted into a cultus, a fraternity with assemblings and holy days, with song and book, with brick and stone. . . . America shall introduce a pure religion. . . . There will be a new Church founded on moral science ; at first cold and naked, a babe in a manger again, the algebra and mathematics of ethical law, the church of men to come, without shawms, or psaltery, or sack- but ; but it will have heaven and earth for its beams and rafters, science for symbol and illustration ; it will fast enough gather beauty, music, picture, poetry." The development of advanced Unitarianism through Channing and Parker had been in this direc- tion. It had two practical outcomes — the Free Religious Associa- tion, which still holds annual sessions ; and the Ethical Movement. As distinguished from the Free Religious Association, which ex- pressed vaguely the libertarian tendencies of Emerson's thought, the Ethical Movement gave effect to the positive and constructive tendency which found clear utterance in his prophecy. Although this positive spirit was present in the religious society conducted in New York by Octavius B. Frothingham — who was wont to say, after he had retired and it had disbanded, that its legitimate suc- cessor was the Society for Ethical Culture — it was not until Felix Adler brought to the new movement at once an ethical outlook and philosophy learned chiefly in the school of Kant, an impas- sioned Hebraic sense of religion as righteousness of life, and a practical sense of the urgency and ethical import of the great im- pending moral issues in the social, industrial, and political world, that conditions existed for the full birth of the new ethical re- ligion. The most distinctive feature of this new phase of religious de- velopment was that it did not propose to add to the religions of the past, in the way in which these had multiplied, namely, on the basis of differences of speculative belief. Instead, it announced the basic importance and the priority of the ethical factor in re- ligion. It approached religion, not from the credal, but from the practical moral standpoint ; and it saw, in a common affirmation of this priority and supremacy of virtue and the good life, a ground of union for people of varying philosophical convictions, or none. Following Emerson, it asserted that character and conduct condi- tion creed and thought ; and that it is only by sowing a worthy character that men can reap a vital and meaningful creed. It con- tended that no certain and lasting basis of union can be found in anything so variable and personal as one's philosophical view of the world ; and that no one should pledge his intellectual future by subscribing to-day to a creed which to-morrow he may out- grow. What a man thinks is the result of what he is, — the out- come, therefore, of his action, his experience, his effort and his love, far more than it is the outcome of his deliberate thought and accumulated knowledge. This position differed from that of the Comtian Positivists, because theirs assumed a final, definite, and in some respects, very negative philosophy. The new movement allowed for the greatest individual differences in men's philosophi- cal interpretation of life, save in the one tenet that all must ac- knowledge the sacred obligation imposed by man's moral nature to live the good life and to follow without swerving the dictates of duty according to the best light that is in each. On the basis of this moral earnestness and this attitude of moral resolve men may safely and hopefully work backward into a philosophy and forward into a faith. Their philosophy and their theory of moral sanction may be what it will, theistic or pan- theistic, materialistic or idealistic; it may or may not issue in a faith in immortality, conditional or absolute. This is a personal concern, and the statements on such matters frequently made by the leaders of ethical societies who differ much in their philoso- phies, are merely expressions of personal conviction, and not made as in any way committing the societies. This is to make a clear distinction between the private and the public factors of religious belief; and to find as the only possible basis for religious union, for those who would jealously guard their intellectual integrity, a moral aim by which any man should be ashamed not to be bound. The ethical movement has been criticised, notably of late by Charles Booth, in his concluding volume reporting the life of the poor in London, as lacking in imaginative color and appeal, and therefore unlikely to spread among the masses of the people. Perhaps Emerson was right in emphasizing the austerities of the new religion in its early protestant phases. But at heart it is genial and passionately human. It has nothing sensationally novel to offer ; it does not compete with picturesque claimants like The- osophy. Christian Science, Vedantism, etc., and it may be a fact that ''plain goodness," "mere morality," "the beauty of holiness," will not yet draw many with their old-new evangel. And yet one finds among its adherents nothing less than a new type of re- ligious temperament, voicing a new imaginative sense of the hidden mysteries and wonders of the moral personality, the new unrevealed heights and depths of the moral life, the unrealized joyousness of devotion to duty and to service. 8