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 Rh reported that the occasion thereof is, because the said Lord Cardinal hath taken such impositions of the rulers of the said houses, as well for his favour in making of abbots and priors as for his visitation by his authority legatine, and yet, nevertheless, taketh yearly of such religious houses such yearly and continual charges, as they be not able to keep hospitality as they were used to do, which is a great cause that there be so many vagabonds, beggars, and thieves."

The 14th article charges the cardinal with having raised the rents of the lands he received through the suppressions, and made it impossible for the tenants to farm them with profit.

The 19th says: "Also the said Lord Cardinal hath not only, by his untrue suggestion to the Pope, shamefully slandered many good religious houses and good virtuous men dwelling in them, but also suppressed, by reason thereof, above thirty houses of religion. And where, by the authority of his bull, he should not suppress any house that had more men of religion in number above the number of six or seven, he hath suppressed divers houses that had above the number, and thereupon hath caused divers offices to be found by verdict, untruly, that the religious persons so suppressed had voluntarily forsaken their said houses, which was untrue, and so hath caused open perjury to be committed, to the high displeasure of Almighty God."

In the 24th it is stated: "Also the same Lord Cardinal at many times, when any houses of religion hath been void, hath sent his officers thither, and with crafty persuasions hath induced them to 'compromit' their election in him, and before he named or confirmed any of them, he and his servants received so much great goods of them, that in a manner it hath been to the undoing of the house."

Lastly, the 25th says: "Also, by his authority legatine, the same Lord Cardinal hath visited the most part of the religious houses and colleges of this realm, and hath taken from them the twenty-fifth part of their livelihood, to the great extortion of your subjects and derogation of your laws and prerogative, and no law hath been to bear him so to do." "Here," says Lord Herbert, "certainly began the taste


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OVE is passing through the street.

Love, imperishably sweet,

On his silver-sandaled feet

Draweth near.

Suppliant he came of yore,—

Comes he now as conqueror?

Will he, pausing at my door,

Enter here?

Once his lips were ruby-red,

And his wings like gold, outspread,

And the roses crowned his head,

As in story;

And though these he now disguise,

Ever a lost paradise

In the azure of his eyes

Keeps its glory.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 34 that our king took of governing in chief the clergy, of which, therefore, as well as the dissolution of monasteries, it seems the first arguments and impressions were derived from the cardinal." It is difficult to read the record of Wolsey's arbitrary action as regards the religious houses, and the account of his methods in dealing with the pope, without endorsing this opinion.


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E are not twain, but one: though seas divide us—

The children of the English-speaking race—

This nothing now can change: whate'er betide us,

This is our birthright grace.

The tongue that holds our earliest recollection,

Whose accents moved us like a fond caress—

The tongue in which we lisped our first affection,

Attaches and doth bless.

America and England knit together—

Offspring of one great Mother, Sister Lands—

Need fear nor frowning fate nor boding weather,

While close are joined their hands.

Beneath the ocean-billow sways the cable

That gives them instant knowledge, each of each,

And were it sunk, their hearts would still be able

To find a way of speech.

America, who virgin prairies planted

To bless the alien,—Teuton, Latin, Gaul,—


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EATH took away from me my heart's desire,—

Full suddenly, without a word of warning;

Froze with benumbing touch her body's fire,

And darkened her young morning.

Death hid her then where she is safe, men say,—

Imprisoned in a deep-digged grave and hollow,

Where grief and pain may never find a way,

Nor any torment follow.

Safe!—and because of fear, they deem 't was best

For her, perchance,—this thing which they call dying,

But cold she could not be against my breast

As there where she is lying!

Sometimes I dream, with sudden, wild delight,

That she escapes the cruel bonds that bind her,

And fond I seek through all the throbbing night,

But never, never find her!


text: Henry VIII and the English Monasteries/Chapter 2


text: The American Journal of Sociology/Volume 01/Number 1/The Place of Sociology among the Sciences


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LITTLE plant, so meek and slight,

Tinct with the emerald of the sea

Which like a mother, day and night,

Croons melodies to thee;

Emblem of Erin's hope and pride!

Though crushed and trampled under foot,

Thou still art found

The meadows round,

Up-springing from thine own sweet root!

Of sorrow thou hast been the sign

Through weary, unforgiving years;

The dews upon thy tender vine

Have seemed thy country's tears;

Now, now, forevermore, thou art

Symbol of all that's brave and true—

Blest as a smile

Of thy sunlit isle,

In the Old World honored, and the New!


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 110 individuals composing a division of zoological units. This fact is a sociological datum, but it is not the fact directly alluded to in the dictum under discussion. The writer referred to seems to understand the users of the formula to mean that societies are vegetables or animals in successful disguise. They are supposed to teach, for instance, that the Constitution of the United States came into existence through the operation of some law of physiological propagation, precisely as the members of the Continental Congress of 1776 were physically begotten. It is too late in the history of sociology to waste time in attempts to bring such a man up to date. Before he can be taken seriously he must somehow get possession of the primary information which he has neglected, in his haste to become an authority. The conception which we cite as an illustration has been explained so often and so minutely that any one who still fails to give a fair rendering of the sense in which it is employed by those who find it serviceable writes himself down as either dishonest or ignorant. The former explanation need not be discussed. If the facts to which we refer arise from lack of acquaintance with standard sociological literature, to which every student is now introduced in the first year of sociological study, it would seem to go without saying that the case is an instance of attempting to do the work of a scholar with a somewhat inadequate preparation.

It will probably be long before explanations of the use of biological analogies in general by students of society will be unnecessary. Discussions of society up to date have taken comparatively little account of the fact that so far as degree of complexity is concerned, vital phenomena are the only approximate analogue of societary phenomena. A consequence of this failure has been that shoals of people who have not acquired ability to think through relations of the biological order of complexity, have presumed themselves capable of thinking steadily a still higher order of complexity. The use of biological analogies as a tool in sociology does not mean the seizure of biological facts and their forcible transfer into sociology. It does not mean that finding analogies between biological and societary facts constitutes sociology. It means that the sociologist has to do with societary interrelations, the complexities of which he tries to understand by checking off the involutions which are analogous with biological correlations, and by


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 58 nests. She accordingly went and made her request known to Mrs. Benson, who readily consented; observing that though she had a very great objection to her children having birds' nests, yet she could not deny her daughter on the present occasion. Harriet, from an unwillingness to expose her friend, had said but little on the subject; but Mrs. Benson, having great discernment, concluded that she made the request from a merciful motive; and knowing that Lucy had no kind mamma to give her instruction, she thus addressed her:—

"I perceive, my young friend, that Harriet is apprehensive that the birds will not meet with the same kind treatment from you which she is disposed to give them. I cannot think you have any cruelty in your nature, but perhaps you have accustomed yourself to consider birds only as playthings, without sense or feeling; to me, who am a great admirer of the beautiful little creatures, they appear in a very different light; and I have been an attentive observer of them, I assure you. Though they have not the gift of speech, like us, all kinds of birds have particular notes, which answer in some measure the purpose of words among them, by means of which they can call to their young ones, express their love for them, their fears for their safety, their anger

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 112 of the gap between analogy and identity. Perception of the insufficiency of biological analogies does not, however, as so many critics appear to imagine, involve the consequence that resort should be had to conceptions still less adequate. It rather imposes the task of building up more highly refined concepts of societary relationships. In doing this constructive work the mind cannot do without any of the general notions derived by science from acquaintance with all the relations discovered among the inferior orders of reality.

The fundamental difference between the men who value biological conceptions as tools in sociology, and the critics who affect to consider the use of biological analogies necessarily superficial, is that the latter do not believe it worth while to examine societary phenomena as closely as the biologists examine vital phenomena. Such being the case time may be trusted to settle the question of relative superficiality.

The departments of Minor Editorials, Reviews, and Sociological Miscellanies will be represented in the next number.


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 42 The facts of history have been too often regarded as occurrences and not as in a connected chain; but of late the habit of looking for the evolutionary principle has been carried over from the biological laboratory to history, and this could not fail to cause the same revival of interest in history that it had already caused in biology. This new interest has been seized upon as reason for enlarging the history course in many institutions where the teachers have not all as yet felt the true import of the revival.

The value of history to a man in actual life is not so much in the facts learned as in the experience gained by contact with other peoples and other times. As a preparation for the activities of business, social and political life, the offering of history in the old way was chiefly valuable as an example to be avoided. History is only just now freed from the thralldom of the text-book. The writer has seen, within four years, in a university recognized as one of the foremost in the country, the only Professor of history and economics seated at his desk before a class of juniors, actually hearing a recitation in history, with his finger upon the line in the text-book. Happily now the same institution has two or three competent men in each of the departments of history and economics.

It is not necessary to enter upon an argument to prove the value of the study of history for a general education. Its claims are well established. The professional man, the politician, the artist, the financier, if he would be the best among his fellows, must have at his command a knowledge of the past. And it goes without saying that he who would write history, or teach it, must avail himself of all existing facilities in preparation for his profession.

Now that history has a place in the colleges more nearly in accord with its deserts, educators still have serious problems before them. What periods shall be studied? Shall the outline of universal history be offered as a college study, or shall it be left to the high schools and preparatory academies?

What is actually offered in the larger number of universities,


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 44 now discuss, but I venture to say that a large number of those who read this can recall similar impressions. May not the student of the future be saved such damaging experiences? Is there not some way of better preparing the college student for the study of history without leaving him in total ignorance of all that has contributed to make the people what they are at the time which he studies? The high school work in general history is not all the preparation that he needs.

We recognize that the study of history in the university must be in greater detail and of shorter periods than in the high school or preparatory course. As soon as we begin to study closely, and penetrate to the moving forces of history, we find that we must know all about the origin of a people if we would clearly understand that people. By origin I mean genesis in so far as we are able to trace it by any means within our power. If men are evolved by slow processes from the lower forms of life I surely do not intend to say that the historian must trace all men back to a speck of protoplasm. We may be content to let the biologist occupy the whole field from protoplasm to man; but as history is the study of man, let us begin with man where we first find him.

Even if history be considered as the study of governments, wars, and social development of men, we must not take an arbitrary starting point. It would not seem quite the proper thing to commence the study of arithmetic with percentage, or of science with astronomical calculations, yet in the study of the social development of a people our history books begin at a point where there is already a well developed social organism, and it is considered sufficient if we follow it on to the present. We think we have penetrated sufficiently far into the mythical, misty and doubtful, if we say that Romulus founded Rome, and then proceed to investigate the wars with the Etruscans, Sabines and Latins, and merely leave Romulus poised in the ether of the past, like the turtle in space upon which Atlas stands to hold the world. There is far more sense than is discovered at first thought in the apparently foolish question of the negro in the audience


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 46 and fully as interesting to study how any or all of these racial elements have developed in man, the simple human, and brought him to the condition, intellectual and social, in which we find him at the opening of what is properly called history, as to follow the later developments of him of whom we know nothing before his appearance in history?

On the borderland of history is anthropology. Sociology is as closely related to history as the part to the whole, and without anthropology sociology cannot exist. The Century Dictionary defines history as the "Aggregate of all human events, recorded and unrecorded, which mark a given period of past time, as in the development of an individual or of a race." Anthropology is defined as the "Science of general physical and mental development of the human race." It includes sociology.

He who would teach history best cannot confine himself entirely to what is generally understood to be history. If he would get out of it its fullest meaning and lift it to its highest usefulness with students, he must run over into the borderland; he must study the origins of peoples and of customs, that is, he must invade the domain of anthropology.

Is it not likely that humanity as a whole develops as a child; the centuries or indefinite periods counting for the race as years to the child? Children learn first language and later etymology and syntax; first the complex and then the parts. Facts are noted long before causes. Some of the sciences most recently developed are the most fundamental. One of the latest developed is anthropology, yet for its necessary relation to other branches of science and learning it lays claim to the first place in the attention of the scientific world.

To understand the working of a whole machine one must study all its wheels and cranks, with the sources of power and how it is applied. History is the product of the human organization or machine. Man's mode of thought, habits of life and of association, are essential to be known as being the sources of power which has produced and is producing history.

The first society established in England that had any


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 48 stages that have been passed by his race; he must meet and solve in twenty or twenty-five years the problems that have occupied centuries; he must become familiar in an hour with acts that were years in transpiring.

The civilized peoples of the earth are possessing themselves of the territory now occupied by people who have in some instances not yet reached the vantage point of the child born in civilized surroundings. If then the essentials of civilization were presented to them in the right order they might advance along the line at a more rapid pace than if they first see those things that are the worst in civilized character. At present what first are presented to uncivilized peoples are exhibitions of greed, lust and drunkenness. Here then is a field where what is known of the science of man may be applied, and governments should rather commission anthropologists to enter a new country than East India Companies, slavers and ivory traders.

These are some of the considerations which lead me to the conclusion that at least an outline of anthropology should be included in all college courses, and that such an outline is absolutely essential to any comprehensive studies in history and sociology.

In thus advocating the study of anthropology I am by no means, as it may appear, proposing a new burden in adding a new subject to the course of a student; the new subject will rather serve to elucidate all the others and lighten the strain of study. "In the mountains we see the bearers of heavy burdens contentedly shoulder a carrying frame besides, because they find the weight more than compensated by the convenience of holding together and balancing the load."

Anthropology, like each of the other sciences, has claim enough of its own to demand the closest devotion of a lifetime; but for the purpose here considered, of preparing for the study of history, an elementary sketch would suffice. Art, language, mathematics, any science and religion, may be observed at the very starting point. How much easier then to follow them through their later development!


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 Rh towards those who would hurt them, &c.; from which we may infer that it is cruel to rob birds of their young, deprive them of their liberty, or exclude them from the blessings suited to their natures, for which it is impossible for us to give them an equivalent. Besides, these creatures, insignificant as they appear in your estimation, were made by God as well as you. Have you not read in the New Testament, my dear, that our Saviour said, 'Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy'? How then can you expect that God will send His blessing upon you if, instead of endeavouring to imitate Him in being merciful to the utmost of your power, you are wantonly cruel to innocent creatures which He designed for happiness?"

This admonition from Mrs. Benson, which Lucy did not expect, made her look very serious, and brought tears into her eyes; on which the good lady took her by the hand, and kindly said, "I wish not to distress you, my dear, but merely to awaken the natural sentiments of your heart: reflect at your leisure on what I have taken the liberty of saying to you, and I am sure you will think me your friend. I knew your dear mamma, and can assure you she was remarkable for the tenderness of her disposition. But let me not detain you from your amusements;

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 Rh and such colleges as have already established a department of history, is a course or courses upon the period or countries in which the professor is himself most deeply learned and hence most deeply interested. This is, of course, proper from the standpoint of the professor or the special student, but is it the best that can be done for the general student?

Can a student in the university, with only the history training he has received in the earlier school, enter with proper comprehension upon the study of the Middle Ages, or the French Revolution, or the Reformation? Yet these are examples of the courses offered in the best universities by the best known and the best prepared teachers.

People often accomplish their objects without using the best methods. The fact that many students after several years of study are able to obtain a degree, or even to do creditable productive work, does not prove that they did not flounder in too deep water for a year or more before they got their bearings. It is often said by students who have attended some of the best American and European universities, that after a year or so they began to comprehend the relations of different periods of history and of civilization, and henceforth the work was more profitable. The inference would be that they were forced by circumstances to work painfully backward and forward from some arbitrary starting point, and that some short course, as advocated further on in this paper, should precede the higher studies in history.

Let us illustrate the condition of the average college or university student at the beginning of his study of history by the better known condition of the public school pupil at the first presentation of United States history to him. The whole world which he hears about began in 1492. Columbus appears out of the misty somewhere and discovers a new part of the world. Other men follow him and America becomes a reality. Soften it as we will, smooth over the abrupt beginning with Ferdinand and Isabella stories and the early life of Columbus, the impression is still received by the pupil that 1492 is the commencement of things. Whether this state of mind is unavoidable I shall not


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 Rh when he heard from the sacred desk the explanation that God made man of mud and set him up against the fence to dry. "Who made that fence?" is certainly a very pertinent question. The reply of the preacher was no less satisfactory than the "Hands off" method of our history books. No nation was ready made, no social organism was created complete and placed before us for study.

The histories of England begin with the invasion by the Romans, a highly civilized people, who have to fight for their possession with another people who have already certain arts, civilization and religion. The histories of Greece begin when there is already a poet of such ability that he is studied as a model for later times; and this poet is singing of the deeds of his people long before. In view of all this shall we not cry out, "Who made that fence?"

If we were absolutely certain that Adam was the first man and the only man on earth till Cain was born, and if we could account for all races springing from a single pair, then the present history books might serve as approximately complete text-books. But though the inadequacy of this solution is pretty generally recognized, the writer knows of but one book, which is intended for a students' text, that starts upon any other assumption than that the cradle of the whole human race was somewhere in Asia, and the existence of a people anywhere is accounted for by assuming that at some time they came from Asia. We have no record historically of any person or people migrating to any locality without finding the soil already to some extent occupied by human beings, and those beings no more differing from the invader than one race at present differs from another.

In studying the character of the French people and their various institutions as they exist at present we must consider that Keltic, Iberian, Teutonic, Roman and possibly other elements are mingled together in undetermined proportions. This is more or less true in the history of all other nations. When written history begins the races are already differentiated and each has progressed in lines peculiar to itself. Is it not exactly as essential


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 Rh to anthropology was one for the abolition of slavery. The first one established in France was to consider the ideas advanced by M. Edwards in "Des Caractères Physiologiques des Races Humaines considerées dans leurs Rapports avec l'Histoire." The thesis was that "races and their special temperaments play an important part in the existence of nations." In this light can we not now see that history elucidated by anthropology assumes a new aspect? Causes and effects are more readily explained, the teachings of anthropology suggest solutions to questions left unanswered by theology, and the whole conception of past ages is altered.

The policy of civilized nations in their dealings with savage races ought to be greatly influenced by anthropological science. Instead of a policy of extermination, which has been too often adopted, might there not have been a wise and tempered policy which could only be called into existence by an understanding of the distinctive character of the conquered savages, their capabilities and adaptabilities? If extermination can no longer be tolerated, then the savage peoples must in the march of progress be brought closer to each other. A practical application of anthropology would be, in the light of scientific knowledge of the peoples, to so place them that their development could proceed in the line of nature, but with the assistance of contact with those who had already made great advances. What might not have been saved of dishonor, as well as of blood and treasure to the United States, had the Indian question been treated as one for scientific study, rather than as one to be handled only by politicians and plunderers.

In the settlement of territory now occupied by untutored races who are as distinctly a part of the human race as themselves, the English, Germans and other civilized peoples are in exactly a position where they can make practical use of all the truths yet gained by anthropologists, and where they can open still wider fields for research.

One of the accepted theories of education is that the child must in his development up to maturity pass through all the


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 Rh Consider a student of law who ordinarily is plunged into the intricacies of legal systems which have grown up through the struggles, the reforms and even the blunders of thousands of years. How clearly he could make his way if he saw how laws began in their simplest forms, framed to meet the needs of savage tribes.

If the student learns of the rudest means men have of conversing by gestures and cries, and then follows through the development of articulate speech as an improvement on the earlier and lower methods, this is a better start in the science of language or philology than could have been made by beginning with the apparently arbitrary rules and subtile perplexities of grammar.

The same arguments that we all use for going thoroughly into any subject to its very foundation apply equally here. History is the whole of human life, and we must know all we can about man if we make any attempt to understand his acts and grasp the full significance of his influence upon his race and age.


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 60 go to your own apartment, Harriet, and use your best endeavours to make your visitors happy. You cannot this evening fetch the birds, because when Lucy goes it will be too late for you to take so long a walk, as you must come back afterwards; and I make no doubt but that, to oblige you, she will feed them to-night."

Harriet and Lucy returned, and found Frederick diverting himself with the hand-organ, which had lately been presented to him by his godpapa; but Edward had laid hold of Harriet's dog, and was searching his pocket for a piece of string, that he might tie him and the cat together, to see, as he said, how nicely they would fight; and so fully was he bent on this cruel purpose, that it was with difficulty he was prevailed on to relinquish it.

"Dear me!" said he, "if ever I came into such a house in my life ! there is no fun here. What would you have said to Harry Pritchard and me the other day when we made the cats fly?"

"Made the cats fly!" said Frederick; "how was that?"

"Why," replied he, "we tied bladders to each side of their necks, and then flung them from the top of the house. There was an end of their purring and mewing for some time, I assure you, for they lay a

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text: The American Journal of Sociology/Volume 1/Number 1/The Relation of Anthropology to the Study of History


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 Rh present observing the most scientific decorum in dealing with societary facts, are inclined to presume that facts are fit only for the material of social palliatives and nostrums until they are centuries old. But revision of that presumption is going on. Scholars are beginning to see that the industrial order of the present century is both a statical and a dynamic exhibit from which inductions of more credibility and greater relative significance may be derived than from analysis of vaguely represented industrial systems of which it is extremely doubtful if we have sufficiently complete information for useful conclusions.

The like may be said of our constitutional development in the present century: of our educational, ecclesiastical, scientific, social and philanthropic readjustments. Each of these has exhibited within an easily observable period a series of statical conditions and lines of dynamic operations which would yield larger proportionate returns to scientific scrutiny than all available evidence about any period except the present. By knowing the present better we shall be able to make better use of knowledge that may be gained about the past. This fact gives to the work performed by many observers of neglected contemporary facts a dignity that is as yet too rarely acknowledged.

The recently established sociological department of a prominent theological journal makes a painfully amateurish display in dealing with questions of sociological method. Any alleged science is essentially fraudulent that claims authority in expression of conclusions before mastery has been acquired of the postulates and processes by the use of which conclusions are derived. The editor of the department referred to has not yet arrived at an intelligent rendering of the rudimentary postulate "society is an organism." It is quite conceivable that future sociologists may invent a more precise and luminous expression of the idea so formulated, but it is morally certain that nobody will contribute much, except by accident, to a more adequate account of the facts, until he has become able to understand the sense in which the present formula is employed.

The interpretation which is imposed upon the conception of society as an organism by the editor in question, is that it presumes society to be something which belongs properly within the field of zoölogy, or perhaps even botany. Human groups, or societies, either in the most narrow or in the most comprehensive sense, are made up of


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 Rh afterwards the unparalleled remainder by which the societary facts exceed in complexity the biological facts.

The method of societary analysis which Schaeffle elaborated in such detail that few people have had the patience to understand him, is at bottom simply persistent pursuit of the discovery that human associations have all the degrees of complexity manifested by vital organisms—plus. The method which Schaeffle developed so minutely is not properly changeable with any of the alleged literalism which has been asserted of it, and of which earlier forms of the method are surely guilty. It starts with the postulate that "society" is a reality which is at least as complicated as "life" in the biological sense. The inference follows that interpretation of this complexity will discover many relations between societary facts which will be elucidated by comparison with relations between vital facts. To begin with, we find at once that, like plants and animals, any portion of societary order is an outgrowth of earlier order, and is affecting the character of associations that are developing. In the case of societies too, as with animals, we find that the form of development has apparently been determined in part by physical environment. The study of societies involves therefore the tracing of an evolutionary process within forms of human association. Instead of being an innovation due to sociology, this perception has been more or less familiar to historians and philosophers as far back as Aristotle, and probably much earlier. Sociologists are simply sharpening one of the tools which their predecessors already used. The stage of evolution which is exhibited in existing animals or in societies, has to be found out by minute observation and interpretation of the forms of coexistence and of coöperation between the elements that make up the respective units. The idea of structure and function is made in this investigation to serve the same purpose which the idea of causal relationship in one or another form has served in history.

The whole story about the biological analogy, as thus suggested, is that it is, up to date, the nearest approach we have to an interpretation of the most complicated correlations that occur in human experience. In order to get our minds clear as to the greater complexity of societary phenomena, we have no recourse so useful as employment of the concepts which familiarity with the next antecedent order of complexity furnishes. These will serve us in preliminary surveys, at any rate, but their best service in a given case may be their


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 E.

more than eighty years the "" has delighted the children of Great Britain. It is now offered to them, for the first time, with illustrations printed in colours, which it is hoped, will add an additional charm to a book so long and deservedly popular with the young.

August, 1873.

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text:
The American Journal of Sociology/Seminar Notes

Volume 1

 * "Seminar Notes." Vol. 1, No. 1 (July., 1895), pp. 104-112
 * "Seminar Notes." Vol. 1, No. 2 (Sep., 1895), pp. 237-240


text: The American Journal of Sociology/Volume 01/Number 1/Seminar Notes


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 70 though permissible is advisable. Historically, at any rate, the term is at a disadvantage. The champions of some so-called Christian sociology are dangerously open to criticism similar to that which Voltaire passed upon the Holy Roman Empire— "It is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." It certainly is desirable that an end should come to such pious christening of scientific progeny of at best very questionable parentage. With all due allowance for its analogy with other scientific terminology, we bespeak for the term a more definite and positive definition.

This desired definition is to be found in the use of the word Christian as parallel with such adjectives as Hegelian, Aristotelian, Baconian. Just as the philosophies bearing these names are respectively the gifts of Hegel and Aristotle and Bacon, so Christian sociology should mean the sociology of Christ; that is, the social philosophy and teachings of Christ. In this restricted sense the term is both legitimate and capable of an at least tentatively scientific content.

It may be objected that no such philosophy and teachings exist—that Jesus was a teacher of religion and morals and that beyond the realm of these subjects his words are as few as those concerning biology or historical criticism. Such a view, however, is not easily tenable. While it is evident that Jesus has given us no system of social teachings, he certainly was no more a systematic theologian than he was a sociologist. And, a priori, it would be a singular phenomenon if Christian teaching and life which has everywhere effected the most remarkable social changes should itself be possessed of no sociological content It is not altogether a reply to say that good men must necessarily produce social improvements. Good Brahmans in India have not greatly elevated women, and good Greeks in Athens supported slavery. Advance in civilization has not been accomplished by simply producing individuals of high religious and moral character. Since the days when the law went forth forbidding the branding of criminals. Christian impulses have been quite as much social as individual. The yeast of the Kingdom has been quite as


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 72 in the sixteenth century. Philosophy, it is true, should never dictate interpretation. But no conscientious exegete would dare claim absolute immunity from its influence. The results of the past may thus be supplemented by those of the present. The future of a man is known; the future of mankind is now to be discovered. And this discovery will in no small way spring from a new appreciation of the teachings of Jesus.

(2) A second obstacle in the way of formulating the social teachings of Jesus is the impatient and over-zealous publication of certain doctrines that are called Christian, but which are based, not upon exegesis, but upon a philanthropy largely unrestrained in both its prejudices and its rhetoric. Disregarding the mischievous tendency for every good man to dub as "sociology" his hasty thinking and hopes as to society; disregarding the refreshing certainty enjoyed by many earnest though amateur reformers that in the preparation of milleniums the accumulation of figures and statistics is wholly superfluous; disregarding the fact that much so-called sociological teaching is nothing more than relabelled ethics; granting that sociologies are as easy to produce as political panaceas, the fact remains that as yet Christian sociology has been at the mercy of men who have mistaken what they think Christ ought to have taught for what he really did teach. Nothing is easier for the brain fertile in generalities and for the heart burning with sympathy and indignation than to evolve a system from a sentence or a term. In this particular Christian sociology is re-running the career of Christian theology. As the dogmatic theologian has too often made a system of philosophy masquerade as a theology by dressing it out with a series of more or less well-fitting proof-texts, so too often modern prophets to a degenerate church, in sublime indifference to the context, time of authorship, and purpose of a New Testament book, and with an equal neglect of the personal peculiarity and vocabulary of a New Testament writer, have set forth as the word of Christianity views which were but bescriptured social denunciation and vision. If this be Christian sociology, it is little wonder that the genuine, albeit less inspired, student of social


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 74 classification. If Jesus is to figure among sociologists, before he is cited as an authority let him at least be understood. And if he is to be debarred from the class of social teachers, let it first be remembered that much which is put forth as his is no more from him than the schoolman's gloss was from Aristotle.

III. The sources from which it is possible to draw the social teachings of Jesus are primarily, though not exclusively, his own words. At first glance, therefore, no problem could seem easier than the process of gaining such teachings. With most theologians of the past, with many of today, the ipsissitna verba of the Master are an end of all discussion. But even if we disregard the possible changes incident to one or more processes of translation, it is a prime necessity that the interpreter remember that thought is superior to word, and that a sentence wrenched from its context may be quite as misleading as a similarly detached word. The thought of Jesus is sometimes so genuinely Oriental as to elude any process of interpretation that is purely verbal. His style is so concrete, and his similes so perfect that there is a constant temptation to forget that a parable, after all, can teach only an analogy, and that the real teaching of its author lies not in its form but in the analogy. Further than this, Jesus seldom combined complementary or mutually modifying thoughts. He was not a systematic lecturer, but a creator of impulses. He sometimes puts forth a proposition so categorically as to make it appear that it exhausts his teachings upon the subject, and yet under some other circumstances its modification is expressed with equal absoluteness. The two superficially appear contradictory. In reality they are the two hemispheres of the truth. To claim either of them alone as his teaching is to do Jesus injustice. His real teaching can be gained only through their combination. For this reason, so far as a systematized and complete statement is concerned, outside of the magnificent summaries into which Jesus has compressed the essentials of religion and morals, no one can claim to have mastered Christian teaching until he has mastered its entirety. The


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 76 shown to date from the contemporaries of Jesus, and it is possible that at least three of the accounts were brought into their present literary form by these contemporaries themselves. Yet however this may be, the gospels now clearly contain two elements: the, teachings of Jesus, and the editorial material added to them by their writers.

This second element is considerable in the Fourth Gospel, but by no means wanting in the synoptics. It is of various sorts, but may be mostly classified as introductions, transpositions, explanations, reflections, prophetic antitypes, and verbal changes. Many of these are self-evident to the careful reader, and most are' easily separated from the teachings of Jesus by simple processes of criticism. Their value is considerable, however, for the understanding of Jesus' own positions, upon which they form a sort of commentary or scholium. In few cases will their separation affect the force of the passage from which they are taken, but it is evident that such a separation might at times be of service in appreciating the teaching of Jesus himself.

One form of editorial work not specified above is, however, of the utmost value as a source of the social teachings of Jesus—the narrative of his life. In most cases such narrative is demonstrably from eyewitnesses and in its essential elements is beyond suspicion. From such narrative data may be drawn of equal importance with those contained in the words of Jesus. His example and life, quite as much as his spoken teachings, have universally been accepted as a basis for Christian doctrine, but nowhere are they of more importance than in the sphere of his sociology. No student of the life of Jesus would venture to predicate inconsistency between his outward act and his inward belief. It is impossible to think of him, simply as an honest man, practicing that which he would forbid his followers. In certain cases, it is true, he did accommodate himself to circumstances and demands that he regarded as peculiar and even unjust, but seldom without specific explanation or comment. Speaking generally, the doings of Jesus, when once viewed in the light of their attending circumstances, quite as much as his words, are


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 78 is, and devote itself almost exclusively to his conceptions of what society may become, and the means and process through which its desired consummation may be reached.

In the present series of papers a pioneering attempt will be made to set forth, (1) the Christian ideal of man, society, the family, the state, social life (in the narrower sense), wealth, the church; and (2) the dynamics of progress—that is, the forces, the means, and the process that make these ideals realizable.


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132 America to-day

Binds in her hair

The olive and the undecaying bay:

An adult Nation, gloriously fair,

Who with a mother's pride

Her children gave,

Who feels their triumph, as her oceans, wide,

And sorrows for her unreturning brave.

Peace is their martyr-crown:

No length of years

Can chill her love or lessen their renown!—

But ah! her pæan falters, hushed in tears.

Who are these advancing

With bugle note and drum,

Their bayonets far glancing?

Say, who are these that come?

They are thy sons, Great Mother!

Such sons hath any other?

Be comforted, and bless them as they come!

Be comforted! Though all

Respond not to thy voice,


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 52 in common language, or in words having a definite content. To a certain extent this of course is true. Thus Kaufmann, himself a Christian socialist, says: "To some extent the apparent incompleteness, especially in matters of detail, must be attributed to the vagueness of utterances of the Christian socialists themselves in this respect. This is only what we must expect in all theorizers. According to a natural division of labor, social philosophers propound theories without entering into minute details, which are left for practical politicians to deal with in their endeavor to give effect to the theories as far as circumstances will permit." Another representative of an "applied Christianity," unique enough to be copyrighted, apologizes for his own oracular vagueness as follows: "But in order to be honest with you to whom I speak, I am obliged to say that I do not mean by this expression what most of you would think me to mean, or would yourselves mean, if I did not explain myself." And one of his defenders further remarks, "Yet the language of old Canaan is too good to lose, is the heritage of the line of promise, must therefore be used and misunderstood till illustration and sympathetic hearing can redeem it to intelligibility."

How a social reformer can hope to reform by using language that is purposely unintelligible is indeed a question. But there are two distinct advantages thus gained for an unpopular innovation. Without charging duplicity we must observe first, that this form of doctrine always holds in mental reserve an alternative construction or a modifying opinion with which to condone each revolutionary utterance; and second, by this very vagueness the movement escapes many of the criticisms to which various social movements, especially socialism, are liable. A concrete ideal, especially of status, formulated in terms of the goods of today is certain to provoke objections.

This vagueness is even more characteristic of the fundamental conceptions which these doctrines tacitly assume. This is seen in definitions purporting to tell definitely what Christian


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 54 society; that moral instead of physical and intellectual force should prevail: that women, children and invalids instead of strong men should be the enviable ones: and that martyrdom, tears and sorrows, instead of gratification and vitality, should be the future element of power." Since the new kingdom was opposed to existing governments, that order of things must be superseded by force. For this a careful preparation must be made; this is the application of the parable of the man intending to build a castle. "The general destruction of life and property contemplated in the prosecution of these designs seemed to be ever present to the mind of Christ and trouble him." Not only force but more questionable means are to be used. "Patronage in the future kingdom is offered for present work in it, just as is offered in France and Spain today where the Bonapartists and Carlists make all kinds of promises about what they will do when their cause is enthroned." This is the interpretation of such passages as "Whoso confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my Father;" and "Many shall come hereafter"—(when the offices are all given out)—"and shall not be able to enter." A radical change took place in the conception of the kingdom. "Jesus himself was at first strongly democratic and republican and this seemed to be his sincere conviction throughout. But subsequently, with the adulation of his followers and his complete mastery over them, he appears to have conceived ambitious projects—or at least to listen to others who did so for him. From being a champion and leader of the people, he came to be their master and ruler. To the astonishment of the people, he gradually commenced to speak as one having authority and was at last led, as was supposed, to contemplate a coup d'état, or the making of himself a king." And, finally, the author says: "To explain the spiritual as well as the monarchical character of Christ's kingdom, we must suppose, as on inquiry we find to be the fact, that there was an important change in the policy of the


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 56 socialists, for the primary conceptions of the latter are distinct, and as to priority in time the one school has almost as much right to the title as the other. Sprague gives this definition of socialism: "It is the effort of society to perfect its own life and accomplish its own destiny." While this author has a more definite conception of socialism, yet this serves very well as a characterization of the socialism of a large portion of so-called Christian socialists.

IDEAL NOT OF STATUS BUT OF METHOD.

This leads to a statement of the basal principle of Christian socialism, which at the same time affords a fundamental distinction between it and so-called "secular" socialism. The ideal of Christian socialism is a method; the ideal of socialism is a status. Socialism aims at an organization of society in which the state shall be the source of production of goods and the means and arbiter of distribution. Each shall contribute according to his abilities and receive according to his needs. The various more or less fantastic embodiments of this conception in socialistic Utopias are none of them essential to the fundamental idea. They are merely attempts of the imagination to make concrete an ideal not yet realizable to defective human nature. Christian socialism, however, formulates no ultimate status as an ideal, even if such a status is a sub-conscious assumption. Essentially concerned with conduct, its ideal is a method of social procedure; an attempted realization of some of the doctrines of Christ in an environment more or less unconformable with them. This ultimate social status, which is merely a sub-conscious speculation, may or may not be the ideal of socialism; and the like is true of the particular conception of social procedure, which is the ideal of Christian socialism. Perhaps if each were to clearly define its position concerning what to each is of secondary consideration, there would be practically an identity of status if not of procedure. But neither does this; for socialism emphasizes to the exclusion of all other considerations a status,—social or


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 58 to the purposes of trade and industry." The alternative title of this publication was A Journal of Association, and this indeed was the more appropriate designation. To this movement is due most of the many successful cooperative experiments in England. The movement took its rise during the Chartist agitation, when indications seemed to foreshadow a revolution such as France had experienced. When this danger was happily averted the Christian socialists experienced a revulsion of feeling which accounts for the mild form of their social doctrines. In earlier stages they were certainly much more radical. This is clearly shown in the prefaces added and in the alterations made in Kingsley's Alton Locke. Their principle was not carried to a logical conclusion, for their conception as far as definitely advocated did not eliminate the competition between groups,—little less destructive than that between individuals.

More precise perceptions at this point have urged the present movement to a more advanced position. The movement is described to be in contradistinction on the one hand with the unsocial Christian—"the good and pious man who is keen eyed to the claims of faith on his own private life and that of other individuals, but is blind to its claims on the life of the community," and on the other hand with the unchristian socialist—"professed teacher or disciple of the secular socialist creeds, who unhappily fails to recognize the paramount authority of the Lord and King of all Christians." Again its main object is said to be "to establish the kinship between the genius of Christianity and that 'passionate faith in the illimitable possibilities of human progress' which has been variously expressed in schemes put forward at different times by those social idealists who now go under the general name socialists." This seems to possess the characteristic vagueness, but the writer continues and points out that Christian socialism aims to bring about a reconciliation of social classes and by the application of Christian ethics to reach ultimately a status of social peace.


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 60 of having them owned by rich capitalists favored by city franchises,—would have the nation own and manage railroads, the telegraph, expressage, etc." Finally it would favor the single tax and ultimately ihe state ownership of land. Now these are not per se the objects of Christian socialism. As is remarked in the same connection: "In every way it would replace competition by fraternal combination, and would press towards reform in all these ways. It is not one reform. It is many reforms on one principle." This is the truer position. The previous enumeration awaits a Q. E. D., to establish each theorem implied in the programme, and only in so far as each specific count becomes a minor premise of the syllogism does it become a component part of the Christian socialist policy.

Some of the more prominent of the American group have become so influenced by the international socialism of Marx that they distinctly repudiate coöperation, in its more specific application, and differ very little in their views from that school of socialism. Of their position we may say in passing that it is consistent and justifiable to repudiate co-operation as an end but not as a method. Coöperation in the specific sense is only a half truth, and fails of solving any save the simplest of those problems which Christian socialism confronts. It is applicable only to certain industries and fails to eradicate the fundamental evils of the present system. But it was as a modus vivendi that it was seized upon by the earlier Christian socialists.

IDEAL AS TO MEANS. The difference between the ideals of socialism and those of Christian socialism as to method is only of slightly greater importance than the difference as to means. As to method the difference was chiefly between Christian socialism and individualism; as to means the contrast is between Christian socialism and socialism. As to means Christian socialists are largely individualists, and herein are less logical though perhaps more pyschological than the socialists. Again, as to means,


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 62 tacit recognition of this mutual harmonization of conflicting theories that Christian socialism has found its chief strength. If after all it is simply an individual matter, wherein does it differ from the more orthodox conceptions of Christianity and of society that give rise to the Christian socialist protest? Here is evidently the explanation of the fact that the ideal of the Christian socialists was not a status. If, as Kaufmann says, "Whatever may be said of different kinds of socialism, Christian socialism acknowledges only voluntary association. Servitude loses its sting when the service is perfect freedom;" then a socialistic status including all cannot be hoped for this side of the millennium. The belief in the "illimitable perfectability of the human race" seems to be based on the slowness of the process. This disagreement seems irreconcilable. But perhaps it has never troubled the Christian socialists. For when theory has been pushed temporarily into the background means other than spiritual have been used. Nevertheless the greatest defect in their ideals appears in their failure to perceive more clearly the truth that the individual not only modifies but is modified by society, and in consequent failure to estimate the reciprocal influences justly. The real harmonization which the Christian socialist made is to be found in the subjective aspect of their ideals, especially as to the relation of personality and property.

SUBJECTIVE IDEALS. The two ideals thus far discussed have been objective. Subjectively the Christian socialist ideals are less differentiated from those common to all socialists. In fact these ideals are really the developing ethical theories of the race and are mortgaged to no particular sect or party. The Christian socialists have not the honor of originating these; in fact they cannot be traced to any particular source more definite than the evolving forces of progress. The Christian socialists are not the only nor even the first ones who lay stress upon these. It is distinctly their merit to have emphasized them, to have contributed much to their


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 64 of solidarity,—has yet to assure it in all social life—not merely in economic life. The individual is dignified in the common purpose of the race—in the life of the organism of which he is an integral part. With this perception we encounter the crux of the social question, the rock on which all forms of socialism threaten to split, the reality and the implications of human equality. It is unnecessary to enter this illimitable field of debate. The ideal of Christian socialism at least, that is, equality in title to privilege of development, does not involve equality of results, for individual capabilities are various although the race is one. Equality of opportunity, in the common application of the term, is not enough; equality of participation in all things would be no less unsatisfactory to the individuals concerned.

This solidarity is to be achieved through religion, through Christianity. Here is a radical difference with other forms of socialism. The kingdom of God is defined as "that transfiguration of human society which corresponds to the resurrection of the individual." This kingdom is spiritual,—"the kingdom of God is within you;" but it can be embodied only in a secular form. That embodiment is to be here and now. In a popular form this is the characterization of the movement. The extravagant interpretation of this idea was criticised above, but its error is not in the location of the kingdom of God as to time and space. This is the significance of the religious element,—the call to the individual to form this kingdom. The essence of the difference between the two forms of socialism upon this point is that socialism exalts natural law, while Christian socialism exalts moral law. Laveleye says on this point, "It is impossible to understand by what strange blindness socialists adopt Darwinian theories (meaning materialistic philosophy) which condemn their claims of equality, while at the same time they reject Christianity, whence those claims have issued and where their justification may be found." Some of these moral conceptions are that all have common rights, that each owes to all common duties, that there should be no right without duties, and that duties should be proportioned to capabilities.


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 66 But this conception of personality insists above all upon the truth that labor is not a commodity: labor is a service, not only of individual to individual but of individual to society also Labor is thus regarded as a social function and should be so estimated. This is the conception which the trite phrase, "the dignity of labor," endeavors to express, though this perception is a very vague one. Man is not only estimated as a man—the dignity of man,—but is also estimated as a functionary of society,—the dignity of labor. Hence the incongruity of the wage system in the present form at least, and the impossibility of constructing a stable society upon the industrial principle of competition without a counterbalancing principle of human valuation. The iron law of wages must be nullified by a change in the conditions which put it into operation. Property is considered no less "sacred," but its sacredness is found to exist only in the sacredness of the personality back of the property.

ECONOMIC VERSUS SOCIAL MOTIVES. A third element of ideal is found in the denial of the paramount importance of economic ends and the insistence upon a juster valuation of various social ends. The economic motive is essentially individualistic. No other ruling motive depends so little upon social relations for its satisfaction. It has been necessary for socialism in general, in defending the various forms of an ideal status, to demonstrate the sufficiency of these other motives. Whether this has been done beyond question may be doubted; but it is certain that a juster relative estimate has been reached. Whether this or that motive will actually produce this or that result under certain unrealized conditions is speculation. But such discussions have brought to light much concerning human motive forces that has long remained unnoticed or undervalued. Whether motives in abeyance can be stimulated to a given intensity may not be determinable, but we no longer deal with the equation of societary relations upon the assumption that the only significant term is economic.

If the medical profession can have guarded for so many


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 68 upon the moral and social requirements of human life than has been the case with other forms of socialism, though as with the latter the fundamental importance of the material condition—health and material possessions—is emphasized. Sometimes too much emphasis and again too little has been placed upon physical goods. The errors of the Christian socialists' ideals are therefore those of proportion rather than of omission.

The relation between the individual and society as an organism has not been harmonized by the Christian socialists, though their perception is nearer the truth of this mutual relation than either individualism or other socialism. The various schools and individual reformers have been biased to the one extreme or the other, usually the individualistic. The common belief—tacit if not avowed—that Christ's teachings are wholly formal or even figurative has been repudiated, and the belief has been insisted upon that they are impossible of literal application in the present form of society, with the corollary that the present order should be changed until such application is practicable.

After all, the greatest merit of the Christian socialists, though it may have appeared a defect, is that with them socialism is a means not an end: that the end is the full development of the inherent capabilities of the individual, and that society is a means to this development. They have derived this perception from Christianity, and though the idea has been but vaguely conceived, it is taking shape as the highest ethical perception of the race. Because of the Christian socialists' failure to enunciate this distinctly their ideal of status has remained indefinite. Though this is sometimes opposed as a too materialistic view of Christianity, it is steadily gaining ground. Christian socialism is nevertheless only one form among many through which this development is going forward. As yet it is hardly truer of others than of the Christian socialists that the content of the epoch-making perception to which we refer is incomplete, somewhat ill-proportioned, and usually very indefinite.


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 80 which this paper will describe is not the center and circumference of the new civic spirit in Chicago; it is rather the rallying point around which the civic patriotism of Chicago citizens has gathered. But, as will be explained, the work accomplished, partly through the agency of the Civic Federation, has been performed by a great many individuals and associations in combination, each representing a different element of public interest.

I. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CIVIC FEDERATION.

In order to mark the contrast between the outlook in Chicago previous to 1893 and the present condition, the form of the Civic Federation must be described in brief. The organization consists, then, according to the by-laws as recently amended, of a central council, composed of 134 members, and an affiliated council of 100 members in each ward. Of the 34 wards in the city, 32 are already organized as branches of the central council. Of the 134 members of the central council, 100 were selected by the incorporators; the remaining 34 are presidents of the ward councils. The central council is divided into six departments, the jurisdiction of which was not originally, and has not yet been precisely defined; but the scope of the different departments has been arranged without difficulty, so that there is a practical understanding about division of labor. The six departments are (1) political, (2) municipal, (3) philanthropic, (4) industrial, (5) educational, (6) moral. The ward councils are organized with committees corresponding to the departments of the central council. The members of the ward councils are kept in touch with the plans and efforts of the central council by means of meetings called by the departmental committees of the several departments, in which meetings all members of the corresponding ward committees participate. The constitution of the Federation provides for the organization of precinct councils, which shall have the same relation to the ward councils which the latter hold to the central council. Thus far the organization of precinct councils has been attempted in only one


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 82 in preventing the use of the lake front for a permanent post office and other buildings, and that it also assisted in preparing the minds of the citizens for support of the present movement, led by the officers of the Art Institute, to make the grounds surrounding that institution an ornament and a credit to the city, and to extend the lake front park by reclaiming land now submerged.

Next in order of time was the creation, in June 1894, of a joint committee, consisting of the municipal committee and representatives of the following reform and political clubs: The Union League, the Iroquois, the Marquette, the Hamilton, the Waubansee, the Commercial, the Illinois, the Lincoln, the Jefferson, the Citizens' League, the Trade and Labor Assembly, and the Real Estate Board. The committee of the Federation and the members thus appointed, making a total of forty, appointed a special committee to divide the work and nominate sub-committees for the various parts. The following divisions, with a special committee in charge of each, were adopted:

 * (1) Revenue laws, town and county relations and special assessments;
 * (2) City charter, administration, etc.
 * (3) Ballot law, primary election, and corrupt practices act.
 * (4) The merit system in civil service.
 * (5) Sanitation, charities, and educational matters.

These committees not only studied their subjects personally, but secured all the aid possible from experts, and prepared bills for the legislature embodying the results of their investigations. Of these the Civil Service Bill was vigorously pressed until it became a state law, and it was adopted in Chicago by a popular majority of 45,000. This bill provides for the appointment by the mayor of three civil service commissioners, one for the term of three years, one for two years, and one for one year; and for the appointment, after three years, of a commissioner to take the place of that one whose term of service has expired. Not more than two commissioners may be members of the same political party. It is the duty of the


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 84 of law during the last days of the preceding municipal administration.

The most important action of the political committee was in connection with election frauds. It offered $200 reward for evidence leading to the conviction of fraudulent voters at the election of November 1894. At the same time other rewards were offered by other organizations. A committee of six Democrats and six Republicans was appointed by the president of the Federation to take charge of the work. The committee raised $50,000 by popular subscription, employed able attorneys, and with a strong corps of detectives secured evidence on which the grand jury indicted sixty-seven men. One of the most important cases has been tried, and the principal conspirator, after a most stubborn defence, sent to the penitentiary for eighteen months. Other important cases resulted in a plea of guilty and the imposition of a fine. At this writing a number of cases have not been heard.

Under the auspices of the political committee a conference was called early in December 1894, composed of representatives from one hundred of the leading clubs and organizations in the city, political, social, industrial, moral, etc., to consider the importance of the then approaching city election. It was agreed that public meetings should be held throughout the city to arouse voters to the necessity of attending their respective primaries, and that every effort should be put forth to promote the candidacy of good men. The political committees of the various ward councils took up the matter with the central council, and systematic work was done in nearly every ward to secure, first, the appointment of competent and honest judges and clerks; second the choice of accessible and otherwise suitable primary polling places; third the attendance of the voters at their respective primaries. As a result of these efforts many high grade men were nominated by the regular parties, but where gang methods did prevail, and no fit candidates were nominated by their party, the ward committees were instructed to call the people together and secure the nomination of good men by


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 86 division are conducting investigations of the sweat-shop evil, the child-labor problem, and complaints of the waiters' union; they are also trying to break up a system which permits saloon-keepers to dictate the employment of waiters in restaurants.

The most important work of the philanthropic division was the organization of the Central Relief Association, or charity clearing house, the purpose of which was to systematize the charities of Chicago and prevent duplication of work. The charities of Chicago are so numerous, and they have disbursed yearly such large sums of money, that an attempt to supplement their operations has, to large numbers of citizens, seemed altogether superfluous. But, as will be explained presently, the emergency which existed in the fall of 1893 was one with which existing agencies were unprepared to deal. It was necessary to extemporize agencies for meeting the extraordinary and appalling demand for special relief. The energies of the people who afterwards composed the Federation were accordingly devoted almost exclusively to the organization which has since become the Chicago Bureau of Charities. Some of the most important parts of the work of this bureau were performed by prominent officers of the Chicago Relief and Aid Society, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and the United Hebrew Charities. Such cooperation furnished sufficient evidence that the new agency was not an aspirant for the place of the older charitable organizations, but that it was a necessary complement of their work. During the winter of 1893-4, the association thus formed collected and applied, partly through the existing charitable organizations, the sum of $135,000. This, however, but partially indicates the importance of the work accomplished. The registration of persons receiving charity was at once begun, and 36,000 names are now catalogued.

The bureau is completing its organization, and by the coming winter will be so organized that no part of the city will be neglected.

The report of the committee on morals contains the following: Last August public gambling was notorious throughout the city. Agents and cappers for houses brazenly and openly solicited victims


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 88  the committee were promptly adopted by the school board. Arrangements are being perfected whereby some of the members of the committee will attend all meetings of the school board, and the committee meetings of the same.

The committee is also endeavoring to secure through the board of education the use of large halls in many of the school buildings, for monthly meetings of patrons and teachers, to be called parents' councils, the object being to arouse a greater interest in the public schools.

III. THE ORIGIN OF THE CIVIC FEDERATION.

This account of the form of organization of the Civic Federation and this synopsis of the work in which the Civic Federation has had a part, furnishes the occasion for pointing out facts beneath the surface, which make the experience of Chicago instructive. In order to bring out these facts it is necessary to tell more of the way in which the Civic Federation came to exist. It cannot be stated too emphatically that the Chicago civic revival, and particularly the organization of the Federation, marked a stage in orderly civic evolution. This step in evolution was accomplished both through the power of latent energy and as a result of certain external impulses. It was not however in a large degree or in an important sense, the work of external agencies or of mechanical contrivances. The visible impulse which led to effective organized expression of civic consciousness in Chicago was a mass meeting called at Central Music Hall, Sunday, November 12, 1893, by Mr. William T. Stead, of London. It was a mere accident, however, and not at all significant, that this spark which ignited the material already collected was struck by a stranger and a foreigner. The more important fact is that long before this incident, prominent Chicago citizens had given much attention to plans for municipal organization to do work that the city government was notoriously unlikely to perform. But previous to this agitation of the subject by a few prominent citizens, there had been for years much argument and appeal in Chicago for more intelligent municipal action. There had been concentrated effort on a small scale and confined to


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 90  that is possible towards energizing and giving effect to the public conscience of Chicago. It is not expected to accomplish all this in one day, but all great movements must have a beginning, and consultation with leading citizens of all classes who desire to see Chicago the best governed, the healthiest, and the cleanest city in this country, leads us to believe that now is the time to begin; and especially do we believe it pertinent that such a movement should begin while our people are yet filled with the new ideas, new ambitions and inspirations drawn from the great Exposition and its valuable adjunct, the World's Congress.

If the committee thus summoned had been called together in an ordinary time, it would speedily have turned into a Pickwick club, after the precedent of many similar gatherings. In this instance, however, the demand for an organ of civic consciousness was not manufactured artificially. It was not created by Mr. Stead, nor by his meeting. It had been gathering force unnoticed while Mr. Stead and others were theorizing. For some time previous to the call of the committee accounts had been appearing in the daily papers of the unusual number of lodgers at the station houses; and finally it became known that even the corridors and stairways of our city hall had become headquarters at night for upwards of 1500 vagrants. This fact proved to be the circumstance which gave to the citizens' committee a vocation, and resulted in permanent organization. When the committee met, a few days later, it proved to be a company which was heterogenous, as a committee would necessarily be if it fairly represented all the interests of so large a town. Yet the diversities of the company were less prominent than the generous and patriotic motives which they evidently held in common, without a clearly defined body of common knowledge about civic conditions, and consequently without definite common purposes. At another time such an aggregation would probably have dissolved in a few weeks, from absence of a principle of coherence. But a piece of work was .at hand, importunate, imperative, the responsibility for which could not be fixed upon any one in particular, which however appealed to the conscience of all humane citizens alike. The sociologists' theory of the organic structure


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 92 the one process of progress. The only intelligent selfishness is structurally identified with unselfishness, as warp and woof in a piece of silk. Egoism that is not equally altruism tends to collapse of its own weight.

The pertinence of these reflections appears in view of the fact that the crisis calling for special relief brought into the consciousness of many representative citizens some most potent clauses of the organic translation of society. They apparently saw for the first time, or more clearly than ever before, that social peace depends upon maintaining something more like a balance between property and poverty. They realized that there is a prudential reason, which sociologists would call "a principle of the structural economy of society," for placing some of the strength of the strong at the disposal of the weak. One successful business man expressed it in the form: "Society must pick up its own chips or the chips will clog the wheels." In other words, perception of the facts of the situation passed very shortly into interpretation of the meaning of the facts, as elements of a social condition in which citizens as such have a personal concern.

Up to this point, then, we have traced the manifestation of an aroused civic consciousness simply as it concentrated itself upon the work of temporary relief. The conduct of this relief work served in the first place to bring sympathetic and generous feeling down from the cloudy region of speculation and to put it into application in certain specialized efforts. It further served to inform these newly aroused consciences as to the relation by which one part of civic amelioration is inextricably bound up with the remainder of corporate interests. While the town was canvassed for workers and for pecuniary supporters of relief measures, and while the time of all actively engaged was consumed by their attention to this fragment of the city's needs, new demonstration was met at every turn that a single municipal condition cannot be treated apart from the total associated life of the city. Thus contact with a single, and that an accidental phase of actual municipal conditions, developed intelligence about the other conditions involved in advantageous municipal cooperation.


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Rh Though thine impassioned call

Some answer not, nor hear,

O Mother! with thy valiant ones rejoice,

Who died for Man, not glory,

And live in deathless story,

Joined to the names imperishably dear!

Blessèd who fall for Freedom,

Where her flag triumphant waves;

Blessèd who sleep in quiet,

With her laurel on their graves,

Remembered through the echoing years

And hallowed by a nation's thankful tears!

And blessèd, too, the living,

Who fill our hearts with hope and glad forgiving;

Who mid the battle's deafening roar,

When fell the ranks like autumn leaves,

Guarded the standard of the free,

The ægis of our victory:

Who, fevered and anhungered, bore

The more appalling tests of tragic War,

And laureate return, and bring to us their sheaves!

Warriors of the land

And warriors of the sea,


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 94  fault of officers hired and sworn to perform particular duties, partly the result of inattention and neglect on the part of people who might easily combine and supply civic needs for which the laws do not provide.

4. At the present moment there is widespread interest among Chicago people in the feasibility of placing a larger share of control over municipal concerns in the hands of those citizens who are most responsible and most patriotic. The opinion which is gaining force about the relation of the average citizen to our corporate affairs is substantially that contained in a tract by Mr. Charles Richardson, published by the Municipal League of Philadelphia. The title is "The City of Philadelphia; its Stockholders and Directors." Although the tract refers to only one fraction of the municipal problem, the principle to which it calls attention makes it an expression about the facts of the whole situation in each large city. Changing only the specific references to Philadelphia, the following paragraph represents the opinion which our committee is trying to make effective: "You are a shareholder in the coöperative corporation, the business company known as The City. So far as other companies are concerned, you may be your own master, and if you are afraid that they will not pay good dividends, or will assess you too heavily, or if you doubt the honesty or ability of their managers, or in case you have no money to invest, you can decline to become a stockholder. But with the city you have no such option, and it is only by emigration or suicide that you can avoid paing a portion of its expenses and becoming responsible for liabilities which it incurs. Even if you have no property to be taxed, you must nevertheless contribute indirectly. Prices would be lower, and you could live for less if the taxes were reduced on the house you rent, the store where your food and clothing were bought, and the capital and business of those with whom you deal. Some may think that people who have nothing and earn nothing, cannot suffer from the burden of taxation; but this is a mistake, since those who support them could afford to supply their wants more liberally if there were no taxes to be paid. There is not a man or woman or child in the whole city who has not a personal interest in preventing unnecessary taxation. There is not a single individual who is too rich or too poor to be benefited by any effort which will tend to secure the utmost wisdom and economy in the collection and expenditure of every penny that goes into the city treasury."


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 96  representative central body which shall be a permanent, unofficial congress of good citizenship;—a congress made up of persons who are capable of deciding disinterestedly what associated action would be for the best interests of the whole city; persons, also, whose endorsement would not only stamp their recommendations as worthy of respect and confidence, but would in addition command the coöperation of all Similarly public-spirited persons and organizations in any plan of action which the congress might propose.

The natural plan for our purpose, the plan with the smallest artificial element under present circumstances, is the selection by the congress of departments of civic action in which it is desirable and practicable to enlist the general cooperation of the citizens. The organization of each part of this action should be entrusted to persons particularly interested in that kind of work, and particularly fitted for it. These persons would then have virtually the same relation to the congress which the different departments of any large corporation have to the directors. This is precisely what has been done in the formation of the Central Relief Association. That body is historically a sub-section of the committee of forty on civic federation. The congress here contemplated would be the permanent form corresponding to that committee of forty. The Central Relief Association would remain one department or section of the operations of the congress. It would then be competent for the congress to consider the formation of one on twenty departments or sections entrusted with the organization of other municipal undertakings.

As has appeared from the foregoing account of the organization of the Federation and of its work, this rough sketch of the things in the minds of the active citizens of Chicago corresponded very closely with the details subsequently recommended and adopted. These details contained very little that was new, but they simply placed in order what was already in operation.

The second cardinal fact about the Federation is that its organizers were wise enough to incorporate and express in its constitution the distinct policy of making both its aims and its membership as completely representative as possible of all the interests which the most liberal interpretation could call the concerns of good citizens. The organization was not a group of the elect trying to legislate for the


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 98 philanthropy, education and morals, has insured the plans adopted against the admixture of Utopianism which has so often proved fatal in similar enterprises. The organization is not only professionally, but geographically and socially municipal in the widest sense; and it seems thus as far as possible protected against the development of any sort of class spirit or provincialism.

The third cardinal fact about the civic revival in Chicago was referred to in the introduction, viz., that the Civic Federation succeeded in coordinating and concentrating municipal patriotism because it distinctly appreciated the impossibility of cornering civic virtue in a single organization. The people who formed the Federation were never visibly affected by any form of the hallucination that they had a monopoly of the good citizenship of the town. They took it for granted from the beginning that their body could at most be a sort of switch board, or clearing house, of civic patriotism. They understood perfectly that if the Federation should attempt to set itself up as the only exponent of good citizenship in Chicago it would speedily be without occupation. Attempts have been made by select companies of men in various cities to purify municipal politics by a personally conducted crusade. The result has been aggravation that hardly rose to the dignity of agitation, and no large fraction of municipal energy has been roused and enlisted. The Civic Federation, on the other hand, started with the perception that Chicago is a net work of organizations varying greatly in their specific purposes, but in scores of cases distinctly committed to some portions of the work which evidently makes up the total of successful municipal action. Some of these organizations plainly enjoyed advantages over the Federation for various kinds of influence; particularly the churches, the Woman's Club, and the other organizations already named. It would have been stupid generalship to attempt to usurp the influence in the town which these organizations exerted, and about the patriotic use of which they needed no instructions from the members of the Federation. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for the Federation


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 100 If an individual should venture to distribute his attention over such a wide territory, he would be likely to make an utter failure, unless he were in a position of authority like that of a mayor with ample powers and rare executive ability. More than that, an association constructed on the usual lines would doubtless have made a more complete failure than an individual. A club of the ordinary character, which should undertake to reform everything, would probably reform nothing, and would presently itself most of all need reform. The new civic movement in Chicago had as its rallying center not an omnibus committee, but a genuine federation; a committee of committees; an association of associations. From the representative citizens in the central council and the branch ward councils committees were formed of persons who undertook to promote particular improvements. These committees cooperated, as occasion suggested, with similar committees representing other bodies. Each member of the Federation, and of the coöperating associations, was presumed to be interested in a general way in the work of the rest, but in a particular way in the duty assigned to his committee. The central council of the Federation became sponsor for the work of a'l the committees, and through this bond of union all the citizens represented in the general association became in a sense responsible for the work of all the rest. In this way a collection of committees, each particularly interested in a special kind of municipal work, became a confederation, with purposes covering the whole range of municipal action. Each group composing the confederation had a moral guarantee of the support of the whole in carrying out measures which had once received the endorsement of the central body. Each person became a more effective supporter than he would otherwise have been of efforts parallel and allied with those to which he had given his direct assistance.

The fifth distinguishing feature of the Federation's work was its investigation of facts. In each division of its operations it abandoned theory and went out after pertinent


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 102 conditions; nor that politicians will do the best service in regulating educational enterprises. To a remarkable extent the work of the Federation was conducted as a business man would manage his commercial enterprises, viz., by securing specialists for special work, and by depending upon them to know their business. The persons organized in connection with the Federation were not people who had previously failed to find any employment in which they could make a success for themselves, and who imagined that they could regulate other people's affairs better than they had their own. They were people on the contrary who had been in the habit of bringing things to pass, and consequently were wanted by their fellow citizens for their well known ability. For instance, the ablest lawyers in the city were enlisted for different kinds of legal work; people who had been long familiar with various philanthropies were drafted for new service in charitable organizations ; defects in the educational system were inspected and reported upon by persons of long experience and mature judgment; the committees on ways and means were men who had been among the commercial leaders of the city; and men who were well known as successful organizers of large numbers of employés were willing to accept the arduous duty of organizing vagrants for labor upon the streets, or of creating an independent force to supplement the work of street cleaning which the city appropriations were inadequate to perform. Thus the different branches of effort undertaken by the Federation were successful, because they were superintended by people fitted by talent and experience to carry on for themselves work requiring similar qualifications.

I will not add to this account of the Civic Federation in Chicago any conclusions of my own with reference to the policy proper for other cities. This paper is an attempt to give a faithful report and interpretation of some of the most important features connected with the first year's history of this Chicago institution. Possibly the record may seem to be of little consequence elsewhere. It represents, however, a most important advance along natural lines of progress in our city, and I believe it to contain


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 Rh In America the term becomes more indefinite yet. The organization of Christian socialists is centered in New England and in sympathy at least is closely allied with the Nationalist movement. This school is more definitely socialistic than the others. But the term, vague also in its American application, applies to a large number of Christian ministers who are social agitators. Since these latter are individualistic in their work, no general characterization can be made.

This criticism is based in the main upon an examination of the three schools thus distinguished.

INDEFINITENESS OF DOCTRINE.

A second difficulty arises from the fact that neither of these three bodies has a distinct programme or code of ideals. It is true that each has made some declaration of principles and enunciated a body of doctrine more or less definite; but the term "Christian Socialism" itself signifies no such principles and no such programme. The term is frequently used in such catholic sense that, like Proudhon's definition of socialism—"every aspiration for the amelioration of society,"—it includes all of us. Maurice adopted the term as a protest against unchristian socialism and unsocial Christianity. With many the term signifies little else than Christianity, while with other extremists it is almost identical with the revolutionary socialism of the continent.

Another form of indefiniteness is still more confusing. It is that which arises from a lack of clear perception on the part of the Christian socialists of the reforms needed or of the methods to be employed. Having formed the opinion that things are not right, the present order is forthwith attacked without any idea of what should take its place or how the change should be brought about. This confusion is worse confounded by a twofold use of terms, or at least by use of terms in a very indefinite or even arbitrary sense. This vice is due to haziness of idea, though the agitators themselves sometimes seem to think that it is due to the impossibility of expressing new ideas


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Rh socialism is. Thus: "Christian socialism is the application to society of the way of Christ;" and again, "Christian socialism is socialism springing from and lived in obedience to and dependence upon the life of God in man, as witnessed to and realized by the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the natural Head and King of all Humanity." These definitions are from pamphlets purporting to tell definitely what Christian socialism is.

UNCHRISTIAN CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM. This twofold indefiniteness is further complicated by the fact that many claiming this title fail on the one hand of being socialists, or on the other of being Christians in the common acceptance of those terms. Bierbower's "Socialism of Christ" is a good example of this latter extreme, and since it represents a class a brief presentation of his view is in place. It does not take an exegete to impeach his presentation, if the usual interpretation of Christ's mission is fairly correct. At the same time the impeachment need not deny that a prevalent conception of Christ's kingdom is also partially erroneous, representing the antithesis of Bierbower's idea. This latter is, briefly, that Christ came to establish a kingdom—"the kingdom of God"—that this kingdom was to be on this earth, and that it was to be a material kingdom, Christ's words being interpreted in a most literal sense. Now, while a too common interpretation puts the kingdom of God in a supermundane region having only a spiritual nexus with the present life, such interpretations as Bierbower's put a very strained construction of an opposite sort upon Christ's teachings. A spiritual interpretation is not necessarily a figurative one. According to Bierbower's view, Christianity was largely political and social to the exclusion of the spiritual: the Lord's Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount are made the key to this interpretation. "In short," he says, "all the beatitudes were a group of promises to the people that the weaker, submissive and non-resisting element should arise to conquer and rule in