"Those who knew Thomas Davidson will understand that it is utterly impossible to give anything like an adequate summary of his life or character. The life of a truly great man cannot be ticketed or labeled. Nevertheless, there are certain traits of his character which are especially significant for those of us who are trying to continue his work.
To my mind his most fundamental characteristic was that he lived philosophically on a truly large scale. He lived for the really great things of life; and stood far above the petty issues, and the petty rewards, for which the multitude is always struggling. He refused to be dragged into any of the insignificant muddles of the day, but constantly strove to be on the great streams of reality. None but the highest enjoyments and motives had any existence for him. Above all, he judged actions by their eternal results. He lived for eternity; and that is why the effects of his life cannot die.
The life of Thomas Davidson was essentially a heroic life. Though as I knew him, one of the most sympathetic souls that ever trod this globe, he had no sympathy with anything unheroic. He had a generous faith in human nature, believing that there are heroes and heroines now, more than ever before, to be found in every street and on every corner, and that it is only our own blindness that prevents us from appealing to the heroic in them. It was just because he led this large life, and expected it of every one else, that it was more than a liberal education in itself to have been intimately acquainted with him; and we cannot do better than attempt to continue his work, judging ourselves by the standards by which he would have judged us, and thus stimulating ourselves to ever greater hopes and tasks.
There is a tendency nowadays, especially among 'practical' people, to look down upon all attempts to grapple with the deep problems of existence. Mr. Davidson showed in clear and unmistakable terms that it is only sheer sloth and coward- ice that can urge us to declare certain problems insoluble, before we have exerted all our efforts to solve them. And he also showed how absolutely futile must be any attempt to solve our problems as 'East-Siders' without taking into consideration our problems as men and women. Now as ever the commandment holds true: ' Seek ye the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all the rest shall be added unto you.'
He taught that the highest reverence is due to human reason; that the highest duty is to search for the truth with unbiased mind; and that the highest courage is to follow the truth always and everywhere, regardless of where it may lead us.
With all his deep erudition he did not overestimate the value of learning. He was interested in knowledge only as a motive to right living. He insisted on our becoming acquainted with every branch of human knowledge, — Science, Philosophy, Art, and Literature, — but only because they help us to lead rational lives.
He also realized that mere knowledge alone will not enable us to solve the profound problems of life; that sympathy is an essential part of a right attitude to the riddles of the universe. You must tune up your heart to catch the music of the spheres. But above all he realized that we do not truly know until our so-called knowledge is tested in real life, that life cannot be learned merely in the study without experience in the arena of life itself, that wisdom is not to be obtained from text-books, but must be coined out of human experience in the flame of life.
This is what led him to the idea of establishing a Bread-winners' College. In his letters to the class he pointed out the great defect in the ordinary College and University education, viz. 'that it stops with knowing, and does not go on to loving and doing. It therefore never is really appropriated, for knowing that does not pass into act and habit is never ours, but remains an external thing, a mere useless accomplishment, to be vain about.' ' If every one of you,' he wrote to us, ' would translate his or her knowledge into love and work, [then] we should have an Educational Institute, a Breadwinners' College — call it anything you like — such as the world has never yet seen, an Institution which will teach men and women to become public-spirited, generously cultured, pure and high-minded, an institution which will help more than anything else to banish ignorance and moral poverty.'
Such an Institution Thomas Davidson wanted us to form, and such an Institution will be formed if we are true to ourselves. . . .
Our own little society already does something to combine the advantages of the College and the Church with those of the home. We form a School in so far as we help each other to master the world's wisdom and learning — a Church in so far as we encourage each other to form and to live up to the highest ideals — a Home in so far as we try to cultivate among ourselves those deep, cordial relations which unfortunately are seldom found outside of the home.
In one of his earliest letters to us Thomas Davidson writes: "There is nothing that the world of to-day needs so much as a new order of social relations, a new feeling between man and man. We may talk and teach as long as we like, but until we have a new society with ideal relations and aims we have accomplished very little. All great world movements begin with a little knot of people, who, in their individual lives, and in their relations to each other, realize the ideal that is to be. To live truth is better than to utter it. Isaiah would have prophesied in vain had he not gathered round him a little band of disciples who lived according to his ideal. . . . Again, what would the teachings of Jesus have amounted to had he not collected a body of disciples, who made it their life-aim to put his teachings into practice?' He was bold enough to think that the new view of the world, the modern scientific view, makes it possible 'to frame a new series of ethical precepts which should do for our time what the Deutronomic Law did for the time of Isaiah, and the Sermon on the Mount for that of Jesus.' And he was even more bold to state his conviction that ' it is impossible to reach a better social and moral condition, until we have rationally-adopted an entirely new view of life and its meaning; a new philosophy truer and deeper than any that has gone before.'
To those who are a little skeptical he says: ' You will perhaps think I am laying out a mighty task for you, a task far above your powers and aspirations; but it is not so. Every great change in individual and social conditions — and we are on the verge of such a change — begins small, among simple, earnest people, face to face with the facts of life. Ask yourself seriously, Why should not the coming change begin with us ? You will find that there is no reason why the new world, — the world of righteousness, kindliness, and enlightenment, for which we are all longing and toiling, — may not date from us, as well as from anybody.' 'A little knot of earnest Jews has turned the world upside down before now. Why may not the same thing — nay, a far better thing — happen in your day and among you ? Have you forgotten the old promise made to Abraham, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed"? ' Quoting from Lowell,
We see dimly in the present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,
he added,
'It may be our weak arm if we will it.'
It was this large outlook, based on history and philosophy, which made Thomas Davidson despise all our modern palliatives, and petty remedies, for social ills. He had no sympathy with the efforts of those who, not knowing how to educate the masses of the people, offer them petty amusements to keep them off the streets and away from the saloons. He did not believe in trifles. He stood for the highest culture for the breadwinners, for the people who have to ' go to work ' early. He was convinced that the way to lift the people above their degrading and vicious lives was to give them an intelligent view of the world, which will offer them an inspiring outlook on life. ' One intelligent glimpse of the drama of life,' he said, • will quench all the desire for the pleasure of the dive and the prize ring.' The whole history of education, according to him, points to the educational institution of the future as the Breadwinners' College, where culture will be learned by the great body of the people who are engaged in the actual business of life; and who, becoming early acquainted with 'life's prime needs and agonies ' are far better prepared for true education than the idle young men who attend our ordinary Colleges and Universities. The Breadwinners' College will be an institution which will teach a man to take an intelligent view of his surroundings, of what goes on in the world and has gone on in it, and will thus help him to lead a simple, upright life, useful, tasteful, and above all, self-respecting. Then only will he be fit for the various personal, domestic, political, and social duties demanded of the complete man. Without an intelligent outlook on society (based on the study of its history) it is impossible to take an intelligent interest in it, and hence our corrupt politics; without an understanding of the meaning of the great institutions under which we live, men are not fit to become their supporters. Only by dispelling ignorance as to the vital questions of life can we hope to make the lives of men possessed of meaning and dignity.
There is another characteristic of Thomas Davidson which ought not to be left out of sight, and that is his rare tact, — the skillful way in which he managed to hold the balance between opposing forces, between Individualism and Socialism, between freedom and order, between the old and the new. His expressions indeed sometimes leaned one way and sometimes another, but at bottom there was an unshaken equipoise. Some thought him an extreme individualist. And indeed he did champion the integrity of man against all idols. In this practical and scientific age there is a tendency to lose sight of the individual man amidst natural forces and scientific laws. He boldly- stood by that characteristically Hebrew saying, 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.' He recognized that science, institutions, and doctrines exist for man, and not man for science, institutions, or doctrines. He regarded the individual man as a holy temple, and believed that nothing in the universe was holier. Yet he was the last man in the world to underestimate social action. He realized full well that every soul which has found what it deems higher truth must seek to form an association, to found a brotherhood, in order to realize that truth. Without such an organization little can be done, for unless we can stand strong in the sympathy of a band we are apt to fall back into accustomed paths.
He knew how to hold the balance between the old and the new. This is perhaps best shown with reference to our more immediate problems of the East Side. The most important practical question on the East Side is undoubtedly the strained, I might say the tragic, relation between the older and the younger generations. The younger generation has, as a rule, been brought up under entirely different circumstances from those of its elders, and therefore naturally entertains radically different aims and ideals. The older generation does not sympathize with these new ideals, and in the ensuing discord much of the proverbial strength of the Jewish family is lost. This is fraught with heartrending consequences. When the home ceases to be the center of interest the unity of life is broken, and the dreariest pessimism and cynicism may follow. Of course our elder and wiser friends tell us that the fault is entirely with the younger people — but that does not solve the problem. You cannot and must not expect the younger people to become false to their own best insight at the very entrance of life!
Thomas Davidson taught us to see in this conflict a manifestation of the feud between the old and the new which has shaped history. He impressed upon us the necessity of taking an honest position in this conflict, respecting the rights of both. He pointed out to us that we have no right to break away from the past, until we have appropriated what we can of its experience and wisdom; and he also taught us to recognize that there is a law of love besides the law of truth, and that the former has its rights even besides the latter. But while we must aim to understand the position of the old and to sympathize with it, we must hold on to what seems to us the higher truth. He taught us to be reverent to the past, but above all to be loyal to the future, to the Kingdom which doth not yet appear.
In the words of Tennyson:
Not clinging to some ancient saw,
Not mastered by some modern term,
Not swift nor slow to change, but firm:
And in its season bring the law,
That from Discussion's lip may fall
With Life, that, working strongly, binds —
Set in all lights by many minds,
To close the interests of all."
In the memorial volume on Davidson by Professor Charles M. Bakewell, his friend and literary executor, entitled The Education of the Wage-Earners, a Contribution toward the Solution of the Educational Problem of Democracy, by Thomas Davidson, there is a very full account of this great experiment in New York City, the larger part of the volume (Chapters II, III, IV, and V) being in Davidson's own words. The fifth chapter contains an excellent introduction on his life and philosophy; and the sixth, and last, traces the story of the movement after its founder's death.
Before reading this book, the preface to which is dated August 5, 1904, I had received from Mr. Cohen a paper written by Mr. Davidson in September, 1899, which explains his aims and ideals; and, although much of it is stated in another form in Mr. Bakewell's book, those who are interested in the movement may welcome a briefer outline in the words of the founder. It is as follows:
"The Higher Education of the Breadwinners
September, 1899.
It cannot be said of our people that they are backward or niggardly in the matter of education. In no country is so much money expended upon schools and colleges as in the United States. And yet our people are very far from being educated as they ought to be. Ignorance is still widespread, and not only the ignorant, but the whole nation suffers in consequence. In spite of our magnificent system of public schools and our numerous colleges and universities — over five hundred in all — the great body of our citizens lack the education necessary to give dignity and meaning to their individual lives, and to fit them for the worthy performance of their duties as members of the institutions under which they live. Our public schools stop short too soon, while our colleges do not reach more than one in a thousand of our population. Moreover, neither school nor college imparts that education which our citizens, as such, require — domestic, social, and civic culture. What is imparted is defective both in kind and in extent.
There are three kinds of education, which ought to be distinguished, but which at present we do not distinguish with sufficient care: (1) culture, that is, the education necessary for every human being, in order that he may be able worthily to fulfill duties as a member of social institutions; (2) professional training, necessary for the earning of a livelihood; (3) erudition, demanded by those who would advance science, or give instruction in it. It is regrettable that both in our schools and in our colleges these are hopelessly mixed up, and that the first receives but scanty attention.
Even more regrettable is the fact that our schools and colleges, for the most part, confine their attention to persons who have nothing to do but study, who are not engaged in any kind of useful or productive labor. This results in two evils: (i) education, for the great body of the people, must stop at an early age, since the children of all but wealthy families must go to work as soon as possible, few of them reaching the high school, fewer yet the university, or professional training school; (2) education is withheld just from those who are in the best position to profit by it; for every teacher with sufficient experience knows that people who have a knowledge of practical life and its duties are far better and more encouraging pupils than those who have not.
It thus appears that social and civic culture is largely neglected in our educational institutions, and that it altogether fails to reach those who are best fitted to profit by it. In a word, the culture calculated to make the wise and good citizen is almost nonexistent. We have good artisans, good merchants, good doctors, good lawyers, etc., in abundance, but we have few persons of liberal culture, and still fewer who can worthily fill important offices in society and state, or who can even cast an intelligent vote for such. Fewest of all, those who understand how their lives affect the general welfare, whence the money they earn comes, and whether or not it is an equivalent for benefits conferred upon society.
Thus it comes to pass that the lives of the great mass of our citizens are unintelligent, narrow, sordid, envious, and unhappy, and that we are constantly threatened with popular uprisings and the overthrow of our free institutions. Thus, too, it comes that our politics are base, and our politicians venal and selfish. The laboring classes are, through want of education, easily cozened or bribed to vote in opposition to their own best interests, and so to condemn themselves to continued slavish toil and poverty, which means exclusion from all share in the spiritual wealth of the race.
There is, at the present time, perhaps no individual problem in our country [so pressing] as that of the higher education — the intellectual, moral, and social culture — of that great body of men and women, who, from a pretty early age, have to spend the larger portion of their time in earning a livelihood. These include not only the working classes so-called — the skilled and unskilled laborers — but also the great majority of the wage-earners of every sort, and not a few of the wage-givers. All these need a larger world, a more ideal outlook, such as education alone can give, not only to impart meaning and dignity to their life of toil, but also to enable them to contribute their share to the well-being of society, and prevent it from falling back into violence and barbarism.
It is true that, in the last few years, considerable efforts have been made to provide the breadwinners with opportunities both for professional training and for higher culture. In our larger cities "university extension" has been introduced, training schools have been opened, and evening schools and lectures on a large scale established. Of these efforts there is nothing but good to say. They are, however, a promise rather than a fulfillment, a beginning and little more. They must be greatly extended and systematized before they can meet the needs of the breadwinners. The training schools are, of course, an unmixed good, and we only require more of them; but the university extension, to a large extent, imparts a sort of education that is not demanded, and fails to give much that is demanded, while both it and the evening classes and lectures are deficient in system and unity of plan. Neither has a distinct aim, and neither sufficiently controls the work of the pupils. Worst of all, both exclude from their programmes some of the very subjects which it is most essential for the breadwinners to be acquainted with — economics, sociology, politics, religion, etc.
Of the three kinds of education, the breadwinners need only two, — (1) technical training, [1] (2) intellectual and moral, or social training. [2] The breadwinner, if his work is to be effective, and equivalent to a decent livelihood, earnable with a moderate expenditure of time and energy, must have skill; other- wise he will have neither time nor energy left for any other sort of education. Spare time and energy are prime elements in the whole question. In any just order of society each member will receive from society a just equivalent for what he contributes to it. If he is so unskilled that his work is not equivalent to a livelihood, he has no right to complain when he suffers want. It must therefore be the aim of every one who would humanize and elevate the breadwinners to see that they have skill enough to earn their daily bread without depriving themselves of free time, and energy to devote to living and spiritual culture.
Supposing now that all the breadwinners were in this condition that, being able to earn a living in, say, eight hours a day, they had considerable free time; they might still remain uncultured and sordid, their tastes vulgar or depraved. They might still have little rest and joy in life, little inspiring outlook. They might still not be valuable members of society. We have not done our whole duty by the breadwinners when we have made them comfortable, — we must go further and make them cultured and wise.
Now what must be the nature of such culture and wisdom? We may answer, Such as shall enable their recipients to play a worthy and generous part in all the relations of life and to enjoy those high satisfactions that come of such worthiness. We may express this otherwise, by saying that they must be such as to enable a man to know and understand his environment; to take an intelligent interest in all that goes on, or has gone on in the world; to enter into lofty personal relations, and to live clean, tasteful, useful, self-respecting lives. The relations for which culture should prepare are: (1) personal, (2) domestic, (3) social (including economic), (4) political. It would be possible to arrange a system of education on the basis of this classification; but it is not necessary to do so. The different relations, however, ought to be kept in view in arranging any course of culture studies.
Perhaps the following curriculum, extending over three or four years, might meet the needs of the breadwinners in the present condition:
1. Evolution: its theory and history.
2. History of civilization.
3. The system of the sciences.
4. Sociology.
5. Political theory and history.
6. History of industry and commerce.
7. History of education (psychology).
8. History of science and philosophy.
9. History of ethical theory.
10. Comparative religion.
11. Comparative literature.
12. History and theory of the fine arts.
In following out this curriculum the greatest care should be taken to avoid any imposing of any special theory or doctrine — religious, political, economical, etc. — upon the pupils. All theories should be freely discussed without bias, party spirit, or passion, and every effort made to elicit the truth from the pupils themselves. The important thing is that they should learn to think for themselves, and thus become morally free. With a view to this the work of the teacher should consist mostly in direction and encouragement. The less he does himself, and the more he makes his pupils do, the better. Lecturing should be resorted to only by way of introduction; then the seminary method should be followed. As a rule, some handy, compact, epoch-making book should be made the basis of work, for example, Aristotle's Politics for political theory and history; then a list of books should be given for the pupils to analyze, epitomize, and criticise in written essays, to be read and discussed before the class. Then when difficult points come up or deeper researches have to be made these should be assigned as subjects for special essays. In this way a wide knowledge of each subject and of its literature will be gained and a deep interest aroused. [3]
The curriculum as a whole will impart just the unitary views of the world and its agencies which will give meaning and zest to the individual life and make the good citizen.
At the close of each study the pupils should be asked to sum up, in a brief essay of not more than five hundred words, what they have learned from it. This will take the place of an examination.
Having settled what kind of culture is necessary for the breadwinners, we must next consider how it may be best brought within their reach. For this, two things above all are necessary: (1) that they should know what is proposed, and recognize its value; (2) that they should have spare time, energy, and convenience for continued study.
The former of these aims may be reached through the public press — newspapers, magazines, etc. — and through lectures, which are here in order. It is needless to dwell on the efficiency of the press in bringing things before the public; but a few words may be said about lectures. It would be of the utmost moment to arrange for a course of ten lectures, covering as many weeks, and given on some convenient evening [4] when most of the breadwinners of the neighborhood could attend. The following are suggested as titles for such lectures:
1. The present state of education among the breadwinners, and their opportunities for obtaining higher education. What the schools do.
2. The education needed by the breadwinners, and how it must differ from school and college education.
3. The education needed by the individual, in order to lift him above narrow, sordid ends.
4. The education needed for the ends of the family.
5. The education needed for the ends of civil society, for the tradesman, the merchant, etc. (1) Technical education. (2) Moral training.
6. The education needed by the citizen.
7. The need of unity, system, and aim in education. The defects of our present education in this respect.
8. How can education be carried into the home?
9. The state's duty in regard to the culture of the breadwinners.
10. A scheme for a breadwinners' culture institute, to be established in every township and in every city ward, to supplement our public schools.
I cannot but think that, if such a course of lectures were given at a convenient time by competent persons, carefully reported in the daily newspapers, and afterwards printed in the form of a cheap book, it would meet with a hearty response from the breadwinners.
It is necessary, not only that breadwinners should be brought to desire higher culture, but also that they should have the time, energy, and convenience to acquire it. How this is to be done is one of the great social questions of the day, and one that I do not purpose to answer here; but of two things I am morally certain: (1) that it cannot effectually be done by any legislation in favor of an eight-hour working day, or anything of that sort; and (2) that, if the breadwinners made it evident that they desired free time in order to devote it to self-culture, from which they are debarred by long hours of labor, public sentiment would soon insist that such time should be accorded them, and provisions made for such culture. One main reason why the demand for shorter hours meets with comparatively little response from the public, is the prevalent belief that a very large number of bread- winners would make a bad use of the spare time, spending it in saloons and other coarse resorts. Labor, it is said, is better or more profitable than idleness and saloon life. And there is some reason in this. Spare time demanded for culture would most certainly be accorded, and it will, I think, hardly ever be obtained on any other plea. I need hardly add that spare time would bring with it spare energy; for it is the long hours that exhaust the energies.
Along with time and energy the breadwinners must have home conveniences for study. Many of course have these, but many have not. In crowded rooms or apartments in tenement houses it is hard to find a quiet corner for study, and the public libraries and reading rooms offer conveniences for but a small number. This state of things must be remedied, and, I think, would be remedied as soon as there was any genuine desire for culture. Persons inspired by this would refuse to live where they could not have conveniences for study, and would thus be brought to demand a higher standard of living, a thing altogether desirable. At the same time public reading rooms would doubtless increase.
At the present time we hear a great deal about saloon politics and the corruption that results from them; and manifold efforts are made to start rivals to the saloon, which a very reverend bishop has told us is the poor man's clubroom. It is sad to think that the bishop is right, and that the poor man has not been able, thus far, to establish any other sort of club room. It is my firm belief that the successful rival of the saloon will not be the coffee room, the reading room, the pool room, or the concert room, but the lecture room and the school room, with their various appurtenances and opportunities. I believe that we shall never be able to put a stop to the deleterious effects of the saloon upon individual, domestic, social, and political life, until we establish in every city ward and in every village a culture institute for the great body of the people who are engaged in business during the day, — an institute composed of three parts: (1) a technical school, [5] (2) a civic-culture school, and (3) a gymnasium. Such institutions must sooner or later be established by the state, and supported by public funds as part of the system of public education; but at present it is well that they should be undertaken by private effort, and their utility, yea, their necessity, clearly shown. The Educational Alliance is in a position to take an important step in this direction, and it can do so by establishing a system of evening classes with a programme such as I have sketched, and appealing to the breadwinners by a course of lectures of the nature I have indicated.
[Signed] THOMAS DAVIDSON."