PHP 1-10

            Foreword—I spent more than half of 2013 at Pendle Hill in Wallingford,    PA, and fell in love with many things about it. My latest passion is with their     pamphlets.  Here I have, after reading them, set down the most impressive     excerpts of each, with rare paraphrasing and additions of my own [in brackets].  Most of all I am impressed with the timelessness of these pamphlets, the    oldest of which go back more than 80 years.

1. Cooperation and Coercion as Methods of Social Change (by Vincent

         D. Nicholson; 1934)
             About the Author—Vincent D. Nicholson (1890-1945) attended Earlham College & took a B. Laws from Harvard (1916). In 1917, he became American Friends Service Committee's (AFSC) 1st executive secretary; he focused on relief during the First World War. His own induction into the US Army cut this work short. After the war, he did European relief work. He was AFSC peace secretary during the '20s. His Pendle Hill class report published as "Cooperation & Coercion as Methods of Social Change," became the 1st Pendle Hill pamphlet. Vincent Nicholson wrote this pamphlet while working with the AFSC work camp in Westmoreland, PA.
             [Introduction]—Cooperation & Coercion don't stand in complete contrast either philosophically or politically. They involve very different theories in human nature, social conduct, & group action. Every employment of coercion, however, affects public opinion far beyond the parties & issues immediately involved. Modern communication spreads the violent group action contagion quickly & widely. Nonviolent actions catch on in a less obvious but equally real fashion. Men who are ready at any time to be governed by the spirit of antagonism aren't fit instruments of any cooperative method. Half-hearted coercion or persuasion can't succeed. Will differences & conflicts be creative or devastating in their effect? Coercion perpetuates in man's spirit an element that is destructive of the good life. Here we outline certain issues & suggest certain criteria & moral judgment.
           Definitions—"Cooperation" means those processes of education & persuasion in which conflict resolution is sought by the free-willing assent of both parties. "Coercion" means those processes by which one party seeks to subject the others to outward compliance without free-willing assent. It is important to remember that moral opposition to war is more than opposition to killing; it is also opposition to setting people against one another in antagonism & hate. Many forms of mass coercion, [such as an industrial strike], partake of war's moral nature, even though they may stop short of its terrible consequences. It is doubtful whether the analogy of a community coercing individuals through civil & criminal law can be carried into the realm of nations coercing other nations.
           Classification/ Criteria of Moral Judgment—Internationally, coercion includes war, embargoes, & discriminatory trade policies. Cooperation includes arbitration, mediation, conciliation, conferences & educating world opinion. The policy of non-recognition, although coercive in character, would seem to chiefly be moral suasion. For the under-privileged group in the industrial field, the coercive methods available are strikes, boycott, & armed revolution. Cooperation includes trade agreements, democratizing & seeking common interest. Political power can be cooperative when based on public opinion, or coercive when based on police & militia.
           2 individuals or group of individuals or groups of individuals may hold opposing moral convictions with equal honesty. And beneath a seeming success may lie the seeds of future difficulties which render the achievement temporary or illusory. The realm of morals is identified with a regard for the general interest. A moral judgment of any social action is concerned with its ultimate effect rather than with its immediate objective. 2 methods of approach to social change are political expediency and Jesus' approach.
           The politically social reformer's conduct must be adjusted to those around him. Importance to him isn't in eternity's sweep, but the seeming demands of his times; something discernible must happen in his own lifetime. [For one using] Jesus' approach, social progress toward an increasing well-being for all depended on having more individuals whose inner life is in harmony with God's purpose. The "rich young ruler" & "Good Samaritan" parables are concerned with being in harmony with the law of love, & personal response to an evil situation.
           John Woolman 1st sought to make his own conduct consistent with his ideals; he then felt free to urge these ideals on others; e.g. opposition to slavery & economic inequality. Tolstoy was concerned with his involvement & responsibility in the evil in existing social institutions & practices & sought to help underprivileged folk of cities & country. Tolstoy shared Jesus' view on more people being in harmony with, in his case, moral law. Each person is morally bound to act out such moral insight as is afforded them. An individual best serves one's fellow when one seeks to contribute to one's group in counsel & in conduct, his highest ideals of human relationship.
           Moral Intuition as an Instrument of Knowledge—Politicians and social reformers are in danger of losing the clarity of their moral insight in the dust of their activity. In the choice between the pragmatic and intuitive approaches to truth, there is no method by which one can demonstrate the superior validity of either. Social progress toward the good life might move more surely if "practical people" would dare to credit more highly and listen more closely to the inner voice of moral guidance. As a definitive, reliable instrument of cognition, the intuitive process has much to commend it. The intuitionist is dealing with the realm of his own inner life. One has a synthesis of knowledge born of the whole of one's past experience.
           If one is religious, this process becomes communication with a divine purpose directing one toward good; apprehension of good isn't a rational process. Many intuitive, religious persons have a sincere conviction that force & coercion are necessary. A belief in cooperation has grown out of an intuitive sense that it is right, despite majority belief to the contrary. Society suffers suffers mostly from a poverty of moral insight. If one has intuitive sense that a coercive policy is out of harmony with the good life, one should trust this intuition. Coercion's results in the modern world aren't so impressive as to invalidate a belief in the rightness of cooperation.
           Persuasion & Coercion have the Same Objective—One of the chief objections to the war method is the historical fact that it is usually inconclusive. Each successive war tends to perpetuate the psychology of war in public opinion. The same is true of other coercive methods even though they fall short of war's horrors. English & US labor history indicates that most strikes have been unsuccessful in attaining an agreement with some promise of permanence. If there is temporary success, it is upset as soon as general economic conditions shifted the balance of power. In the recent Aberle Mill strike in Philadelphia, there was no progress toward solution until there was a murder. Although only 1 life was taken, & an agreement affecting hundreds of lives was achieved, there is an intuitive feeling that the moral universe suffered a blow which no social achieve could compensate.
           Advocates of the use of force in order to oust oppressors from power assume that the oppressed, when victorious will use their power for the social good; neither history, nor psychology, support such a thesis. Persuasion advocates must face the fact that the holders of unjust privilege have seldom relinquished their position voluntarily. The main problem is the discovery of social change methods which offer successful and stable results. The goal of all conflict is an agreement guaranteed in stability by a willing spirit of agreement. The end and the means must be harmonious and appropriate to each other. [There is inevitable] futility in attempting to produce a state of goodwill by methods of ill-will.
           [Queries]—What methods of adjusting group conflict seem to offer a stable solution?       Are the cost of certain effective, coercive methods too high in terms of moral values?      What new techniques of persuasion will dramatize the issue and produce a sense of emergency resulting in action?
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2. A Religious Solution to the Social Problem (by Howard H. Brinton; 1934)

     About the Author Howard & Anna Brinton arrived at Pendle Hill in the summer of 1936 with a solid background of academic achievement at the colleges of Mills & Earlham, & became co-directors of a new sort of education enterprise, a Quaker fusion of school and community. They retired in the 1950s & lived on campus as Directors Emeriti.  Anna died in 1969; Howard continues to serve by lecturing, writing, and simply being.

     PREFACE [to 2^nd Printing in 1945]—The following essay was 1^st published in 1934. Elation produced by wartime prosperity seems, at 1^st sight very different from the gloom of the Depression [Years]. But prosperity based on [massive] destruction of the world’s resources is artificial & dangerous. Europe’s social illness is also at-tacking us. The individualistic atomization of society is balanced by more authoritarianism & mass-mindedness both in economics & politics. Tribalistic nationalism is taking the place of Christianity as an object of loyalty.

     Man will always sink lower or rise higher than the unstable humanistic level of rationalized self-interest. The level above the human can be [reached] by a religiously centered community life [through] an invading Light & Power from above. One must become either a social organism’s cell or a social mechanism’s cog, soulless & con-trolled from without. Wherever Divine Light enkindled within man’s heart shines there is no darkness.

      For the purpose of this undertaking I approached our problem from the original point of view of the Society of Friends, which in many ways resembled early Christianity.  What is the remedy for excessive individualism that will respect the hard-won rights of the individual? The paradoxical nature of this statement suggests that the solution may be a religious one, for religion feeds on paradox, and is at its highest and most creative stage, the one solvent for excessive individualism which enhances the respect for individual personality.  Religion provides the power [to] reform our social order, not the tools or blueprints.     

      INTRODUCTION—Howard Brinton wrote: “Humanity has progressed much further scientifically than it has socially … The scientist had better lock up his laboratory until the ‘visionary’ peace propagandist and the ‘dangerous’ economic reformer teach humanity cooperation and self-control.”  [Howard Brinton found the means of achieving cooperation and self-control] in the obscure writings of Jacob Boehme (1575-1624).  And in the history of Quakerism Howard Brinton found evidence of the effectiveness of the Divine Light Within in producing peace and unity both in the individual and the group.

     The essay now reprinted was his inaugural address when the author became acting director of Pendle Hill (PH) in 1934. PH is pictured as overcoming self-centered individualism & attaining unity through worship & its economic life. The Catholic philosophers Dawson & Maritain & the psychological analysis of social disease by Gerald Heard furnished valuable support & supplements to his own conclusions.        PH Publications Committee.

     The Primitive Christian Solution—In both early Quakerism and early Christianity religious groups were formed whose individual members were fused together as fire fuses metals, by a living infusion of the Spirit.  After Pentecost a permeative bond held together every Christian community from Jerusalem to Rome.  In the early Christian meeting for worship, the Spirit exercised the same function that sou exercises in the body; it united and coordinated the units of which the whole was composed.  Man is saved through the Spirit of Christ inspiring and unifying the Church, not through an external historical transaction.  A greater Life unites him with Itself and with one’s [companions]. It creates new life in one and new life in the group.

     The Middle Ages Church’s central doctrine held that man is saved in and through a Christian Society which is the Body of Christ; this doctrine became mechanized, and only a shadow remained of the early belief. There is no more dynamic or effectual means of social integration than that which we call religious. The individuality of each part was not thereby canceled out; rather it was lifted up into something higher, through which the essential purpose of each individual was discovered and fulfilled.

     The Early Quaker Solution—Quakers gave up baptism as an unnecessary external addition to an inner spiritual reality; the Lord’s supper was celebrated wholly in silent communion. There was no bond but the Spirit, no creed but that which came fresh & upwelling from the Eternal Fountain of Truth. There was in early Quakerism a large degree of economic interdependence. The Quaker doctrine of the Inward Light has sometimes been interpreted as an extreme form of religious individualism, [others assuming it to be Protestantism’s extreme left wing].

     There is indeed a Reformation Group in England which followed this, but it was the Ranters.  [Ranters left the Quaker fellowship when meeting for business governments were set up; this was the Wilkinson-Story separation of 1676].  The Society of Friends took the position that the source of guidance was the “sense of the meeting,” a communal light.  The individual view may be simply fragmentary and incomplete rather than in error.  The Quaker method is group thinking where God is present in the group.  There is no domination of majority over a minority. If a good degree of unity is not reached, no action is taken.  Unity comes as an integration in which the parts are transmuted into something more complete than any part could become by itself.  A group arriving at a higher unity generates a spiritual energy which becomes available for practical use.   

     The History of the Social Problem—In the Graeco-Roman culture, society lost all inner cohesion and could only be held together by the dictatorial policy of a Caesar.  Religion [lapsed] into a skeptical, pantheistic philosophy, or into world-denying mysticism.  Religiously integrated groups of Christians offered to the world a new way of life.  The visible Church became the kingdom of God on earth, and united in itself philosophy, theology, science, art, politics, and language education. 

     But the Church reached its zenith and decayed.  The Protestantism of the the 16^th and 17^th centuries abolished the Church as the means of salvation, and substituted an individual relation between man and God. The great humanists of the Renaissance [rediscovered] the brilliant age of classical antiquity when man had used his matchless individual reason to discover truth, goodness, & beauty.  There grew up a doctrine that progress is inevitable. 

      In the 19^th century, “liberalism” meant to be willing to give to every one the right to advance one’s own opinions whatever they might be; this shed new light on many questions.  Yet liberalism is an incomplete and one-sided philosophy of life; in defending the rights of the parts it tends to forget the rights of the whole.  Protestantism [still] venerated the superhuman, but banished it to Bible times or to a future state.

      [Also in this century] science succeeded in reducing the world of matter to swarms of molecules & atoms, each going its individual way regardless of any spirit of the whole; [economics & politics followed the same path of individualism]. In all human endeavor, the process of atomization continued. Science declared that man has no freedom of will, but is the helpless victim of blind mechanical forces; instead of a fallen angel he is a risen animal; his mind is a mere bundle of reflexes, & all emotions result from one’s glands & their chemical compounds.  [After WWI’s] terrific jolt to faith, one thing yet remains: a faith in the inevitability of scientific progress.  If it could not make life significant, it can at least make life comfortable.   

     Modern humanists don’t seem to realize that one can raise one’s self above the animal only by laying hold upon that which is higher than one’s self. One can’t lift one’s self spiritually any more than one can lift one’s self physically. 3 centuries ago humans began to lose faith in the super-human. Little did they know that this loss of faith in the super-human would cause them to lose faith in the human too.  [Can we forget our troublesome pretensions and indulge in a healthy, sincere sensuality]? The sensuality of the modern man is a deliberate, self-conscious sensuality, not self-forgetful animal naturalness. [In portraying sensuality, the movies present, in more senses than one, a 2-dimensional world with no depth. There are 3 important remedies for excessive individualism which recognize the nature of the problem: autocracy; world denunciation; religiously integrated group. 

     The 1^st Solution: Autocracy—When people have lost faith in themselves they tend to seek refuge in a strong man.  Over-individualized people can be forced to cooperate by the power of the state.  The line of retreat to a mechanical level is exhibited also in the growth of extreme nationalism.  Extreme individualism in nations is as intolerable as extreme individualism in persons.

     The 2^nd Solution: World Renunciation—When confidence of success is lost, the pain of individuality and inadequacy is assuaged by complete surrender to that which is above and beyond the world.  This solution was particularly widespread at the time when the Graeco-Roman civilization was crumbling into individual atoms.  In Buddhism, the isolated soul by ceasing to exist as isolated, enters the nameless peace of Nirvana.

     There must be some area of calm into which the wearied soul may withdraw for renewal of strength.  There must be some quiet time of worship when life’s course is reset by pilot stars.  It is only when such a period of refreshment becomes the only goal that religion is a method of escape.  [On the other hand], the life which is wholly this-worldly is often like a stream which runs dry because it is not renew by a source beyond itself.     

     The 3^rd Solution: The Religiously Integrated Group—In this type of release from over-individualism we find a balance between world-affirmation and world renunciation.  [In ideal operation], these groups neither suppress by authority nor eliminate by retirement. In uniting with the spirit of the group one rises to a super-individual organic level.  [Here “organic” is a binding together of a group by love and friendship].  The cementing force is not only love of one another.  It is also the love of God.  The group looks to that which is above them all yet in them all; they look to the spirit that unites from above.  Such a synthesis of the vertically directed love of God and the horizontally directed love of man is called the Greek of the New Testament agape.  I John 1:5,7 says:  “God is light and in God there is no darkness at all.  If we walk in the light as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.”

     The individualistic interpretation of the atonement, as set forth in most Protestant creeds, is of little help, but primitive Christianity did not put its central emphasis on individual salvation. It provided social gospel for a social need. Primitive Christianity symbolized the power [“the tie that binds”] in the common meal partaken of in memory of the Last Supper. [In Moses’ covenant ritual, half the blood is sprinkled over the altar, which represents Jehovah. The other half is then sprinkled over the people with the words, “behold the blood of the covenant.”

     Blood represented “life.” To unite Jehovah & Israel, a 3^rd living creature needed to be sacrificed in order that its life, shared by the other 2, may unite them into a single life. It is natural that Jesus should think of his blood as the “blood of the new covenant,” creating a living bond between man & God. This is “at-one-ment,” the central doctrine of the Christian faith. Among the early Quakers it was the Christ within, who was the Spirit not only within the individual, but also within the group as a living whole who bridged the gap between the separate individual and a larger whole of life.  

     This method of religion coming into the world as a power which creates social unity has a long history.  At a time when the old Greek deities were no longer intellectually accepted, Greek statesmen advocated their continued worship as a means of unifying the city-state.  The disintegrating force of commerce mixed up men from widely scattered places, & the 1^st age of individualism set in around the 7^th and 6^th centuries B.C. The religions of that time appeared to offer some solvent for an excess of individuality. Sin was estrangement, loneliness, separation. Salvation is closing of the gap between the isolated life and a higher life, an at-one-ment with deity. 

     There is one remedy which aids the isolated human atom to endure existence.  The other associations that exist are held together by a horizontal relation between human individuals.  In religious worship the horizontal bonds are supplemented by vertical bonds leading up to a higher Being.  All can be united by falling into the same pit or they can be united by climbing by various paths to the same mountain top.

     Social progress is a child both of this world and of a higher world.  Each world is sterile without the other.  In the great creative periods, it is only the fertile union of both worlds which can bring about a new birth on a higher level of existence.  Protestantism has evolved no religious method or theory for fusing the 2.  Long ago Catholicism effected a practical synthesis of nature and super-nature which satisfied the Middle Aged mind, but which contains so much obsolete baggage that it cannot lead in social or theoretical advance without making serious concessions to modernism.  Modern Judaism, scattered about as it is over the face of the earth, has little opportunity to revive the ancient Holy Community of the Old Testament.

     Quakerism and the Ideal Community—Quakerism combines a mystical approach to God and a social relation to our fellows.  In the silence we strive to create a sensitivity to the Divine Presence by removing selfish, individual desires.  We find that the partition which separates God and human also separates humans from each other.  Once more [in worship] the Spirit which has brooded over chaos from the beginning has spoken the creative word and chaotic human atoms are reborn into the unity of a higher life.  [The key is] “treating one another as those that believed and felt God present.”

     The group that has thus found God has solved the social problem within itself.  None of its members henceforth face the world alone as individuals.  If the group is to resemble the highest type of living things it must like them, modify its environment.  Differences are adjusted by a process of integration in which no individual is sub-merged but in which every viewpoint finds some place or exerts some influence in the final achievement.  The same spirit will be aroused in the hearts of others; it will grow by contagion.  [The risk is that] a person in this kind of social order [suffers] the violence of those who are not within it. 

     This Quaker method’s general application has hardly begun. Newton was a contemporary of Fox but Newton increased while Fox decreased. As science developed, man’s faith in his ability to control his destiny grew & faith in a religion which looked to superhuman help correspondingly lessened. [Now] the greatest scientists of today have turned to philosophy & have discovered that older mechanistic conceptions describe only a shadow world.

     An age of collectivism is apparently dawning.  Will the dawning age of collectivism be based on external authority to meet a purely economic or political need or will it be a genuine culture based on Spirit which guides us from within? In both early Christianity and the present time there is the same excess of individualism, and an effort to establish a collectivism based on authority.  [Rapid, violent change seemed the only remedy to the situation in early Christianity and the present time].
           The early Christians did not wait for revolution. They set up the new social order in their own religious communities. That the Church later compromised with the state and adopted some of its methods does not detract from its great achievement in offering a real solution to the problem of excessive individualism. The world today awaits for the same ministrations that the early Christian communities offered to the needs of their times. We must have a kind of social cement which binds from within so that the unity formed is not mechanical but living. It is in our power, if we have patience to wait for real growth, to build up small bits of the kingdom here and there wherever a group of persons become united and lifted up by the “Presence in the midst.” [Fullness of strength will be found] in an upreaching self-forgetful mind which unites and creates; in a mystical insight which senses both the upward pull of Divine power and the frail tendrils of lonely human lives reaching out for support [and Communion]. This was the earliest human search; it will also be the last.
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3. The Value of Voluntary Simplicity (by Richard B. Gregg; 1936)
             About the Author—Born in 1891, Richard B. Gregg was a Harvard trained lawyer who practiced law for 3 years before going to work with trade unions. He assisted with arbitration for the railroad workers’ union following WWI. Laid off in the 1920's, he read about the work of Mohandas Gandhi, & went on a 4-year journey through India where he studied nonviolence. He wrote The Economics of Khaddar, & The Power of Nonviolence (1934). His work described nonviolence as a method for changing the character of the world. In 1935-36, he served as the acting director of Pendle Hill. His work was used by many civil rights and other social activists.

      I. INTRODUCTION & DEFINITION—Voluntary simplicity has been practiced by: Buddha, Moses, Hebrew prophets, Mohammed, Moslem sufis, St. Francis, John Woolman, Lenin & Gandhi, Mennonites & the Society of Friends. Mass production, commerce, science, & complexities of existence have raised doubts as to this practice. Our present "mental climate" isn't favorable to a clear understanding of simplicity's value or practice. What we mean by voluntary simplicity is singleness of purpose, sincerity & honesty within, & avoidance of exterior clutter, irrelevant possessions, & a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions. Simplicity is a relative matter, depending on climate, customs, culture, & the individual's character. What is simplicity for an American would be far from simple to a Chinese peasant. Different people have different purposes in life; what is relevant to one person's purpose might not be relevant to another's. Life would be much changed if each person re-organized life in accordance with a new arrangement of purposes.

  II. DOUBTS—Modern machine production seems to have solved scarcity of necessities. Henry Ford's idea that civilization progresses by the increase in people's desires and their satisfaction looks sensible. The vast quantity of advertising add emphasis to that belief. Financial and social stability seems to depend on an ever-expanding market for mass production. Is it not our duty to rise above and master the increasing complexity of life? Would not reverting to simplicity mean reverting to a vast amount of drudgery? We must surely have leisure if civilization is to advance. How can children acquire their full potential if their parents resort to simplicity? How can we and they have beauty if we are limited by a drab and monotonous simplicity? Is this cry for simplicity a dodge, a camouflage for irresponsibility? To insist on simplicity and really put it into effect would seem to mean eventually destroying large organizations.

    III. ANSWERS TO DOUBTS—Modern science & inventions have made possible a boundless supply; all the assumptions based on scarcity are outmoded. [It is possible, not reality; many are doing without, even in the US]. There are vast numbers of unemployed in most countries. Our financial price system & debt structures operate so as to burn wheat in the US while millions starve in China; California oranges rot while city slum children suffer from lack of Vitamin C. The great advances in science have not solved the moral problems of civilization, such as the fair distribution of material things. [The influence] exerted by science, technology and money effect the quantitative rather than qualitative aspects of life. The essence of man's social life is qualitative and moral.

  Arnold J. Toynbee, in his "Study of History," concludes that real growth of a civilization lies in what he calls "etherealization," or development of intangible relationships, which involves simplification of life & a transfer of interest and energy from material things to higher sphere. Our civilization is like a huge engine res-ting on too small and weak a moral foundation; it vibrations are tearing the whole thing to pieces. We need stronger self-control and group and individual morality.

  When certain means & tools are used vigorously, thoroughly & for a long time, the means become an end in themselves. Machinery & money give us more outer energy, but they live upon & take away inner energy. We are all covering much bigger territory than formerly, but the expected access of leisure is absent. The mechanized countries aren't countries noted for their leisure. Machinery spoils inner poise & sense of values; time not spent in toil ceases to be leisure & becomes time without meaning. Advances in transportation, communication, & finances haven't relieved the world of famine. People forget about or are unaware of recurrent Chinese famines, or worsening Indian famines. [A comprehensive look at disease statistics doesn't support our] alleged "conquest of disease." Alexis Carrel believes that our modern seeking of comfort causes atrophy of adaptive mechanisms.

  The way to master the increasing complexity of life is not through more complexity. As an aid to expressing our inner life and as a corrective to our feverish over-mechanization, simplicity is greatly needed. I believe our present world has too many occasions and opportunities for the exercise of power over other people. Our great executive organizations from financial to government are so large that it is impossible for their chief executives to know the full truth about what is happening to the people in them. Even the honest subordinates on location will not tell the whole truth; he will protect himself and those immediately above and below him. The President has to make a decision based on the report of this person. After the order is made, with all the levels it must pass through in its execution, the probabilities of injustice to the rank and file on the periphery of that immense organization are greatly increased. Their very size makes them humanly inefficient. There is too much concentration of power in the hands of too few people. If we want our civilization to last we must prevent megalomania and keep the different departments of our common life in harmony.

  IV. ECONOMIC REASONS FOR SIMPLICITY—Simplicity of living affects primarily consumption; it sets a standard of consumption. If one regards one's self as responsible for our joint economic welfare, one has a duty to think out and decide upon and adhere to a standard of consumption. The economic system in which we find ourselves is gravely defective in operation. Even those who desire to reform or end capitalism usually have within themselves certain of its attitudes and habits of mind and desire. If I wish to participate in transforming it, I must begin to alter my own life in the desired direction; [the more I benefit from the system I want to change, the harder it will be to] disentangle myself. My changes must be both inner and outer, and must be in the direction of more simplicity. I have no right to criticism evil elsewhere unless and until I begin to remove it from my own life, however insignificant my contribution may seem. The meaning of my part in such a movement lies in the quality of the principle and the quality of my participation.

     Exploitation of human beings is much older than capitalism. The consumption of luxuries divert labor & capital from tasks which are socially more productive & beneficial; they waste raw materials and make necessities more expensive. The ostentatious luxury of the rich clearly is a factor in causing hardships, sickness, & unnecessary labor on the part of the poor. The fewer people there are engaged in luxury trades, the more secure the population will be. Simplicity must not infringe upon the wise surplus above minimal needs. A recent study by Professor E.L. Thorndike, based on the US census and similar reliable resources, indicates that American expenditures for food, clothing and housing are considerably larger than the actual necessities to sustain life. "We pay more for entertainment than for protection against cold, heat, wet, animal, disease, criminals, and pains." Above our necessity expenditures there is a wide realm where we can apply the simplicity principle.

  V./ VI. SIMPLICITY AND POLITICAL INFLUENCE/ SOCIAL ASPECTS OF SIMPLICITY—Lenin's, Gandhi's, and Kagawa's lives of simplicity have been a factor in their political power. The masses feel that such a leader will not "sell them out." In spirit they feel closer to him and feel themselves enabled to share in his greatness, and thus their self-respect, their courage, their endurance and morale are enhanced.

  St. Francis espoused poverty & simplicity in order to secure unrestricted contact with nature & with men. Unity with nature & men is something which industrialized modern society is sorely lacking, & which its individual members crave. [My inability to invite a starving, homeless man in] may be from fear of dirt, fear of theft, fear of his resentment, fear of the great distance between his life experience & mine.] I may have so many possessions to look after, that I don't have time for neighborliness. My failure to do things to create good feeling & unity may result in trouble between neighbors. If a new group with economic power might create a revolution, I wonder if the rise of a new group into moral power might create a revolution of a profounder, more permanent, & more widely satisfying nature. A group which combined simplicity of living, disciplined non-violence, & wise changes in economic & social practice, might attain sufficient moral influence to guide & mold a nation.

  VII./ VIII. NON-VIOLENCE REQUIRES SIMPLICITY/ SIMPLICITY AND RELIGION—For those who believe in non-violence, simplicity is essential. [Resentment of an excess of possessions can lead to mob violence. Simplicity helps to prevent violence. Habitually practicing simple living will ease the doubts of others as to the completeness of his sincerity and unselfishness.

  Living simply seems to be an important element in the effort to manifest, [to act out] love and human unity, and hence, to live in accordance with Jesus' commands. We have seen in the case of St. Francis how simplicity aided in his attainment of unity with his fellow creatures. Likewise simplicity helps to express and aid love. The rich young man was advised by Jesus to simplify. Hinduism and Buddhism have also emphasized the value of simplicity. In the anonymous "The Practice of Christianity," tender-heartedness is the supreme virtue and the essence of Jesus' teachings. [All the heroic qualities demonstrated in war] make for a strong character but necessarily a good character. The essence of Jesus' goodness may be summed up in "tender-heartedness."

     This trait along with great intelligence has resulted in simplicity in Buddha, Jesus, St. Francis, George Fox, John Woolman, & Gandhi, who shared property & lives with those who had need. The practice of simplicity means that you are going to lay up treasure in heaven rather than on earth. The practice of simplicity means that you prefer to cultivate & amass the reality of human trust rather than its symbol, money. The inner state must be expressed by an outer act, in order to have sincerity, to prevent self-deception, to know the next step. While simplicity alone is only one element, it would seem to me to be one of the necessary elements in such a program.

  IX. SIMPLICITY AND PERSONALITY—Possessions are said to be important because they enable the possessors thereby to enrich and enhance their personalities and characters. But the greatest characters, those who have influenced the largest numbers of people for the longest time, [who have strong personalities], have been people with extremely few possessions [e.g.] Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Kagawa, Socrates, St. Francis, Confucius, Sun Yat Sen, Lenin, Gandhi, many scientists, inventors and artists. Personality is a capacity for friendship, which along with creativity does not depend on possessions.

  The most permanent, secure and satisfying possession lies not in physical control and power of exclusion, but in intellectual, emotional, and spiritual understanding and appreciation, especially of beauty. The world of nature and the museums afford ample scope for such spiritual possession. The wise person's simplicity is because one knows that all life, both individual and group, has a certain few essential strands or elements and then there is everything else; the wise person confines most of his attention to the few essentials of life. Unless we come into close and right relationships with others, with nature and with Truth, we cannot achieve full self-respect. Simplicity is an important condition for permanent satisfaction with life [and self-respect]. Widespread simplicity, as a cultural habit of a nation, would be essential for its civilization to endure. Some voluntary suffering or discomfort is an inherent and necessary part of all creation. Avoiding it means the end of creativeness and loss of self-respect. Simplicity would help to stimulate and maintain singleness of purpose.

  X.-XII. SIMPLICITY: A KIND OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HYGIENE/ SIMPLICITY & BEAUTY/ A CAUTION —There is a limit to the number of things or the amount of property which a person may own and yet keep one's self psychologically healthy. Too much of anything creates so many possible choices and decisions to be made every day that it becomes a nervous strain. Making decisions is work and can be overdone. Sensitiveness to some important human relations is apt to become clogged and dulled. Imagining lives in circumstances less fortunate than one's own [becomes more difficult]. Observance of simplicity is a recognition of the fact that everyone is greatly influenced by one's surroundings and all their subtle implications. [Conscious choices of those influences] will make it easier to live in a wise way, with freedom and clearness of vision.

  In regard to aesthetics, simplicity should not connote ugliness. Complexity is not the essence of beauty; harmony of line, proportion and color are much more important, as is removal of all details that are irrelevant to a given purpose. I once said to Mahatma Gandhi that I had a greedy mind and wanted to keep my many books. He said, "Then don't give them up. As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything you should keep it. [Giving it up unwillingly or reluctantly would mean] you continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you. Only give up a thing when you want [something else] so much that the thing no longer has attraction for you, or it seems to interferes with something more greatly desired."

  XIII.-XV. CULTIVATION OF SIMPLICITY/ INVOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY/ SIMPLICITY ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH—We must try to understand intellectually all the implications of the new desires and make the imagination dwell upon them in spare moments. Practice the desired simplicity in small ways as well as large. We help ourselves toward simplicity by cultivating a strong and constant feeling of unity [rather than competition]. You will need to resist group opinion pressure and negative reaction [to your lifestyle]; there is a price to pay for simplicity. If we want simplicity to be a vital part of our lives, we must express it in the warp and woof of our life[-weaving].
           Moral qualities which are cultivated in one sphere are usuable in allied spheres. People in affluent countries need to discriminate in the selection of machinery for personal and home use. We need people, who decide for themselves that they will be happy in the world, and who seek simpler pleasure, deeper felicity, not greater wealth, higher fortune, or physical possessions.
           Is involuntary simplicity a good thing? Living in involuntary simplicity close to Nature, where there are naturally fewer possession isn't wholly evil. Urban involuntary simplicity, with its high degree of artificial & complex conditions, lacks necessary, natural elements, & often normal human relationships & activities. But simplicity alone isn't enough. The relative failure of the Franciscan movement seems to be evidence in point. Along with changes in consumption, there will need to be changes in modes of production, control of large-scale production, land, & changes in distribution. Simplicity, to be more effective, must inform & be integrated with many aspects of life. It needs to be more social & in purpose & method. [It needs to be considered an integral part of] non-violent programs, and economic security programs; the need for simplicity will always remain.
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4. The Totalitarian Claim of the Gospels (by Dora Willson; 1939)

           About the Author—Dora Willson (1900-1953) grew up in England & Switzerland; her father was an Anglican minister. She became a social worker. She met her future husband, Robert Z. Willson at Fellowship of Reconciliation gatherings in England & France; They studied in the 1st class at Pendle Hill, in 1930. In 1938 she started teaching the gospels at Pendle Hill, never forgetting her psychology background; her students approached her as much for personal counseling as for insight into the gospels. She helped start the Friend Conference on Religion & Psychology. She chaired that conference from 1950 until her death from leukemia in 1953.
           [Introduction]/ JESUS: [HIS] SINGLENESS OF AIM & METHOD; [HIS] CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF THE WAY—A tragic gap separates the unreligious, pseudo-scientific men and women of today from Jesus' message of an experimental way of life, and its incomparable simplicity and clarity. We must clear our minds of preconceptions, accepted interpretations, famous teachings, and modern psychology's findings, and use simple language.

 The brief period of Jesus' public activity was lived entirely under the compulsion of one single motive—to make clear to men the way to full abundant life which he had found. With an equally single loyalty, he held to the method he had chosen to reach his objective. He taught, and centered his teaching on the process, the means by which men might attain fullness of life, without describing objectives, results, ends, or states of bliss. He does describe how someone finding and following the Way will function in daily life. He uses vague, general terms to describe results of successful practice of the right process; the wrong process leads to destruction.

 The Way which led Jesus to life is of such a nature that those who follow it, including Jesus, become absolutists. Jesus must have had a magnificent clarity & command of thought & language, because nothing is more difficult to state lucidly than the unconscious steps which lead to spiritual results. That thought & language is still present in the fragments of his teaching still available to us, often corrupted through misunderstanding & repetition, but still marked with genius. There is a difference in tone between his sayings & resulting paraphrases.

  FINDING THE WAY & COUNTING THE COST/ JESUS' TEACHING OF THE WAY/ THE WAY OPEN TO ALL—Jesus has faith in human possibilities that is reckless, but at the same time he knows that few be they that find the narrow gate leading to life. Jesus actually warns his hearers to sit down and count the cost. Lay your plans he advises, weigh pros and cons; evaluate requirements and your resources. If the individual doesn't see clearly what is required, one may start what one can't finish and be mocked for it. Realism and reasonableness are in so direct a contrast with much of what is considered to be the proper religious attitude of fervent commitment, that we may fail to see its meaning. There may be a place for profound, revivalist stirring of the emotions, but after that one should take time and assume full responsibility for decisive steps.

  Jesus is most absolute in his claim on the individual, in answering the fundamental question: What shall I do to be saved? We find teaching on the Way scattered throughout the Gospels, evidence that time and again he must have returned to it, using different words and methods in his eagerness to make people understand. The Way appeared to him as something open to anyone. Jesus assumes only one requirement: moral earnestness, a deep desire for life. None should draw back saying they lack intellectual ability, spiritual insight, or conviction of personal sin to be washed clean by the self-sacrifice of another. The basic need for [the fullest sense of] life, justifies us in believing that the Way as understood by Jesus, is open to all.

  THE WAY IS: A NARROW GATE; ACTION/ FOLLOWERS OF THE WAY ARE JESUS' BRETHREN—If on the one hand no special qualifications of mind or spirit are indispensable, and yet on the other, few are those who find the Way, then something other than reasoning or spiritual exercise is required, something more arduous and exacting. What is required is action, action of such a fundamental nature that it might be called the action, the supreme and decisive act by which man gains a new, [full] life, [every bit as much a birth and] entering into a new world [as our physical beginnings]. Others, by following it, [are "born" into his family]. The results attained by him are attainable by others. It is out of his own experience that he describes it [with great conviction]. When we observe in him those very challenging results in challenging intensity, we realize that he speaks with an authority different from that of scribes, an authority from within, from that which he has lived. [He has "experimented" with life] and his statements are based on facts he has himself established.

 JESUS' ASSURANCE AS TO RESULTS/ THE WAY IS TOTALITARIAN—Jesus affirms again and again that the results are confidently to be expected: ["family-hood]; the kingdom; pearl of great price; life is saved. Unmistakable too are the results seen in Jesus: self-objectivity; receptive attitude (including "opposition"); freedom of movement through life; [freedom from fear]. The relationship he had achieved with God convinced him of a sustaining and ever watchful love which banished fear. Jesus makes 2 things clear about the Way, the decisive act: it involves the whole personality; it is directed toward the totality he calls God.

 The one who enters upon this vital experiment must throw in one's whole self. Jesus uses the parables of the treasure and the pearl, and the encounters with the rich ruler and the lawyer [to indicate the level of commitment necessary]. One's whole self is absorbed in the relationship between one and God; [the relationship between each human must be all-inclusive. Jesus states the Way in terms of absolute loss of self.

  UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE INDIVIDUAL HAS TO DO/ CLEAR STATEMENT OF THE WAY/ THE WAY WRONGLY STATED IN TERMS OF OUTCOMES/ TOTALITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL IS NOT REACHED PIECEMEAL—Understanding Jesus' teaching requires intense scrutiny, made urgent by deep personal concern, which any one who is in earnest about his life will give to possible methods of attaining its fulfillment. What is the "all" that has to be given by the individual? Wrong, inadequate answers may mean stagnation and atrophy. Clear, practical answers may mean growth beyond our present biological stage of development. The Way is stated in terms of ethical conduct; the visible outcomes of the process are thought to be the process itself. [True ethical conduct comes as the spontaneous fruits of a radical inner change to goodness, not through mechanical acting out of that conduct]. As long as we are concerned with good conduct, we are enmeshed in parts and fragments of ourselves.

  [If we list every small part of us that needs reform, this piecemeal process will seem endless]. Jesus meant something else, for his descriptions are always of processes that come to completion, that are followed by desirable outcomes. Is it possible to make a direct drive for that which may be central [within us]? And having reached the core of being, if that could be handed over, then the whole self, good and bad, is also handed over.

 THE SELF IS ENCOMPASSED WHEN SELF-WILL IS ABANDONED/ SURRENDER TO THE TOTALITY/ THE TOTALITY HAS INGRESS INTO THE SELF—To no individual, however trustworthy, should we guarantee this ultimate allegiance, [and total surrender]. It is equally tragic for any institution to make any such claim. Jesus makes it clear that one can safely hand over one's self-direction only to that which is absolute, all-inclusive, without limit. Jesus uses the word God. All human creations meant to guide human conduct are partial interpretations, caught in the net of space and time, subject to change with our changing conditions Only that beyond the farthest reach of our knowing and of our imagining, is a sufficient object for the total devotion that is required. In every individual there is a point where the Totality touches the self and the self is enabled to transcend its own limits: the light which lighteth every man, the seed, that of God within.

  THE POINT AT WHICH THE WAY STARTS/ RESULTS FOLLOW FROM EVEN A MODEST BEGINNING/ PERFECTION IN REPEATED COMMITMENT IS THE WAY—It is where we decide our conduct that we may look, that we must look to make a start on the Way. Deliberate misuse of this sense commits the unforgivable sin agains the Holy Spirit. Contact is at once establish with the Whole when one makes as sincere a decision as one knows how to make, to be loyal to the directions which come to one, however imperfectly.

 Even when the decision is taken without reference to religious beliefs, the radical act of abdication to the unspecified good bears fruit. [Even when done imperfectly], the self has been born into a new life of freedom and potency; renewed pledges bring increased strength. [The results may be unspectacular], but Jesus seems to take for granted that there will be heightened moral sensitivity and power and sureness in living unknown to those who simply strive to lead good lives. [There will be uncertainty]. Even Jesus himself was uncertain as to the content of God's will on the very eve of his death.

  It would seem as life presents dilemmas of increasing difficulty as fineness of discrimination grows. And when the right is seen, there need be no struggle to force oneself to do it. Failure we know we must expect here. In spite of failure, we renew the initial commitment: all my self to the Whole—known, unknown, unknowable; full control to that which is mediated to me through the indwelling sense of right, cost what it may. The regnancy of God, the kingdom of God; that is what Jesus called the result of that act; [a total surrender, with] a new self released into power and life.

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5. Pacifist Program: In Time of War; Threatened War; or Fascism  

  (by Richard B. Gregg; 1939):

             About the Author—Born in 1891, Richard B. Gregg was a Harvard trained lawyer who practiced law for 3 years before going to work with trade unions. He assisted with arbitration for the railroad workers’ union following WWI. Laid off in the 1920's, he read about the work of Mohandas Gandhi, & went on a 4-year journey through India where he studied nonviolence. He wrote The Economics of Khaddar, & The Power of Nonviolence (1934). His work described nonviolence as a method for changing the character of the world. In 1935-36, he served as the acting director of Pendle Hill. His work was used by many civil rights and other social activists.
           I. 2 ASSUMPTIONS & A DEFINITION OF PACIFISM—Pacifism must be an effort to create by non-violent methods a new & better civilization, not just postponing war. We must build a new order that embodies more respect for personality, justice, tolerance, freedom, & love. War is an important & necessary institution of our present civilization, not an illness, maladjustment, or temporary, personal [& political] mistake of a few leaders. The only way to end it is to change, non-violently & deeply, the motives, functions & structures of civilization. We can't eliminate all conflicts, but we can reduce them & settle them non-violently. Miracles can be accomplished by singleness of purpose and devotion.
            Every great human movement was begun often when the clouds were dark, by a very small group of people, just as hormones produce great changes in bodies. We can't abolish war, an essential feature of our system, unless we alter the system's nature. Deep changes must begin now, before war comes, in order to get a better civilization later, whether war comes or not. International diplomatic agreements don't alter civilizations. They are are too superficial & fragile to meet the need. It would take at least 3 generations to remake a civilization. The word "pacifist" is an inadequate description [of the task; economic & social forces are also part of the process].What ought a pacifist do in a country where war or fascism is imminent?
            II. PROGRAM FOR THE PACIFIST: 1.Pledge Not to Fight or Help War—Absolute Pacifists, 18 years or over, men and women, ought to sign a pledge not to support or take part in any war and file it with an appropriate organization. It is an affirmation of free will and a commitment to new relationships and new efforts. Industrial conscription will be needed for military applications, and would include women.
           The governments of the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and many other countries signed a pledge in the Briand-Kellog Pact of Paris "that the settlement ... of all disputes ... shall never be sought except by pacific means." Each signatory government asked by implication all of its citizens to uphold it; asked each citizen to refuse to go to war. (The Supreme Court ruled on the claims of conscientious objectors that the State is supreme over conscience, but lawyers doubt its legal soundness & pacifists doubt its moral or spiritual validity). The Pact allows for self-defense. Unless the signatory governments repudiate the Pact, it is at least a solemn aspiration, to be heartily supported by citizens.
           None of the nations disarmed after signing the Pact, and the US and Great Britain protested against the unilateral violation of treaties. If governments have failed in regard to that Pact, there is all the more reason for the individual pacifist to keep his pledge. Some object that no one should promise certain things without knowing the circumstances at the time of fulfillment. Promises are commonly made that are partly blind.
             Just before going to war, governments suppress facts & use distorted propaganda [to whip up passions]. Lack of facts & powerful influences don't allow for sound judgment to support or not support the war. Those objecting to advance pledges against war think that certain wars are justifiable, & can be fought for noble causes. They overlook that in modern wars the alleged reason for fighting is rarely the real one. I believe that modern weapons & methods, expensive, destructive, & indiscriminate, have ended the possibility of war saving or promoting anything of value; fascism begins when war is declared. Those who support wars if they considered them morally defensible invite the government to frame the story so that war "this time" looks wholly justifiable.

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             Sometimes people refuse to sign a pledge against war because they are unwilling to face the issue. [Author offers the example of the "Statement by members of the Broadway Tabernacle Church of NY City"]. It isn't a pledge. It states: "I can't reconcile the way of Christ with the practice of war ... I believe those who hold this conviction in time of war to be right ... & desire ... that I shall be among those who keep to this belief." The statement invites comment. A pair of young pacifists call on an older member of the church, seeking their insight & asking if they would be willing to sign the statement. A large part of this church is now convinced pacifists. A pledge not to go to war or support war isn't merely a future promise; it is a present choice of a way of life, & begins with a firm decision. It needs to be made in advance of war. Carrying it out is harder & still more necessary.
            2. If War Comes, Fulfill the Pledge—In war, the 1st negative duty of the absolute pacifist is to refuse to join the military, or serve in it if conscripted. One should be willing to endure insult & punishment upon one's refusal, even death. Our lives are held together by the loyalty of our forebears & contemporaries to the [qualities of] truth, human unity, nonviolence, & love. If we give our suffering or our lives for those things, we are simply paying a debt that we owe. These qualities outlast any individual or nation. They are more important than I am.
            The ultimate insecurity is division, disunity. Unity is the greatest security, & is immensely important to live for or die for. "Safety lies neither in my possession or yours; it lies forever between us. If either of us seeks it for themself both of us must miss it ... Could we but restrain the childish desire to snatch it for ourselves, we should experience security that comes of mutual trust." In the view of the principle of increasing complexity in evolution, taking a risk for ideals, [not fearing the other] affirms human unity or harmony of relationships, making possible a closer and more complex integration.
           It seems too great a risk only when we forget the imponderables which are pressing toward a higher, subtler, closer, more inclusive organization. It is richer in resources because inclusive of more forces, more adaptable and more enduring. The giving up of a smaller original self is the 1st necessary step toward the creation of a richer and more permanent self. [Believing in the insignificance of our efforts] overlooks the historical instances of righting great wrongs. The fact that the government is so set against conscientious objectors proves their refusal is not futile. An immediate refusal would be tried publicly; a postponed refusal would be tried secretly. Women should refuse to do nursing under military or semi-military orders or to work in munitions plants.
           If munition workers become pacifists, or if an unemployed pacifist is threatened with losing benefits if they don't work in munitions, what should they do? If one has no family responsibilities, one's decision depends on conviction, courage, & resourcefulness. If one does have responsibilities, the spouse's attitude will matter. They may risk finding other work or private charity. One forced for family reasons to work in munitions should do as much humanitarian services as possible. To the extent that one expresses love & unity with humankind, one reduces the poison of one's compromise & is generating in one's self courage & power for further advance & ultimate refusal to serve war.
           3. Work for the New Order Before War Begins & After—As soon as the pacifist takes the pledge against war, he must begin active work to build a better world. If one waits until war comes & then refuses to take part, one leaves to the government the initiative in deciding one's role. The government will give one merely a choice between evils. One needs to make a pledge, choose a task & get to work on one's chosen role in cultivating a new civilization, so that it is already a reality if & when war comes. If the pacifist hopes to do constructive "alternative service during military war, one should begin now, for a type of economic war is already upon us.
            There are many social and economic programs of change that a pacifist can espouse and work for. Such work strengthens intangible but enduring forces, like: respect for personality; sympathy; generosity; mutual trust; unity; and love. These intangibles are a necessary part of the foundation of a better world. Choose the work you feel is most valuable, and devote yourself to it. Work with the poor and unemployed will help heal the deep divisions in society. I urge work other than political propaganda, work that can go on if war comes and the government puts a stop to political efforts for justice and peace. If one wishes to work for democracy, one should do so now, before wartime domestic dictatorship reduces our present degree of democracy to zero.

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            4. Prepare Individually & in Groups/ 5. Refuse to Cooperate with War Preparations or Government "Alternative Service"—The peacemaker should engage in specific individual & group training of thought, sentiment & spirit, for the creation of a warless civilization. One should try in advance to make one's self immune to war hysteria & hate. One should study the history & economic condition of potential adversarial nations, & try to see how those nations see the acts of one's own government. 

           One should realize how one benefits from actions & attitudes leading toward war, & avoid indignation about the acts of other nations. Before war comes pacifists should organize dependable methods by which they can keep in contact with each other, share information, securely publicity for trials of conscientious objectors, & various kinds of support for them and the family of those sent to jail. How shall pacifists support themselves in time of war? Pacifists will need to learn some other skill than that by which they are now living; it had best be a manual skill.
            Numerous European governments are introducing protection schemes for civilians in case of airborne bombing. Spain, Ethopia, and China have seen bombing from the air with terrible results. The schemes include "blackouts" of cities, underground shelters, some gas masks, moving the most vulnerable out of cities, and air raid wardens. In Great Britain it is widely believed that these measures are futile and that the reasons alleged for them are false.
            Barcelona was bombed in a silent attack beginning at 20,000 feet that was over before the warning sirens sounded. It is believed by many that the government means to frighten the citizenry enough to make them pliable and accepting of repressive measure proposed under the guise of safety. In time of war governments do not abide by their promises and assurances. The wording of laws is sometimes unduly broad and even ambiguous. Those at the top of government who plan broad policies are often far-sighted, sensitive, statesmenlike; those who execute the laws in detail are sometimes short-sighted, petty, domineering, and callous.
            I would advocate that pacifists operate outside of government organization. They can operate 1st aid corps, feed, comfort, guide, reassure. They can carry out transport of food & supplies. Pacifists can organize various squads to help after air raids, feed such squads, & care for children. & of course prepare surgical bandages & dressings. Government threats & compulsion in such programs won't promote the kind of community that pacifists desire, so they will want to do it independently, relying on human kindness.

           I believe that COs shouldn't accept ambulance work, nursing, or hospital work as "alternative service." The compassionate motive is used by the government to make wounded fit for further fighting. Hospitals & nursing help prolong the war. There will be no shortage of war-minded nurses, ambulance men, physicians, & hospital support. [I have no patience for cowardice in pacifists]. If a pacifist must suddenly to choose alternative service, let one insists on a job not subject to governmental control, serving civilians. Let one try to serve community or society rather than the state. [There is a long list of community services & industries] that will likely be under civilian control . If the government won't permit the pacifist to work free from its orders, then jail is likely. Relief work under strictly civilian or pacifist church direction may be regarded as consistent.
           6. Pay Taxes—Should a pacifist refuse to pay taxes to the state at war? The State creates money and property rights, so the pacifist will have to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." Where all of society is engaged in a system of which war is an integral part, it is impossible for any individual wholly to free themselves from complicity. At what point will one make the wisest compromise? Since modern war is largely caused by the economic system, a thoroughgoing refusal to support war would have required pacifists to stop using that system long before they were fined or went to jail. If sincere pacifists were allowed to withhold payment of taxes paying for war, [there is no end to the number of groups that would have to be given the same privilege]. A democratic government exists to administer certain activities for the whole body of citizens; citizens may not interfere with its administration without penalty.
           A refusal to pay taxes is a challenge against which the State will do battle with all its resources. Pacifists should not refuse to pay taxes, at least until they have prepared themselves sufficiently to assure themselves a reasonable chance of success in such a struggle. Pacifists should continue to pay taxes until they have: a plan for a better State; a nonviolent way of winning power and making changes; transitional organizations up and running; skill and confidence in nonviolence; demonstrated executive capacity and responsibility; demonstrated effectiveness of nonviolence; increased social and political unity between groups; working devices supporting the most depressed part of the population through the stress of change. 

           A pacifist may pay taxes under protest. Refusal to use the economic system would cut one off from society and cut down on one's usefulness. A pacifist taxpayer is not directly responsible for the use to which the State puts one's taxes. An individual is morally responsible for one's actions as a soldier.
           7.-8. Refuse to Keep War Profits or to Buy War Bonds/ Perhaps Join in Patriotic Ceremonials—If war should bring profit to an industry in which a pacifist has an owner's interest in, he should turn those profits over to some program or person [furthering the formation of a new civilization]; one shall not manage a war industry, or buy government war bonds. The compulsion to pay taxes is part of the legal process. The compulsion to buy war bonds is that of public opinion. The pacifist shall only give to civilian organizations and causes as are designed and operated for civilian purposes.

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           How far should I as a pacifist join in with patriotic ceremonials? How do I interpret symbols like the flag? How will my neighbors interpret my symbolic actions? How shall I symbolize my real position? How can fine distinctions be expressed to the crowd? Symbols are almost entirely emotional in meaning. I would join ceremonials when I can't avoid it without being conspicuous. I want them to feel the unity & to realize that I feel it. If approached to do something specifically to support the war, on that point I will adhere to my choice of a different way. I think I should somehow symbolize the fact of unities being more important than differences in a way capable of being understood more widely and more emotionally than my silent service can be.
           9.-11. Support Strikes Against War/ Aid the Struggle of Labor/ Refuse to Demonstrate with Communists or Fascists—If a union should decide to go on strike against the war or against making munitions & the case were clear of other defects, I would give the union moral support, & perhaps more. So far as possible the pacifist will try, by nonviolent means, to alter our present social & economic systems, & replace it with some-thing better. As best one can, the pacifist will try to persuade labor unions to see that nonviolent resistance is realistic, & is a much more effective method of struggle than violence. The pacifist should be informed, & publish the truth about general labor conditions. If labor is committed to nonviolence, pacifists should take care of any wounded in strike actions. So far as picketing, it doesn't do for outsiders to join just out of emotional sympathy.
           Communists are aware that violence is likely to be used by the employer group, and are willing to use it in self-defense. Pacifists involved with Communists in a demonstration that turn violent will be seen like hypocrites. I doubt whether pacifists can afford to take part in public demonstrations with Communists; the same refusal applies to Fascists. Because violence is totalitarian, [a pacifist must oppose it] without compromise.
           12. Behave Wisely if Imprisoned—Pacifists in jail are political prisoners. A political prisoner hasn't, like the ordinary criminal, disobeyed the law for selfish reasons, but for ethical principles. Pacifists in jail should work hard at assigned tasks, provided those tasks are regular prison work & not for military use. They should be respectful, open, above-board, & not deceitful. They are entitled to refuse orders clearly intended to humiliate them or to insult or violate their beliefs. Any work compromising a COs position should be refused by the CO.
            In certain cases lacking organization, the prisoners can perhaps help the authorities develop work consistent with their position & good for morale. Pacifists may protest against cruel treatment or conditions, 1st through proper channels, then through refusal to work. Hunger strikes shouldn't be used unless the matter is of the gravest importance. Reading & writing are important activities, as is meditation, as a way of making contact with inner reality. Perhaps the cruelty of prison officials is a symptom of the evils of civilization & not all their fault.
            13.-14. Plan Peace Negotiations/ Be Chary of Condemnation always, and of Mass Protests after War Begins—A time will come in every war, when the losses are large, that a preparations for a truce or peace would be feasible. Then pacifists ought to propose and help effectuate peace terms which will not lead to another war. At all times—before, during and after any war—pacifists should refrain from moral condemnation of any members of the government, use constructive criticism, stop arguing or using propaganda against war, urge constructive reforms, and lay more emphasis on action than on discussion of war.

            It is important for every pacifist to be very sure of one's motives & the relations between one's motives, purposes & conduct. Before war comes & after it is over, all pacifists will do their utmost in all forms of communication to persuade people that the pacifist position is right and practical. During war pacifists should desists from all adverse or public protests against war or government's war actions. Talk about the truth, practicalness, common sense and beauty of the pacifists' methods rather than criticize war. During war, pacifists should throw almost all their energy into quiet work that is creative of a better social order. When it is clear there is war, the pacifist should make it clear to those who support his pledge, as well as a wide range of authorities who might not, that one is a pacifist, but will make no protests. For the most part, one should keep silent and work.
            III. ARGUMENT AGAINST PROTESTS AND CONDEMNATION: 1.-2. Motives for Protests/ Argument on Motives of Inner Consistency—It is natural to wish to satisfy one's self-respect or conscience, to repudiate a great wrong or the appearance of consenting to it. A pacifist too old or unfit to fight may feel the only thing one can do is to make verbal protest. There is moral indignation, the [true] honor of nations, making war difficult, removing causes of war, and serving human unity. Are verbal protest and condemnation the surest methods in opposing war? There are other more creative motives for opposition: converting others to pacifism; message to the next generation; displaying non-violent resistance; a chance to make a better peace.
             If I condemn evil, one implication is that evil would harm me. If I condemn an evil person, I imply that I am free of evil. I must always try to be gentle and respectful of personality, even though I may feel severely about the wrong. To the extent that we have accepted the comforts and privileges of our civilization, we are responsible for its evil results. Jesus is cited as an example of speaking condemnation. Jesus spoke it only in very limited circumstances, and on other occasions avoided condemnation. People protest and condemn when they discover that their very enjoyable means have very unpleasant results. We seek a scapegoat: government; arms makers.

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             Since our real job is to build a new civilization, let us use our energy for that purpose, in its constructive aspect. Verbal condemnations of war may may be properly made only by those who declined the benefits of our civilization and who have refused the "perks" of our present economic warfare. They must also have a life of simplicity and tireless service to humankind. We may not pick and choose from Jesus' teachings, which are an integral whole; it can't permanently work unless taken and used as a whole.
             The failure to share a high standard of living more equitably among all is wrong; it is mainly due to moral inadequacy. If we pacifists assert that war, a part of our inheritance, is wrong, then we should discard comforts that cause us to cling to the processes that surely cause war. Clear vision & a single purpose are necessary to win a great following or a very quiet conscience. Because of the momentum of past habits, we can't successfully halt at the brink of disaster & stand still. To turn aside requires abandonment of some accustomed modes of living.
             Refusal to support military activities, and speaking in favor of liberty and social reform, will subject pacifists to ridicule, scorn, hatred, rough treatment, imprisonment and loss of property. The effort for building a new civilization cannot be fixed, rigid and uniform, no matter what the development in the world may be. Changes in strategy may denote cowardice, but usually they are evidence of sound and flexible strategy. Pacifists need not be upset by the taunts of their opponents, if they themselves realize the nature of the struggle, have a clear plan, and are prepared to persist. 

           One's simplicity of living and service for others, whether, before or during war, promote unity and generate love and trust. The wider and stronger and longer-standing the love, the less the fear. One's silent work can at least repair some of the damage & help to prevent another war; protest does not. Unless pacifists prove themselves to be as brave and self-sacrificing as volunteer soldiers are, militarism will prevail.
            Relatively few CO's have realized the implications and real requirements of the pacifists’ position—namely the necessity for changing civilization completely. If we grapple with the problem as it really is, we may begin to make those earlier sacrifices bear fruit. Our conscience ought to have caused us, before war began, to change our habits and begin work for that different order. Since action speaks louder than words and is usually less ambiguous, silent right action is the best way fully to satisfy the conscience. 

           [In this world of grays], conditions are often partly right, with wrongness so closely intermixed that for swift decision they can't be separated. The best action is the one with the greatest amount of rightness in it, as in working before the war to build a better civilization, or beginning the same work after it started and showing restraint in talking against war. An adequate and effective refusal must be aimed at the system in the form of action to make a better one. The most effective mode of expressing the truth is putting the truth we know into action.
           What we are seeking is wider, deeper, & more complex than non-war. The pacifist wants to avoid the romanticism & histrionics of repeated verbal refusals, & the opportunism & expediency of converting large numbers of people to a new way of life. [Put in terms of biblical passages], I refer to ones emphasizing deeds over words. Jesus didn't condemn soldiers, or war, or even the imperial Roman equivalent of modern dictatorship & oppression which lay all around. Perhaps he confined his words & deeds to that which would cure the underlying disease, if put into wide practice. His silence before Pilate & silent accepting of crucifixion are the most potent argument for silent action by his followers. Many kinds of useful work are open to those too old to be conscripted. They may be more effective than younger pacifists because less liable to interference by war-minded people.
           3. Argument on Motives of Civic Obligation—Many pacifists believe that by speaking out their faith in time of war they help liberty. If one restrains verbal expression of opinion temporarily out of respect for one's opponents, and yet acts silently in accordance with one's opinion, liberty of thought is maintained. If a pacifist publicly analyzed the concept of democracy and included civil liberties among its values, the government would make trouble for itself if it arrested someone for that. Liberty is in abeyance during modern war because of fear and hate, and the need for swift action and autocracy. I believe that liberty will gradually return, and that wise conduct by pacifists will hasten the day. Also, working people who value truth and literacy in their work, will value truth also in social, economic and political realms, [which will make it hard for dictators to operate].

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           Freedom's price is eternal efforts to create mutual trust among people by respecting personality, trusting in truth's power, practicing unity, kindness, & love. Freedom has declined because we have failed to practice ideals. Humans are the only creatures in whom discriminatory action is initiated in the fore-brain, where thinking happens. Humans are compelled to seek truth & to search for laws by which one's environment operates. Human freedoms are a result of human physiological make-up. This basis of freedom antedates any political system.
           Pacifists must be scrupulous not to let their protests for freedom infringe upon the freedom of others. One sure reason why we can & must accord respect to every person is this physiological capacity & impulse to seek truth. It is evidence for the validity of the belief that everyone has a Divine spark within. A voluntary & partial silence on 1 or 2 topics for the period of the war wouldn't injure democracy. If free discussion, non-violence & respect for personality are used to achieve democracy, we will have more & better democracy than we have at present. 

           Protest is part of the democratic process before the war. During the war, the processes looking toward formation of a new public opinion after the war must operate more deeply than the realm of verbal criticism. Democracy's essence lies not in majority rule, but in the give & take of ideas which results in a recorded majority & minority. Majority opinion deserves respect & most of the time should be obeyed. It is humanly plastic and sensitive to the truth. These qualities [and humanity's conscience] exists and no wise person will disregard them.
           [Moral Indignation]—I believe that in modern life moral indignation has become dangerous. Through mass communication, sentiments are far more easily & rapidly stimulated, mobilized, & guided, than formerly. Pacifists can be & have been swept up in mass indignation and end up aiding the prosecution of the war with moral fervor. I grant that moral indignation is better than indifference or cowardice. The energy of indignation is good; its direction is mistaken. Much of moral indignation is "projection," finding a scapegoat. It is attributing to other people conflicts or failings that really are within our own selves, or for which we are responsible. 

            Projection" often exists between nations. News distortion keeps us from realizing the wrong-doing of our own government. In our indignation toward Germany and Japan, we forget the 19 month blockade of Germany by the British Navy after the war, without significant protest from the US, that starved over 2,000,000 women and children. The injustices against the Germans in those post-war years made the Germans practically neurotic.

           We forget that our forefathers seized by force over half of the land of our present 48 States from Indians or Mexicans & that the Louisiana Purchase was buying violently stolen goods. The truth is that every government has been deceitful & unjust & has violated treaties & promises, and all people are at fault. An indignant pacifist denies the unity of humankind. "... Forgive those who trespass against us" may have been aimed at mass indignation against the wrongs committed by Rome. [Mass indignation is used by Communists, Fascists, & Nazis] to infiltrate organizations. The capacity of prelates, priests, & ministers for righteous indignation is a great asset to the state. All people enjoy power & want to keep it; meanwhile, it blunts the imagination & sympathies of those who exercise it for any length of time. We must alter unjust systems & people, but without indignation or anger.
           The Germans and many others exalt the State as a person with moral qualities, but it is a mistake. The State includes only certain of their qualities, certain of their powers, and these it uses to create an organization and thereby produce conditions in which people dwell. We must be scrupulously responsible about our position. We must realize that within the framework of their assumption and ideas, high-ranking government officials are sincere and devoted. We must grant them all their virtues.

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           Until without violence we can persuade militarists to change, we must tolerate people who are true to their beliefs, even when those beliefs are different from ours. Militarists believe in the efficacy of violence in the last resort. They must therefore be expected to go to war; for them it is either fighting or cowardice. If pacifists believe that one should love his opponents, & if respect for the personality of one's opponents is part of love, then pacifists may not, in wartime, make such a demand of militarists.
           Modern war will thrust its crime before all on a vaster scale & more forcefully than in previous wars. In the beginning the militarist will under-emphasize its evil. His mistake will be revealed to him only by experience. What is mistaken is the militarist's premises and assumptions. We must go deeper than logic. The pacifist's silent action stimulates the imagination of the militarists and other spectators in favor of the belief implied by it. It thus helps to win them eventually [through working on the militarists' sentiments]. The right sort of deeds can slowly shift the controversy to a higher level where it can be resolved. Silence concedes to others both freedom and responsibility. To that concession, people respond favorably.
           Modern methods of treating criminals are successful only to the extent such methods show respect for personality. The same would hold true in relation to militarists. In the cases of both militarists & criminals moral law prevails, & eventually both suffer for their mistakes. We can prevent both crime & war only by abolishing their causes, which are not the people engaged in crime or war. The war idealists & their virtues of courage, devotion, self-control, self-sacrifice claim our respect in their own right. The forces of the State, industry, & finance are in control, with tremendous war hysteria & hate; crime has different conditions. Some pacifists call for the restraining of militarists as one would restrain children or the insane. Childish thinking and mistaken adult thinking are not the same. And insanity can be cured only when we respect the personality of the insane person.
           A pacifist may try to influence the small number of neutral or doubting citizens there are in the midst of frightened people. The pacifist had best discuss a positive program and be respectful of government officials, rather than discuss war and condemn the government. Doing this will strongly persuade thoughtful people to join the pacifists. In my judgment, quiet, constructive action for a program of human betterment would seem to the sensitive minds of young people more significant than being arrested for a critical speech. Some pacifists have suppressed desires to fight, or morbid tendencies. This possible temptation should be carefully pondered by all pacifists. We must steer the difficult course between cowardice and self-glorification. Conciliation may be wisely postponed until the horror and fatigue of war begin to raise doubts among the nation's leaders.
            While war is going on, the pacifist ought not to persuade soldiers or sailors to become pacifists & break their oaths to the government, following what was said earlier about silence & respecting someone's promise. If before war were declared, soldiers or sailors should voluntarily join an audience, the pacifist should carry on as planned. If someone in the military sought an explanation of the pacifist position, the pacifist should be sure the person is sincere and morally troubled before helping his questioner.
            There are reasons for thinking that fascism in this and most countries is more likely to come than a world war. Centralization, communication, and transport improvements, along with a decline in world economy, may be creating centralization and totalitarian control in all countries. Many people are feeling insecure in this climate, and are willing to yield up civil and political liberties in return for promises of security.
            Bombing from the air not only endangers statesmen, but makes probable the destruction of industrial equipment of a nation, making it impossible to supply the military, or profit from the newly won market after the war. Shrewd leaders will avoid war. Control of powerful societal forces may be possible only through fascism and some civil wars in Europe and the US.
           We are all partly responsible for our corporate failures to live up to our democratic ideals. We may have to give up large amounts of liberty of action and speech to take care of the largest number of people. To resist the creep of personal and bureaucratic tyranny nonviolently and suffer punishment will a part of the price we pay for past errors. We can have joy and deep satisfaction in our work in building better ways of human association. Gandhi spent more time in constructive organization and propaganda than on non-cooperation and civil disobedience. Silence combined with constructive work is often the wisest policy.

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           This program isn't proposed as a minimum compromise or adaptation to the social environment. It is proposed as part of a way of altering social environment in accordance with the enduring principles & law of our beings. Our living out of our principles will create other pacifists to continue the work. This program is a retreat only from our mistakes. Unless there is a change of habits towards social justice, we shall certainly have our liberties repressed whether war comes or not. Don't postpone your preparation; face the issues.
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6. Functional Poverty [Training in Relatedness; Capable of Peace]

            (by Mildred Binns Young; 1939)            

             About the Author—Mildred Binns Young was born in Ohio and attended Friends schools and Western Reserve University. She lived for some years at Westtown School, where Wilmer Young was Dean of Boys. The Youngs then lived in the South, working under American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) for 19 years; 4 pamphlets came out of the experience. From 1955-1960 they were in residence at Pendle Hill.
            Foreword (by Elizabeth Biddle Yarnall)—This pamphlet's 3 papers derived vitality & validity from the author's unusual experiences. She & her husband have done Polish relief work, rehab in KY mining regions, rural/ urban experiments in PA, & in the Delta Cooperative Farm with Southern sharecroppers. Each of 5 summers they have been associated with 1 AFSC camp. "Functional ..." was done for Women's Problems Group (PYM); "Training ... " for Friday PH lecture; "Capable ..." for the Social & Industrial Section of the AFSC.
            TOWARD A FUNCTIONAL POVERTY: [Desiring & Preparing for Functional Poverty]—Some are content with their lives' outward pattern of beauty & comfort. Others feel limited and blocked, weighed down by their outwardly fortunate lives, their souls dwarfed in a hostile and infertile soil. This pamphlet is for people in whom the longing to be free is past denying. 1st, we must desire freedom completely. We realize unlimited liability. We feel the obligation and the privilege to live as if we had many lives to live and could afford to hold loosely our little footholds in this one. The next step is clearly knowing our job and finding the freedom to do it.
           To take hold of a job we must 1st lay down what is in our hands; [most of our hands are filled to overflowing]. Poverty or some approximation of it, willingly assumed, would set us free for finding our responsibility and fulfilling it. [What it enables us to do that makes] it functional poverty. It is to be taken up as a way to freedom, as a practical method for finding time and strength to answer one's deepest need to be serviceable for a new world. This poverty is a stripping off of encumbrances, a practical condition of preparation for work and performing it. This poverty is to be functional to the life we feel called upon to lead in carrying unlimited liability.
            [Lifestyle Practices]—We as a family cut through our traditional living standards & went to live in a group where living was very poor, to throw our weight in with theirs in order to find a new [kind] of wholesome, productive life as an example to others. Even the slightest ostentation is avoided in deference to a neighbor's less fortunate circumstances. There are some who can't & shouldn't break away to these conditions, when need exists almost at their doorstep; one is often most effective where one is native. How do we clear our lives so we can relate to our communities in concerted action for a new world? How shall we grow so urgently aware of the need for action that we find the way to clear our lives for it?  [Greater & greater realization of effective action will follow each cycle of freeing our lives from the unnecessary]. Simplifying one's life isn't simple to do.
           Meals can be simplified from making 10 dishes to making 3, saving time in cooking & dishwashing. For home decoration, I first-off have only 3 rooms to deal with. There is cleared shelf & floor space, having gotten rid of unneeded things. In 1 room we cook, eat, study, sew, visit, read, & wash dishes. There is more beauty in this room than any of our other houses. Housework takes less time than it used to. I have time for my garden, family care, community work in field, garden, & other community-building activities with the Farm's women.
             [Clothes, Committees, Information, Old friends]—[For simplifying clothes, one need only think of shopping that grew from a new dress to all manner of accessories]. On the way home we might get a guilty reminder of those with less, but by the time we get home] & harden our hearts, we can put it on & enjoy, literally, ourselves. The early Quaker woman met this problem by plain dress. This allowed the heart to be undistracted & full of a sense of mission. Perhaps now concerned Friends may feel that the way is to find what is becoming to her, and wear it while it lasts, in spite of changes in fashion, and ignoring complicated conventions about occasions.
            Committees are running people ragged. A few people carry the burden of meeting work by attending innumerable committees, giving a little hitch to forwarding a work in each committee. Perhaps committees should be composed of those with whom the particular concern is paramount. And perhaps strong steady effort on one or two committees would accomplish a bigger sum of work than a hasty hitch on half a dozen.
            In terms of staying informed, consider whether we need to read all of what we read. If what I take in truly makes me feel the good in me raised up, then it is my meat & drink. Otherwise it is frivolity, waste, or conformity. Will these simplifications divide us from our own without unifying us with the world? Simplifiers will set themselves simple goals at 1st. They need to grow so clear a spirit that their lives can challenge others without condemning & criticizing. It will be a clear demonstration of new freedom, range, happiness, & effectiveness.
           [Servants, & Savings from Simplification]—Those who can afford & have servants might say that the servants need the work. Waiting upon well people for pay is a humiliation which it seems only some old-time Negroes [who may have come out of a time when there was a mutual real care on the part of sensitive owners & sensitive slaves, can rise above]. To be waited on by one whom the service humiliates & try to make return in cash hurts & dwarfs him who is waited upon. If there are young servants for whom we feel responsibility, we could provide for their education or training. Problems of persons, servant or friend, are as individual as the individuals themselves, & need to be approached with candor and considerateness.
           If I reduce my wants and try to live, do I not increase unemployment? [Self-indulgence is not a legitimate means for providing employment]. If we should choose to continue to receive our accustomed income, and still choose to live in simplicity or poverty, then the money saved by the discipline must not be kept. It must flow out to someone else at the same rate as if we spent it on ourselves; it will shift employment to more basic industries. We can give our savings to constructive self-help enterprises and institutions devoted to building children fit to become men and women of a new world. Some of us will find new work under our very hands that comes to seem uniquely our own that is worth investing our time and money in.
           [Children]—Nothing second best is good enough for our children or for any other children. We may need to ask: What is best and second best for our children? We may need to ask whether insulation in ghettos of privilege which we provide is indeed the true training for a new world. The trend in Friends' schools is one of increasing magnificence, a kind of jewel case in which their beauty is protected. We teach them about society's problems, while they learn to be dependent on surroundings that negate our principle of unlimited liability, and they are beneficiaries of a system which can thrive only on victims. Yet Friends' schools have something irreplaceable to offer. Can we not press for a truer setting in which children may learn the sensitive, poised, free way of life taught by Jesus? The Friends' schools will be what we ask them to be.
           As long as our brothers and sisters lie starved and beaten, our mere acceptance of ease, abundance and safety builds a wall between us and them and builds a dam against the fair flowing of power and strength. Functional poverty means an adjustment of the mechanics of living by clearing off the rubble in our lives. It is a discipline that scours clean the glass of self through which we see at best but darkly.
           TRAINING IN RELATEDNESS: [Seeking a New Relatedness]—Modern Friends who seek to stay in accord with old convictions, are searching for a new alignment of their lives in the new circumstances. There is human unity, no real good gained at another's expenses, & pacifism's claim on all our behaviors in life. As Friends grew in financial/ social status, they undertook more work of benevolence. New means have to be found if brotherhood of man through peace practices is to be implemented. We get the sense within, [that our good testimonies & works are just coincidental] bubbles on an ordinary brew of self-interest, luxury, race/class insularity, violent competition for money & status, & fear of losing these. We need to relate in a new way to our environment.
           Some of us aren't very closely connected with the communities where we live or work. The city is not our community, we only work there. The country is not our community, we only live there; [no community exists]. We try to remedy our isolated condition with committee work with people from all over. Have we substituted many "contacts" for even a small community? Is there a "beloved community" in our lives?
           [Beginning Relatedness in Small Ways]—Although world-shaking events are precipitated by central authorities, they are prepared for by tiny experiences, growing attitudes far back in the smallest social units. Through long habit of working together in daily concerns the communities may be disciplined for self-suffering resistance. Perhaps those of us driven by a concern for the good society have not placed ourselves deep enough at the center of society to convert our concern into action; change takes place inside the growing center.
           We chose the simplest sort of beginning at Delta Cooperative Farm. We went to a place where new community was being created from a definite outline. Rewards & success were a good life in a simple & friendly setting, not money-success. Many must remain in & deal with an artificial mix of urban/ suburban life where it is almost impossible to see any community outlines. I think we pacifists will have to cut through the conventional & sectional in our way of living, & move into relatedness to whatever life at hand represents a growing point for community. Organizing a neighborly buying organization, or opening one's home as a recreation center are simple ways to make real a neighborly relationship that will open up other means of developing community life.
           [Living at the Center of Growth]—The permanently unemployed could be drawn together into gardening activity that would recall their self-respect by supplementing their living. Women living near together can perhaps learn to knit together. Large numbers of women can knit garments cheaply & with enjoyment while perhaps hatching other ideas for collaboration. Almost all these ideas call for someone who would stimulate growth, live at the center where growth is expected, and live as nearly as they can at the local economic level.
           Probably the advent of the families seeking to become neighborhood friends shouldn't be marked by having money for a project. As the right project for community effort comes into view let there be a source, perhaps the money freed up from someone living a simpler life, from which modest help can be obtained. It is probably best for families having incomes beyond their new needs to not keep control of their own surplus. Surpluses could be pooled for a foundation from which small well-considered community projects could borrow or receive help.
           [Labor Unions]—At its worst, labor unions are pressure groups without responsibility. At its best it is a worker's community, striving to find what is its true share in the responsibilities & rewards of industry; between these limits there are many degrees. We need to assist & enlarge what is right in them, rather than condemn what we deplore & withdraw. The labor union has taken a sudden upward swing in this decade. The most aggressive & unruly infant unions are those striving to get their feet in big industries. In the 1920's, living standards had risen as the industries reached new peaks of production. Then came the depression with its shut-downs & retrenchments, its dis-employment. The lately-rising rising worker was put back, pushed; but he was no longer defenseless. He now saw himself as a link in the prosperity chain, & could no longer be disinherited without protest. Government stepped in with social services & civil works; unions developed a protective organization.
           What is the pacifist's place in relation to this struggle? We may feel that the union as a pressure group is itself violently repressive of initiative in industry, which brought this on by slowness in dividing with labor the fruits of new discovery, invention, & method. [In spite of] innovations in technique & machinery, the worker remains 1st partner with ownership. He represents the largest potential consumer of the goods & services he helps make. We need to put ourselves in such relations to unions that opportunities to help will logically come. Sometimes collection & spreading of the facts in a conflict are all that we can see to do. We may be able to bring opposing groups together in an atmosphere of true seeking. When conflict brings distress we can sometimes help relieve it. If we can participate in this movement's development, we can help deepen & pacify the means used.
           [Dreams of Unions]—The end to be achieved is secure world-community, peace on earth. Some of the intermediate goals are education & alliances for: mutual help, security for the unfortunate, experiments in health maintenance, buying cooperatively. When a union gains strength & vision, it sets milestones on the road to realizing industrial- & world-community. A city union leader envisioned a country summer community for his union. He saw families growing in a sense of partnership with each other & with their men. He saw the summer experience of community carrying over into city life & [everyday solidarity]; he was never able to carry it out; [we perhaps could have supported him in his vision]. 

           Another union has plans for an educational station, where young workers could go from time to time for a concentrated discussion. When worker groups grow [in solidarity], we then may expect disciplined, well-coordinated, non-violence from them. It is only as a full partnership in industry emerges that we shall have peaceful evolution into a community of interest. Will we help or will we stand back and watch and often deplore?
           [Conclusion]—All of the community building mentioned here, and the others not discussed, call for the stripping away of the interest that centers self and [preserving the interests] of our particular culture and standard of living. Unless authority is checked by an ever-renewed sense of stewardship, it grows into arrogance. It is necessary to become one that understands nothing about success except in terms of the upward attainment of that group. [The authority I envision is what] I call "leadership from alongside."
           One may have allied one's self with a needy group in a defiant and resentful spirit. As one labors to meet needs common to rich and poor, to serve, for instance, cleanliness and nourishment, one may be [moved to com-passion] for those maimed in ways different from the harm done to the poor. Some of them are overfed, pandered to and lapped in luxury that destroys them; others cling tightly to what they have and fear risking it. He realizes that the service is to them also. The demands of need are so many that we cannot know joy and freedom except through complete shedding of personal ambition and devotion of the whole of our resource to humanity. We can do this only by slow, persistent, painful steps. Joy begins again when the work [of self-denial is begun].
           CAPABLE OF PEACE: An Analysis of the Position of Sharecropper and Pacifist[The Pacifist's Dilemma/ Failing the Young]—Pacifists have at once a religious conviction against the use of violence, & an awareness that the world is tending more & more toward the use of violence. We are in a society that is making war unavoidable & is at the same time condemning millions to a poor, mean, dangerous, frightening & hopeless life. As pacifists we are dissatisfied with pacifist preparations, ["evangelizing"], protests, propaganda, conferences, fund-raising; it is not enough. [Some see pacifism] as the one way by which society may reach adulthood and finally learn war no more. It is learned from earliest infancy throughout life.
           Pacifism means that the whole self must be made effective for peace. Making non-violence a tool, our whole armory of offense and defense, is a task from which we can hold nothing back. To serve the ideal of peace with one's whole life may mean going farther than anybody has yet gone. Each of us must find our own way to serve with our whole life. It is a way of life that uses diverse gifts, every gift and talent, however humble. Francis of Assisi's community had those with executive talent, musical, carpentry, cooking, or speaking skills, and some who were merely simple and devoted. Today we are wasting or reprimanding by neglect many special abilities & much capacity for devotion. [It is a combination] of willingness, and availability of place and method.
           I think we older people are failing young men & women in this. They come with a readiness for devotion that older people have forgotten. They are ready to give all. They ask only that they may be used for the future. We don't know what to say except to tell them to train themselves for this or that. And when they have attained techniques, skills, & professional training, we still can't tell them how to use themselves to make peace prevail.
           [Cells, Seed or Germ Groups]—These groups meet regularly & practice techniques by which group solidarity [is built]. If undertaken without complete realignment of one's work, way of living, all of one's life, they add to the unhealthy division within a person who must go to work knowing one is negating or not implementing one's pacifism. A real, effective pacifist cell or seed group finds out how to be a working unit in some larger, growing, transforming community. There are many possible examples of such larger communities. The best example is the rural community in an area where poverty has gone almost to its limit. Such is the sharecropper belt, where the workers' misery & apathy & the owners' fear & frustration bring a long trail of violence & disintegration. This group & similar groups can help pacifists out of their dilemma by letting us help them our of theirs.
           How could we begin to make pacifism effective in the sharecropper's situation? In a simple community with land tenure & loan availability, a co-operative to some extent, there is self-containment & a low standard of living. It can be a community where families have a good life that grows in an atmosphere of work, health, companionship, & being functional & of service to the whole life of the community. It will use & increase its soil resources, promote education & recreation that thoroughly uses people's interest, energy & unrest. 

           Mutual help associations can take the place of expensive health services & inadequate security systems now in place. I believe that it would grow soundly, if it included a percentage of people committed to the work of opening this way for peace by growing people capable of peace. Peace is there as a creative force, currently blocked by interests of self and family, race and class nation, boundaries which riddle a humankind that can only thrive in united effort.
           [Cell's or Seed's Task]—The cell's or seed's members would 1st have to grow peace inside themselves. We would grow into the task as it went along. 2nd, their group life must be made deeply peaceable. They must discover how to lay hold of powers and resources that keep away stale weariness, mental and physical. They must learn how to recreate and recuperate without vacations, "getting away for awhile," or going to the movies. As nearly as they can they must learn to live upon what they can so earn, and to deal with the resulting poverty. They must learn to draw strength from their inner and group life, letting it draw them into full community participation; it should not be a screen between them and an uncongenial environment. The community at large needs to feel welcome in, and hopefully drawn to their more intimate group life. They must work out truly democratic processes in their group business and in the larger community business.
           This plan for lifelong pacifism means discipline through poverty, through work, through maximum responsibility for others with minimum authority. There needs to be awareness of all the currents of life at all the levels of life, from the world's currents, [to nation], to community, to cell or group, to our self. Thousands of such pacifists will be needed to make a noticeable impression, yet even a few can create a pattern. Pacifists must ask of themselves the degree of dedication which recognizes that one owes nothing to one's self except to live as if one had many lives and could spare one to bring peace, and to live as if he had only one life and dared not waste it on anything less than the future of humankind, God's image.
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7. A Quaker Mutation (by Gerald Heard; 1940)

            About the Author—Born in 1889 in London, Gerald Heard, was a British-born American historian, science writer, public lecturer, educator, & philosopher. He wrote many articles & over 35 books. Heard studied history & theology at the University of Cambridge, graduating with honors in history. Heard became well known as an advocate for pacifism, arguing for the transformation of behavior through meditation & "disciplined nonviolence." In 1942 he founded Trabuco College as a facility where comparative religion studies & practices could be pursued. It was a cooperative training center for the spiritual life. He died in 1971.
           INTRODUCTION—Pendle Hill Pamphlets are Tracts for our Times, written by persons competent to quicken thought on current issues; they deal in a practical way with practical problems. Their purpose is incentive or illumination. "A Quaker Mutation" is a critical evaluation of the Society of Friends and of Pendle Hill (PH) by a brilliant, forward-looking thinker, with a revolutionary theory on education. He concludes that such a mutation as PH is evidence of new life in spite of failures. PH will find it hard to fulfill his high expectations.
           ["... not equal to their own promise"]—[To many people], the Society of Friends is a charming body of genuine antiqueness. Something like the gingko—that living-fossil tree. The Quaker are admired when it is discovered that it can prove useful as well as ornamental. The Quakers are also peculiarly harmless, and rare as Ebionites. We have sympathy for what may be an expiring species, [and it's found remarkable] that New York's numbers have increased by 27 members in 1 year. 

           Antiquity is praise-worthy, and well enough for authoritarians whose belief rest on historical proof and apostolic succession; the Friends are not authoritarian. Are a quaint and honored peculiarness in worship and considerable social service enough? [Can we make worship contemporary and relevant and keep its original force]? Friends are aware that their achievement is not equal to their own promise. The 1st Quakers felt that their movement was religion reissued. Early in their 2nd generation, they were probably the 2nd most numerous religious body in England.
           [escape into busyness]—Minimizing the importance of numbers, & highlighting its social service organization aren't answers. Social activism can't be its reason for being. When that becomes justification, it is a sign that the basic energy—the power to explore the spiritual world—is failing. The Quakers rejected subconscious guides for the spirit [i.e. rituals & sacraments] from the beginning. Today subconscious guides are failing & have to be replaced by intelligent understanding. Religion needs to be restated in modern language, so as to make it something that can re-bind the self-conscious individual to the common Eternal Life flowing in others & in creation.
           The feverish social busyness in nearly all denominations is an escape from the problems of figuring out their position and purpose and how they see Reality. The Society of Friends has not escaped this escapism; the shrinking body symptomizes an evaporating spirit. The 17th century founders thought that the priest-pastorate and sacramentalism stage was over. Pastoral Quaker church membership in 1935 numbered 86,339 out of world membership of 136,757. Pastoral church service tends to be indistinguishable from Methodist or Baptist services, and some expect them to merge with those denominations.
           [peculiar pattern in contemporary terms]—There are a number of Friends that feel what is required is an inquiry into our peculiar pattern's actual nature and how it can be stated in contemporary terms. Is it possible to find the psychological equivalent of its 17th century phraseology? In the 19th century, a scholarly Friend, knowing the history of his Society and Christianity, might submit a series of helpful suggestions. Not so today. The problem of religion has become immensely complicated and enriched. What is called for is a course of study, a school of research, experience and experiment. This pamphlet puts forward what needs to be studied; the terms of reference; the type of institution in which the research could be undertaken.

           The Quakers as a religious body which refused to have a theology, must at some time create a psychology, [a description of characteristic behavior patterns], or it will mislay its essential discoveries. A religious body's actual choice is whether to have a psychology which attempts really to understand the Spirit as it directly manifested or to fall back into earlier forms (i.e. theologies), which expresses an archaic psyche in archaic phraseology. The problem of having a psychology or relapsing into a theology is vividly illustrated in Friends history. It may well be the explanation of their Society's present condition.

           [George Fox's Method]—George Fox & his followers demonstrated that nearly all the traditional props & procedures of religion was unnecessary. The Quakers were able to show that "the fruits of the Spirit" could be produced in their Society. Fox instructed in 17th century language as to how certain spiritual states could be produced. His words gave Seekers the assurance to try whether the Spirit, the Light, might not be directly experienced by every believer. He then gathered them into groups. In these groups, where the upflow wasn't interrupted by logical argument, they experienced a direct & intense discovery of awareness, of comprehension & compassion, of the intense corporate "field" of the like-minded group, bonded & blended in common contemplation.
           For George Fox the problem of the historic Jesus was resolved by containing him within the dazzling nimbus of the Christ of experience, the Spirit, the Light. The Quakers weren't concerned to discover how, where & under what conditions this power worked. [If God's presence worked for 2 or 3, it would work the same for 200 or 300]. Due to their lack of knowledge & observation of group psychology, the pristine experience, enthusiasm & energy waned. They needed authority to take the place of experimental awareness; they fell back on the Bible and rational argument. Some of them relapsed into evangelicalism, the sudden deliverance by an external Savior. If your own experience was so faint that you needed historic authority and logical argument, the churches, with creeds, proofs, and sacraments, [could provide that better than a Society that never had those things].
           [Revitalizing Quaker Silence/ Quietism or Evangelism]—Their original silence was more fruitful than speech, & this silence will be covered over & lost if its nature isn't understood. Friends might have been saved their loss, if they had noted the actual conditions under which they had obtained their remarkable results. The silence, to produce its pristine results needs a: small group; small group of simple, intense, like-minded people; small group of unlimited liability, undistracted by worldly concern. 

           Even archaic knowledge might have prevented a tragic reversion. The ancient & medieval contemplatives would have taught them the essential value & difficult technique of mental as well as physical silence. They would have been able to make an accurate distinction between creative silence and a mere pause to collect one's thoughts. [They would have been] able to decode the earlier contemplatives in contemporary language and define the limits and functions of their own process.
           Accurate thought is present where trained minds holds back silting sands of random thinking from silting the well sunk into water-bearing subconscious levels. When Friends did discover ancient spiritual guides, they were unable to decode the paradoxes & relapsed into [the passivity of quietism]. Quietism springs from ignorance of ways of experiencing supra-personal consciousness. [Quietism or evangelicalism seem to be the only choices].
           [Researching a Third Choice]—Today, out of the clash of empirical science with traditional religion is springing a new experimental religion. A blend of western experiential observation & eastern metaphysics & psycho-physical exploration is building the framework on which a contemporary, universally applicable religion may rise. If a religion is based solely on argument from historic proof, that religion will become untenable when proofs are undermined, [therefore] Quakerism's retreat into evangelicalism is untenable. & if we would know about real fact, the thing in itself, we must take into account that the subconscious controls apprehension of the outer world; we don't perceive things as they actually are. We must make allowance for the mind's severe limitations & grave distortion as a [measuring, imaging] instrument. We need to train, clear & focus the spirit's lens.
           The Friends, through research into the use and development of their specific technique (silent group contemplation), could with trained members produce a contemporary religion, the only religion with a future. It would [repeat its role as] the reissue of religion today. Such research would 1st state the aims and demonstrate the ultimate objective of such a way of life and development of consciousness, through an outline of the contemporary cosmology from which a contemporary ethic may be deduced. The world picture given by contemporary science must be presented as a coherent and proportioned whole. 2nd, There must be worked out methods and procedures, techniques and inter-relations of mind and body, of individual and group, of psychology and economics. Such a task calls for an institution, a Quaker mutation of the collegiate systems.
            [II: Educational Crisis and Religion's Helpful Contribution]—The crisis which increasingly concerns the West is the educational crisis. The problems of lack of progress, integration, and community-minded individuals must be referred to education. It is obvious that individualized democracy, based on mutual self-interest does not create a society strong enough to resist totalitarianism. The old rationalism method of education is inadequate for fusing conflicting desires of individuals into a common social cause. The social teaching that it is economically most profitable for the individual to serve the community is neither true nor efficacious.
           Both sociologists & theologians are asking the same question: What is wrong with democracy?    Why is humanity deserting us for false but wonder-working prophets? The problem for religion is educational. Humankind needs to permanently & progressively alter one's nature, reconcile conflicts, & balance deadly knowledge of means & outer nature with knowledge of inner nature & ends. Extricating humanity from its social & political impasse may come from new growth in religion. Democracies depend on education to preserve themselves. Only a drastic change, a mutation in teaching, will prevent education from collapsing & with it a free way of living.
           [Education's Difficulties, Symptoms, and Evolution]—3 findings in education are now obvious: (1) In a changing world education must be lifelong, [beginning with re-education]; (2) A system which stocks the mind & mobilizes the will through surface areas of the will and mind is utterly inefficient; (3) "Individual" is an arbitrary division of humanity. We can only live and learn appropriately as an organic social unit.
           In evolutionary terms, teaching has gone through 2 stages. The eotechnic [stage and] method, extending almost to the 20th century, consisted of attempting by punishments and rewards to compel the mind to store and the character to acquire information, opinions and conduct. The paleotechnic stage, known as the progressive method, [operated under an assumption of freedom]. The technique was to give the child liberty to acquire their desired information and to naturally display positive latent moral characteristics.
           The child isn't a creature arriving with a stock of faculties moral & intellectual. It is a plastic, suggestible being which needs support just as much as freedom. Psychologically acute dictators [have been manipulating the progressive system]. There is nothing particularly or suddenly wrong with human nature, only with the progressives' diagnosis of it. [We are now at the neotechnic stage]. The method is based on the fact of the subconscious. Study has shown that subconscious isn't a residue of untamable instincts. It is the storage area for impressions & suggestions. We can unstore & restore this reservoir with desirable impulses. This profound & creative depth of consciousness is deaf to argument & ordinary rationalistic instruction. Contacted properly, it is as easily touched, trained & cooperated with, [through suggestions & impressions] as the mind's most rational surfaces.
           [Resistance to & Development of the Neotechnic Method]—Many people thought that unconscious' discovery & the recognition of it as the seat of memory & will was the end of education. At best you could set free deeper will from conflicts & inhibitions, & live as a healthy animal. When it became clear that the subconscious wasn't simply animal but widely suggestible, & that it could be made to respond to the right methods, still progressives resisted. To use an irrational method, they would be vulnerable to the religious, whom progressives had mocked as superstitious. 

           The subconscious is at least as open to constructive suggestions as it is to destructive. If it has any preferences for particular actions, it would be for cooperative effort & inquiry. People in education should immediately start on neotechnic development of teaching, or risk leaving to reactionaries & tyranny a power, a discipline, & a devotion which democracy lacks, not because it is untrue, but because it is untaught.
            The problem remains how to work out a technique which will make this method something other than a tool of reaction. Can we, using the neotechnic method, produce a progressive mind & will as comprehensive as the present world requires & as expanding as the future demands? [Most likely], the subconscious mind favors humane rather than militaristic suggestions. We must see to it that teachers won't infect their pupils with that basic egotism which is the source of all conflict, persecution, & war. This new method gives the teacher a new power, and although it is a power which can and would "make for righteousness," it can also be perverted.
           [Educational Revolution; New Way of Life]—What is required of education today is a new: way of living; vocation, religious outlook on making contemporary minds that shape the future. The neotechnic stage is ready to be born, but it will require travail if there is to be delivery. If we are to effect this educational revolution, we must understand that free education's challenge didn't spring up in a night. The trained wills of the free countries are too weak to resist the dictators' constant encroachment. Civilization has long lacked certain vitamins & so today we are in the grip of a social disease, that had to lead to hedonism & despair. Education is the only answer to social chaos, but it must be an education which educates the whole person throughout their whole life.
           Throughout history, in times of breakdown, a few men, aware of the real contemporary issue & social disease, created lifestyles in which civilized life's essentials, discipline, economy, & culture, might be learnt, & preserved. The answer to the Hellenic Roman civilization's collapse was the monastic system, an educational life in the fullest sense of the word. When that way of life broke up, monastery was succeeded by university. With the psychological mutation of our age, the sudden discovery of the subconscious, we require in education & religion a Copernican revolution of the mind. 

           We need a radically new psychologically-based education. This psycho-

logy is direct knowledge of consciousness at all levels. The only practitioners who have found any mastery of psyche such that the subconscious became obedient & super-conscious could be contacted have been religious directors. We need to learn this technique without accepting the same restricted ends western religion sought.
           [Neotechnic Education's Tasks]—From the effective religious disci-

plines, trainings, exercises, yogas, etc., of the past we have to extract essential active elements, & then, having found them, we discover how we may generate these among ourselves. When we have these essentials ordered & ready for application, we must make a school, & be ready to initiate a scholastic system in which the curriculum is arranged to develop such practices & techniques. 

           The 1st need is a center of research where pioneers who have collected & applied to themselves some of the knowledge may gather to pool & order their findings. They would share such provisional rules & techniques as they may have worked out. We need both to decode past knowledge & make new disco-

veries by test & experiment. [I can understand doubts & can imagine someone saying that] your proposal is a fanciful hybrid bred out of an ashram by a laboratory. Such crosses aren't viable. Religions won't share their technique with you; you will never able to master it. Yet the nucleus of such a new center of the neo-technic center does exist.
           [Pendle Hill; Problem Restated]—The tendency of the age is away from religions of authority to those of experience. We should expect an age of keen religious experiment. The elder churches are bound to immutable and inflexible creeds. [Friends do not have these restrictions. It might be expected that we should discover among Friends a specific organism which could answer to the need for the neotechnic to emerge and express this function. The sociologist is now aware where between religion and education, one may look for the [right combination of exploratory experience and instructional technique]. Friends, while keeping the techniques on contacting the Divine, have not shut them in hermetically sealed creedal containers. To one observer, Pendle Hill seems the only completely contemporary effort to answer the educational question and problem of today.
           The problem is that, successful as the analytic method has proved in giving us power, it has failed to give us insight. Certain that values could be analyzed, this false assurance led materio-humanist teachers to imagine you could estimate a student's insight and creative understanding by giving grades. [It was assumed that] the art of living could be taught by lecturing professors. Mostly these assumptions are now realized to be false. We now know that the neo-educational method is training of the mind evolving the character, and enlarging the apprehension and awareness through cooperation with the entire reunited psyche, subconscious and conscious.
           The new method needs to rouse whole-hearted interest & [undivided] attention. Grades, credits & degrees are distractions. Pendle Hill gives no marks or degrees. The deeper mind has the power to remember & create but doesn't see why it should except for love of doing so. [It has been found that] when memory is crammed with facts, without natural interest & curiosity of the subconscious, such impressions don't remain. Attention & interest must be roused through the whole mind's seeing the relevance of the knowledge being given to a complete creative way of living.
           Pendle Hill aims at curriculum which deals with a complete way of living. The instruction at Pendle Hill centers in 3 vital concerns: healing the [fractured] consciousness of the individual; [healing the class-fractured society with a just economy], seeking a policy for international order not resting on physical violence. The student should try to live out in miniature what one is learning. The student along with staff will practice the psychiatry, the economy, & the policy about which one is learning intellectually. Life divides itself into intellectual work, cooperative housekeeping, & psychological training, which includes Quaker silent group meditation.
           [Learning and Application Combined]—Pendle Hill has laid foundation for a new research center, a laboratory for working out intentional living. The subjects studied are being practiced under laboratory conditions. The question of whether behind the forms of dogmatic religion, there is a real method of controlling the self & extending the consciousness is being discussed & tried at Pendle Hill. The task of learning is to detect & disclose this force as it has made possible man's psychological or spiritual evolution. The task of practice is to put it into group & individual work with experimental faith that there is a way of creative being which will lead to a new way of dynamic living. 

           In the same spirit the economic problem is approached: informed lectures & corporate discussions on the contemporary economic crisis & issues, along with living a miniature but life-size cooperative community. The whole problem of world policy, of statesmanship in the noblest sense of the word is faced. Pendle Hill must look upon its training centers both as places from which graduates go out into the world with a new technique, & as centers to which the graduates return to refit, readjust & retake their bearings.
           Among researching Friends there is a rare combination of a channel of profound spiritual experience flowing down to the present and also the critical intelligence and freedom from dogma to render that experience in modern terms, to turn an art of the few into a science for the many. Such is the original creative and comprehensive plan and policy of the neo-educational system and technique which is working itself out at Pendle Hill. It is a precipitation of a new power and new order which uses whatever channel lies nearest its flow. It is a sprouting seed, a new plant, which when grown will be the tree for the healing of the nations, a new mutation which ushers in a radically new step in evolution.
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8. Rethinking Quaker Principles (by Rufus M. Jones; 1940)          

            About the Author—Rufus Matthew Jones was born in 1863 into an old Quaker family in South China, ME. He was an American religious leader, writer, magazine editor, philosopher, and college professor. He helped in the establishment of the Haverford Emergency Unit (a precursor to the AFSC). One of the most influential Quakers of the 20th century, he was a Quaker historian and theologian as well as a philosopher. He delivered 2 Swarthmore Lectures. He began teaching philosophy and psychology at Haverford in 1893 and continued to do so until retirin g in 1934. He tried unsuccessfully to unite the divided body of Quakers. He died in 1948.

           I. A NEW RELIGIOUS TYPE—We have a new word for the breaking in of the new out of the old: mutation. Something emerges that wasn't there before, something that isn't just the sum of preceding events. The birth of the Society of Friends is one of these mutations. It wasn't an absolutely new religious movement. It had a definite setting & a well-marked background in history; nothing just like it ever existed before. There would have been no Society of Friends if there hadn't been a Puritan movement, & yet Quakers weren't really Puritans.
           Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603) is the historical father of Puritanism; he worked for a radical reform of the Anglican Church, which seemed to him [not much different from the Roman Catholic Church]. They took over Calvin's conceptions of God as absolute sovereign, and man as wholly depraved and corrupt. The Bible revealed God's plan and was God's one and only communication to the human race, and contains all man can know or needs to know of God's will and purpose. Both the Episcopal and Presbyterian system were in the New Testament (NT); Acts and St. John's epistles described the apostolic, presbyterian churches, while St. Paul's epistles speak of bishops and deacons. New England Puritans discovered a 3rd NT plan, a Congregational plan.
           In 1611 the Bible was put into English & everybody read it. The more they read it the more difficult it became to make readers agree upon 1 final, infallible interpretation; no one Plan stood out to everybody. Presbyterianism was dominant, but there was a strong reaction against it; a vast variety of religious views & new church systems swarmed over England. A powerful wave of mystical life, thought, & religion broke out. Little groups formed that were opposed to infallible systems & intolerant authority, inspired by Continental mystics.
           [George Fox's Seeking]—George Fox came home to hear the extreme Calvinism of the Drayton Church's "priest"; he revolted from the "notions" & "ideology" of [Calvin's teachings]. At the age of 19 he reached a stage of complete revolt and cut loose from the organized Church, and went seeking something that would "speak to his condition." He saturated himself with the NT and the prophets. During the 4 years of his wanderings, he began to have great mystical experiences of Christ's direct work on his soul, God's love, and the reality of the pentacostal Spirit. His religious experience put him on the list of foremost Christian mystics of history.
           By 1647 he began to gather kindred spirits around him (e.g. Elizabeth Hooten, James Nayler, Richard Farnsworth). Out of the convincement of the northern "seekers" he secured Swarthmoor Hall & 60 highly qualified "Publishers of Truth" to assist him in proclaiming the Quaker message. At this stage, organization of the movement was hardly thought of. The thrilling thing was the certainty of God's light and love in the individual's soul.
           Early Quakerism was an intense mass movement of the pentecostal type. These people had discovered a new energy. Fox says, "I saw the "Light of Christ that shines through all. The ocean of Life and Light and Love flows over all oceans of darkness." The movement was spontaneous and dynamic and grew by spiritual contagion. Between 1652 and 1660, the number of members in England leaped to about 40,000.
            [Structure-less, Creed-less Quakerism]—There were no marks of church structure in this early movement. They were revolting from organization & rigid "notions." They thought that they were the "seed," the 1st fruits of Christ's restored & renewed universal Church of the Spirit, essential Christianity. "All faithful men & women whose faith stands in the power of God have a right of membership" (London YM minute, 1676). The movement was managed & directed by persons possessing "gifts" rather than by chosen officers. 

           Before 1667, there was no reference to the term "Society of Friends." The members called themselves "Children of the Light," or "the Seed," or "Friends." "Society" meant then what we mean now by "Fellowship." [They wanted to avoid] the danger of corporate compulsion that "Church" implied for them. They sought genuine basis of spiritual liberty, equality, & fraternity, free and ample scope for the life and growth of the soul of people upward and outward.
           Nobody either outside or inside the Quaker movement though of it in terms of an organized Protestant denomination. Friends did not regard the scriptures as the infallible "Word of God." They love the scriptures, were saturated in it and quoted it aptly and effectively. Christ, the living Word of God was interpreted for them in the NT, [and the NT was interpreted only in the Light of the experienced Christ]. George Fox reacted to the "Declaration of Faith and Order (1658) " in writing and was threatened with burning. George Fox said, "Since Christ Jesus was the author of the apostles ... the [primitive] church's ... the martyr's faith, should not all people look unto Him ... and not to the priests?" [For Fox, things like the "Declaration ..." tended to be congealed substitutes for the soul's personal discovery of Christ, and for vital correspondence with the divine mind and will.
           Society of Friends: Open & Seeking? Closed & Rigid?—Many times in nearly 300 years Friends have attempted to produce man-made faiths. "Declarations" made to hold the line at some point of doctrine have always failed to express the central & abiding core of Quaker life & faith. Friends have occasionally gravitated toward being a rigid & congealed sect, as stiff & inelastic as a stiffly organized church might be. [Restrictive] over-regulation & testimonies meant to hedge us in & isolate us from "the world" are still remembered by some of us. This came from the powerful, contemporary wave of [pious, passive contemplation of God], rather than from early Quakerism's genius spirit. The hardening of the Society's arteries was much in evidence in my youth. Is our Quakerism to be an open or a closed type of religion? Will it be open & expectant, or closed & safe?
           Open religion has faith in the spiritual capacity of the soul and confidence that God and man are akin and essentially belong together. It dares to leave religion free to grow with the growing world and growing mind, and to sail the uncharted seas with God. Closed religion stands for the finality of the formulations of the past. I suppose no existent church or denomination whose members are committed to a backward-looking program. Such would be hostages against new and dangerous enterprises in the realm of truth. The world at large have turned to us with a renewed expectation of something fresh and new to say about life and immortality. Are we charged with hope and faith and vision or are we busy coining safe repetitive phrases?
           Many want us to be a safe rigid sect. Recovery of a faith in the living Christ as an eternal presence is essential to our existence as a vital religious body. I believe that in the main awakened Friends in the world now feel kinship with the founders of our Quaker faith & want to move forward again, win a new following from present-day "seekers," & become a fresh & responsive organ for the Spirit's life in today's world & tomorrow's.
           George Fox was a convinced, dynamic interpreter & articulate prophet of truths & principles that had long been known; he became the effective organizer of a Society. Christopher Fox's son George exhibited throughout his life "the brave old wisdom of sincerity." His protest against shams of hollow fashionable manners was no doubt carried to an extreme point of emphasis, including time in prison. The various testimonies against customs & oaths already existed among "tender" people. They went from being expressions of sincerity to badges of a "peculiar people" & lost their original meaning.
           It was a feature of Fox's effort to penetrate all etiquette & intercourse between persons with sincerity, & the elimination of sham. You were to be through & through what you professed to be. To hear exalted sermons or sing lofty hymns, & then go home & act as though these exalted things had never been said struck at his life and threw him into a state of agony. It is impossible to estimate rightly the essential significance of the Quaker movement without a clear appraisal of this call to stark sincerity. Simplicity at its best and truest is this utter honesty of heart and life, complete sincerity of soul before God, and [no time for] the ruts of duplicity and sham.
           [Spiritual Nurture & Education]—All the pillar Friends we find in journals rated spiritual nurture [& education] very near the top of the scale of Quaker virtues. Do you bring up your children & others in your care in the nurture of the Truth? There is no substitute for the home as a nursery of the spirit. Propagation of Quaker ideals of life was implicit rather than explicit; it was done by contagion, by unconscious imitation. You drew upon an inheritance which became yours naturally. 

           The stream of visiting Friends who came into Quaker homes was a way of carrying on enrichment of life in the home. The religious "opportunity" for worship with the family was an essential feature of the visit. The extraordinary interest in education is the flowering out of this deep concern for spiritual nurture. Schools sprang up next to meeting houses whenever possible. They informed the mind while they fed & nourished the inner life of the child. The question asked above needs to be asked again.
           [Sacredness of Life]—Quakers have committed their trust for moral, social, nonviolent victories to the armor of light and the sword of the spirit. The attitude toward peace and war is not an isolated attitude. It springs out of a deeper inward soil. It is an essential aspect of a larger whole of life. The 12th century Waldenses refused to fight or take human life. The 3rd Order of St. Francis inaugurated a truce of God. 14th century mystics desired to be instruments in the reformation of the Church and in the remaking of the world in gentle ways.
           Erasmus is one of the profoundest advocates of the peace method that has ever interpreted it. Love, patience, innocence, justice, self-restraint, willingness to suffer are a Christian's infallible credentials. Anabaptists & Spiritual Reformers were inspired by Erasmus & other mystics, & went back, not to Scripture texts, but to the NT's whole spirit & the way of Christ. This stream of thought flowed into England during the Commonwealth Era, when George Fox, William Dewsbury, James Nayler, & Isaac Penington were finding a new manner of life.
           George Fox gave this stream a peculiar color and direction from his own unique insight and character. As one in the order of prophets he made a novel contribution to the way of life which mystics, humanists, and spiritual reformers before him had heralded. In the early creative days he felt his way along by inward vision. [He did not serve up texts] as legal commands, though he knew the texts well enough. The main secret is found in his discovery that God and man are never sundered, never totally separate entities. The approach to God is through the soul, which is essentially spirit and therefore, may commune with Spirit.
           [Salvation Through Experiment]—To be saved for early Quakers meant inward transformation of spirit & way of life. Salvation was an actual spiritual conquest & a new dynamic of life. This Quaker philosophy was a vivid experience. Light from beyond broke in on them & flowed over their darkness. There is a crown of righteousness hovering above everyone's head, if one would only look up & see it. George Fox wrote: "All Friends everywhere, who are dead to carnal Weapons & have beaten them to pieces, stand in that which takes away the occasion of Wars, in the Power which saves men's lives & destroys none, nor would have others (destroy)."
           Quakerism is a bold experiment with patience and endurance to exhibit a way of life which [practices] a high estimate of man's divine possibilities, and which even in war and hate goes on with a service and mission of love and good-will. They will not fight; they will be calm and heroic in other ways. They will die if it will demonstrate their faith and truth. This [peace] testimony is 1st and last a positive and creative way of life and of enlarging the area of light and truth and love. Wrong social and economic conditions cannot be radically changed merely by loving those who are most responsible for the wrong, or by relieving the suffering. Solutions can be better found by those who work from the inside, who share in the sufferings and feel the burdens.
           [The Strength of Silent Communion]—We cannot change the world from ways of war to ways of peace, nor can we rebuild the social order on right lines for future generations, without the influence and guidance and inspiration of vital religion. The master secret of life is the attainment of the power of serenity in the midst of stress and action and adventure. One of the most significant contribution which the Quakers have made has been their discovery of the value and strength found in of silent communion. 

           The soul in these deep moments of quiet seem to be both breathing in a diviner life, and to be pouring out in response its own highest and noblest aspirations and expectations. This happens especially in an expectant, palpitating hush with others who are fused together into one group of worshiping men and women. There is as much need of a holiday from the problems of the mind through silence as there is for relief from hurry and worry and grind of work.
           There is a substratum in us which is the mother-soil out of which all our ideas and purposes are born. Vitalizing & flooding with power this fundamental stratum of being is what seems to happen to some in the hush & mystery of intimate contact with divine currents, in the living silence of corporate worship. A nurse in the influenza epidemic was utterly worn out; she managed to slip away for an hour of genuine worship. She returned to her work with a freshness of spirit, a renewed will, and raised to a new level of life and action. Sometimes the walls between the seen and unseen appear to grow thin, and one feels one's self in contact with more than one's self, with a widened range of experience, including the cooperative influence of many expectant worshipers. We come back to work more completely organized, vitalized, and equipped with new energies of the spirit.
           John Woolman of the 18th century describes how he learned to wait in patience & to dwell deep in the life & love of God, [& then in God's time] to "stand as a trumpet through which the Lord speaks." Friends come from their worship with a new sense of ordination (not of human hands), & more eager to push back the skirts of darkness & to widen the area of light & love. The dynamic worker at the tasks of the world must be organized within, must be brought in line with celestial currents & be penetrated with energies beyond one's self. Our task is to bind up the broken-hearted, be a cup of strength in [hard times], to set people on their feet, to feed & comfort little children in war. Those serving need to know: "That God at their fountains/ Far off hath been raining."

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9. Quaker Education Theory and Practice (by Howard H. Brinton;

 1940 [1967 reprint])

   About the Author—Howard & Anna Brinton arrived at Pendle Hill in the summer of 1936 with a solid background of academic achievement at the colleges of Mills & Earlham, & became co-directors of a Quaker fusion of school & community. They retired in the 1950s & lived on campus as Directors Emeriti. Anna died in 1969; Howard continued to serve by lecturing, writing, and simply being; he died in 1973.

   Preface to the 3rd Edition—Quaker Education in Theory & Practice was written & published in 1940, [perhaps between the author's 4th & 5th school year as Pendle Hill's co-Director with his wife Anna]. It is reissued for the 4th time at the request of Friends'Council on Education. The clear-cut philosophy of education worked out by the Society of Friends was based solidly on religious faith & practice. We must seek today in a changed world for suitable applications of old principles, though in some instances the original applications are still valid.

   Quaker schools should exhibit something of the unique character [& principles] of their predecessors or admit they no longer represent the Society of Friends. Quaker educational principles grow out of a special type of community different from [the communities] of the world around it. The Society of Friend's 3 communal activities are meeting for worship, meeting for business, & the school. The author's Swarthmore Lecture (London, 1931) covers the 1st activity; his William Penn lecture (PA, 1939) the 2nd; and the 3rd in this [booklet].

   CHAPTER I: The Aims of Education—What kind of life is most worth living? What constitutes the best preparation for it? Education more than any other undertaking requires an answer to these questions. If we are educating young people for the best possible kind of life, that life must be defined, which includes a complete philosophy of life. [Goal-labels of] "good citizen," "worthy character," "proper [role] in society," & "success in life," are met with the questions: By what standard do we judge someone to be any of these things? Why should one strive for any of these things when those with visible status [strive for different things]?

  Confucianism, Judaism, Calvinism, Catholicism, Communism, & Fascism are examples of social & religious [patterns of thought] in which education hasn't lacked philosophies of life adequate to define its purpose. Quakerism's philosophy of life is what we will use here. American democracy [does not] have a [comprehensive] philosophy of life that will enable popular education to define its goal & develop its method. Democracy is confined to politics, & is generally absent in industry,  commerce, most schools, bureaucracy, military and religion.

  Education's express aims change with changing times, though there are certain constants. There have been minimum requirements like reading writing & arithmetic. Colonial schools of America recognized the interests of religion as primary. Vocational skills were handled in apprenticeships outside of school. Educational programs [took on] training skills as family & community cease to function in this area. Societal behavior, methods, knowledge, & intellectual development, have been educational goals. They don't of themselves define the good life.

  Educators in schools have 2 objectives: tools for success; social efficiency. Sometimes success was applied in a broad sense [to the intangible aspects of life].Too often this motive degenerates into a concentration upon material rewards, [and a corresponding application of industrial methods] to achieve [success measureable in statistics]. The school building became too obviously like a factory and pupils like a product.

 Progressive education was the reaction to this. Book-learning, demonstrations and lectures were de-emphasized, & age appropriate procedures, and "self-directed spontaneous, preferably group activities were introduced. Opportunities for the release of creative powers, original thought and action are provided. In the new curriculum the school itself aims to become a real, life-like  community. Freedom and individuality that are consistent with cooperation in a democratic society are developed. The newer education emphasizes social efficiency.

 Catholic, Christian education is God-centered and church-centered, not child-centered and democracy-centered. Friends believe that youth should be brought up in obedience to inward divine guidance. The new education centers the will in the collective will of human society. The Quaker view is that standards of behavior ought to be derived from society as it ought to be, not as it is. Currently, the goal of education is determined by the scale of values which prevails at the moment. The student may learn in school that dishonesty does not pay, while the larger community [teaches a modified version of that lesson]. [Pure] democracy may prove impracticable when put to the test of [community] experience.

 To the social goal is often added the somewhat inconsistent individual goal that education must promote individual development. [The life philosophy] sought is whatever the often immature individual conceives of as satisfying one's desires &interests. Such anarchy calls forth its opposite: authoritative & scientific control. Without an implicit goal, current education must rely on external mechanical standards like credits & grades. The Quaker school prepared for a special kind of life embodied by the Society of Friends. However imperfectly it was exemplified by the Quaker community, it was rendered sufficiently definite to be aimed at.

 The Quaker school 1st taught the fundamental subjects. Such useful subjects were means & not ends. The end was a life modeled after the ways of God's Kingdom, not the ways of the world. This life's source is in obedience not to man nor the voice of society, but to hints which heedful human spirits derive from the Infinite Spirit. Quakers didn't train children to adjust themselves to society but to stand apart from it & even to bear witness against it. These principles were concretely though partially expressed as a pattern of divine & human relationship in a living religious group which was in close contact with the school. The school was both the vehicle for the transmission of the cultural heritage of this specialized community & a means of exploring it & bettering it.

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 Werner Jaeger defines education as "the process by which a community perceives and transmits its physical and intellectual character. For the individual passes away but the type remains ... Its history is affected by changes in the values current within the community. When these values are stable, education is firmly based; when they are [weakened the educational process gradually becomes inoperative]."Quakerism and Puritanism have both shared in the general collapse of standards in American life. The Quaker school does not quite know what it ought to be doing.    There was a time when Quakerism had a definite philosophy of life and a definite standard of living. The purpose of education was to provide training for that kind of living. To define that purpose we must 1st define the nature of Quakerism.

 CHAPTER II: The Nature of Quakerism—The Society of Friends' primary doctrine concerns Inward Light; secondary is meeting for worship & business; tertiary is social outreach implications of the meeting's community. God's presence is felt at the human soul's apex as both immanent, God sharing in one's life, & transcendent ,infinitely beyond, above all human life. Human endeavor should be to merge one's will with Divine Will as far as one is able, & by obedience become an instrument of God's power working in the world. Such a doctrine has existed in all great religions. Human beings are infinitely valuable & capable of right action. [There is a timely & a eternal gospel]. Only when the eye of time & eye of eternity see a single picture does Truth acquire depth.

 Secondary doctrines of Quakerism are unique & different from other sects. In Quakerism's meetings, individual experience of God's light & leading becomes a group experience by which Divine Presence is a uniting, coordinating Power. It unifies the group into an organic whole in which various parts work toward a single end. In meeting for worship, God-ward direction of attention is emphasized; in meeting for business the human-ward. The best meetings for worship dissolve hard shells of self-centeredness &life flows inward & outward, God-ward & human-ward. Anything said comes from a deep source & is a simple, brief statement of insight born in silence.

  In the meeting for business the Society of Friends makes its decisions regarding its own affairs and its work in the world around it. The only official is a clerk whose duty is to record the decisions of the meeting; there is no voting. If unity is not reached no decision is made. The final decision is often a new and unexpected result brought about by the synthesis of different points of view and submitting to a harmonizing power operating from a superhuman level. The search for truth and unity is sometimes a long and difficult one, but the goal when achieved is worth the patient effort. Unity is always possible to those who go deep enough.

 The tertiary or social doctrines of the Society of Friends evolve out of the 1st 2 sets of doctrine. The relationships developed thus far in the process, tend to become a complete pattern of life to be lived outside the meeting as well as within it. The meeting both creates and exemplifies the kind of behavior which ought to prevail. All the social doctrines can be derived from Inward Light and teachings of Jesus. The particular sequence of primary producing secondary, and secondary conditioning the tertiary social testimonies results in the social actions characteristic of the Society of Friends.The individual becomes slowly sensitized to the world's needs. When one is strong enough, one can be set out to grow in a less favorable environment.

 Community, harmony, equality & simplicity are here singled out for consideration.

COMMUNITY is present in the attempt of the meeting to become a unified closely integrated group of persons, a living whole which is more than the sum of its parts. There is spiritual and intellectual group life, and sometimes material interdependence. HARMONY is perhaps a better word than "pacifism." It might be called creative peaceable-ness. It exists as a positive power by which an inner appeal is made to the best that is in one.

 EQUALITY is the opportunity for all to take part in the worship or business regardless of age sex, or official position. There are obvious differences. Every opinion must be taken into account according to truth & not to the status of the person who offers it. SIMPLICITY, as Friends have used the word, has had various meanings at different times in Quaker history. Mainly, it is the absence of superfluity, It often means sincerity, integrity, practicality and consistency. Simplicity in speech meant the use of simple, direct, unadorned statements.

  COMMUNITY becomes a testimony which aims to increase the interdependence of people everywhere. This has expressed itself in aiding the poor & improving the conditions of depressed elements in society. For the past 3 centuries, Friends have been engaged in some form of relief work in war or industrial conflict. Aid is given for physical relief & with a view to restoring human relationships destroyed by conflict.Today Friends look at the social order & what experimental measures to use to right a particular wrong as way opens. HARMONY appeared at an early date in the refusal to take part in war. Friends are still far from agreement as to the extent to which this principle can be applied. God's will in the conscience must take precedence over the state's laws.

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   EQUALITY of sex, race & class was a doctrine that developed early. It included not showing deference to social "superiors" in word or actions, the wife not vowing obedience, giving up slaves, & working for women's, Negro's, & Indian's rights. It meant that the rights & opportunities of all should be equalized, for aren't all temples of the living God. SIMPLICITY is a more personal & less social doctrine. Judicial oaths, implying 2 standards of truth-telling, weren't in accordance with "the simplicity of Truth."

  Friends succeeded in altering the law to permit affirmations. Simplicity was exhibited in simple, direct statements. Plainness of living included plain dress, which became formalized during the 18th & 19th centuries. Music & painting, drama & works of fiction are no longer considered inconsistent with the simplicity of truth as well as time-wasting; art has a peculiar kind of truth of its own. Simplicity is applied to the concern about the increasing busy-ness & complexity of life.

 To what extent can a type of behavior, developed within a small comparatively homogeneous community, become a standard for action outside that community? Others live by a double standard. Quakers have 1st built up the small community of the meeting, in which they can be fairly consistent. From that point they have gone into the world depending on divine guidance to indicate how much consistency is required of them. To what extent can a Quaker do business & still adhere strictly to the standards of one's religion? Can a Quaker educational community be conducted on principles of the Quaker meeting for worship or business with the community, harmony, equality & simplicity doctrines that go along with them? Must a community of immature persons be assumed incapable of these standards, & be dealt with by a different standard?

  CHAPTER III: Outline History of Quaker Education—In 1668, George Fox advised setting up 2 schools, 1 boys', 1 girls'. In 1691, there were 15 Friends schools. By 1700, sending children to Friends day or boarding school was an established practice; children were in care of the meeting. Help was early & continuously given to poor Friends to have their children at Friends' schools or apprenticed to Friends. It appears in 1759 that there were 20 boarding schools (16 boys, 4 girls), not all just for Friends; Ireland had some also. The need for a boarding school for those "not in affluence" led in 1779 to establishing Ackworth school, co-ed with 300 students, under Yearly Meeting (YM) care. English Quarterly Meetings (QM) & American YMs did the same.

  Some of the English schools, with their dates of founding and 1967 enrollment are: Saffron Walden, 1702-2017 (380), co-ed; Ackworth, 1779 (420), co-ed; Bootham, 1829 (260), boys; The Mount, 1831 (250), girls, and Lancaster (260), boys. Overseas are Hobart Friends School in Tasmania, 1850 (1,000), under Australia YM; Wanganui in New Zealand, 1920 (110); separate boys' and girls' schools in Itarsi, India.

The most characteristically Quaker education institution in England is Woodbrooke Settlement near Birmingham, established 1903 for adults. Lectures are on religious, social & international subjects. The curriculum is meant to help students be better fitted for responsibility in the Society of Friends. Adult education is promoted through summer schools, week-end lecture schools, & travelling lecturers. In the Adult School Movement, initiated in 1845, English Friends contributed significantly. There is now a larger scale of Adult Education provided publicly; Friends are involved with this program too. 70 of 1,400 Friends teachers are serving Friends' Schools.

 Friends Education Council is a representative body of London YM, concerned with many Friends' educational activities. It controls Friends' School & University grants. It is concerned with religious education among the Society's children. It tries to keep in touch with Friend teachers. Surviving Irish Friends' boarding schools are Waterford in Eire (230), co-ed; Lisburn in Northern Ireland (600). English, Dutch, & German Friends established a co-ed International School (Quaker school Eerde) at Beverweerd, Werkhoven, Netherlands, 1934 (140).

 [Quaker Education in America]: 1. THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL—Pioneer Quaker communities frequently set up schools immediately after setting up meetings. London advices on education and apprenticeship had a strong influence in the New World; schools were in homes, meeting houses, or a building near meeting. RI, NY, NJ, PA, MD, VA, NC, SC meetings record educational concerns in the early 1700's. In 1701, William Penn granted a charter to an already existing school for the rich and poor.

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 In 1779, a report to the YM indicated that there were 5 schools in Philadelphia under the "Overseers of the Public School." There were also 5 other schools taught by Friends. In 1746, Philadelphia YM (PYM) advised the MMs "to encourage schools," and to employ "such masters and mistresses as are careful in the wisdom of God, a spirit of meekness, and in bringing [students] to a knowledge of their duty to God and one another. An annual query that PYM adopted from an educational committee reads: Are there schools established for the education of our youth under the care of [Friend] teachers and MM committees? "Do MM children of poor Friends freely partake of learning to fit them for business? 
           From 1750 to 1800 in PA, MM schools went from 40 to 65 or 70; schools increased throughout the colonies. [The teachers met high standards], and some meetings provided a house for the master, where a few resident pupils could also stay. Schools were supported through subscription, pupil fees, donations, meeting funds, and legacies. The education of the children of poor Friends was a special responsibility of MM. Women Friends in New York organized schools for poor children who were without religious affiliation; the schools were adopted into the New York public school system.

 When Friends began to migrate into Ohio and Indiana early in the 19th century, schoolhouses were built as early as meeting houses, sometimes earlier. Indiana YM reported 96 Friends schools in 1850, with an enrollment of 3,482; by 1890, no Friends' elementary schools were left in Indiana; they were transferred to public authority. Western Friends turned to academies and high schools years before the state did.

  [Quaker Education in America]: 2. THE ACADEMY OR SECONDARY SCHOOL—The 2nd stage in Quaker education was the academy, seminary or higher school. These higher schools presented wide variation in the subjects taught and the degree of advancement for which they provided. Sometimes an elementary school developed into an academy because of teachers trained and interested in certain higher subjects. Most YM schools still survive or they have become colleges.

 [The more notable ones are]: Friends' School, Providence, RI, now known as Moses Brown School, 1784 in Portsmouth, 1819 in Providence (543 enrollment); Westtown School, PA, 1799 (511); Friends' Boarding School [a.k.a. Olney Friend's School], 1875 (100); New Garden Boarding School, now Guilford College; Richmond Boarding School, IN, 1847, now Earlham College; George School, 1893, at Newtown, PA (453). Scattergood Boarding School, 1890-1931, at West Branch, IA, reopened as Scattergood School in 1944, (62). New ones have been set up in Sandy Springs, MD; Argenta, B.C.; and John Woolman School at Nevada City, CA.

 QMs occasionally set up boarding school [4 cited]. MM set up some [1 cited]. Others are owned by individuals or groups of Friends [9 cited]. Chester County, PA had at least 8 personally owned Quaker academies. In the west, Friends' academies originated in the 2nd half of the 19th century. About 1880, there were 20 in IN. In their best days, western academies were important focal points for intellectual life in the Society. In the South also there were many Quaker academies, most of them under QM. By 1885 there were at least 10 in NC. 

  There are 8 academies in Philadelphia [schools cited]. [These 8] day schools maintain an excellent standard of instruction as college preparatory institutions. The total 1967 enrollment in all Friends schools of all grades is about 13,020 pupils, with a higher percentage of boys than girls. More than 12% are members of the Society of Friends or have at least one parent who is a member. The Friends' Council on Education in Philadelphia acts as an Advisory coordinating body for all Friends' educational institutions in America and facilitates the exchange of information.

 3. THE COLLEGE—The 3rd stage in the development of education for the Society was the foundation of colleges. American colonial colleges existed mainly for the clergy. [Friend's development of ministers took a different path] than an institutional program [and so] felt no immediate need for colleges. The great need among Friends for higher institutions of learning led in 1830 to 5 anonymous essays in "The Friend" and in 1833 to the establishment of Haverford School which became Haverford College in 1856 (535 enrollment). 

  Guilford, NC, became a college in 1889 (892); Earlham at Richmond, IN became a college in 1859 (1,132). Swarthmore in PA began in 1869 (1,010), as did William Penn College in Iowa in 1873 (858); George Fox College, Newburg, OR, 1891 (376); Whittier College, Whittier, CA, 1901 (1,995). [6 others were cited]. These colleges are under the direction of Boards of Manager appointed by YM with the exception of the independent Haverford, Swarthmore, and Whittier. Joseph Taylor endowed Bryn Mawr in 1873, intending it to be fully in the Quaker tradition.

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 4. THE SCHOOL FOR ADULTS—The 4th stage of Quaker education in America was development in the 20th century of centers of study for those beyond more formal education. This stage of adult education began in America with the Haverford summer schools of 1900 and 1904. In 1918 the John Woolman School at Swarthmore was founded to be somewhat like Woodbrooke in England, with courses in religious and social subjects; it was discontinued in 1927. 

  Pendle Hill, a school for religious and social study, inherited the assets of Woolman School, and was set up at Wallingford, PA in 1930. The process included: special projects by the students, lectures and discussions, meetings for worship, and physical tasks of community life. Shorter opportunities to keep abreast of current thought on religious and social problems are also offered. Woolman Hill, in Deerfield, MA , 1954 and Powell House in Chatham, NY are study and conference centers. 

  Woodbrooke in England and Pendle Hill in America represent the 4th stage of educational history of the Society of Friends. American Friends Service Committee Work Camps & 7-10 day Institutes of International Relations should also be mentioned. International Student Seminars & work camps are held in several areas in Europe, Asia & Latin America as well as the US.

 CHAPTER IV: Quaker Educational Policies in the Past—Friends social or tertiary testimonies are extensions of behaviors cultivated in meetings for worship or business, & applied to areas outside the meetings, like school, college, or center for study. It is noteworthy that community, harmony, equality, & simplicity have in varying degrees persisted throughout. They have resulted in the definite educational policies of: sense of belonging; religiously guarded education; dedicated, concerned teachers; non-violent discipline; inward sense of rightness; equality of sexes,races, and classes; moderation; scholastic integrity; practical subjects.

 1. Development in the Students of a Sense of Belonging to the Quaker Community—The Society of Friends in the 18th and 19th centuries resembled a large family in its internal intimacy and interdependence. Students had various opportunities to witness this first-hand and to attend meeting for worship. At year end students were examined in the presence of, if not by committee members. The Quaker child came to have a sense of belonging to a "peculiar people." Co-education made possible acquaintances, resulting in marriage.

 Quaker communities sought to reproduce itself; the school was one means in the perpetuating process. New Garden Boarding School's plan addressed this in 1831. They admitted non-Friends in 1841, but gave it up be-cause students were ignorant of Quaker principles & had habits fixed in customs different from Friends. Non-Friends were readmitted to New Garden, Haverford & other Friends' Schools for financial reasons; other reasons include decreasing birth rate with a decreasing membership. 

  As the uniqueness waned in the evangelical west & sense of community waned in the east outside the school, schools lost one of their main reasons for existence. Sense of community is still a factor in some Friends' schools, most notably [Olney] Friends' School in Barnesville, OH & Scattergood at West Branch, IA. Sense of community was allied with a sense of security & continuity. As an individual, the Quaker could do little, but by working in & through a group, which was one's larger self, this same individual could do much. Quaker education related individual life to a more than individual purpose.

  2. A Religiously Guarded Education—Haverford School in 1830, stated a need for "a guarded education in the higher branches of learning, combining requisite literary instruction with a religious care over the morals & manners of the scholars." Quaker schools must shield the children from contrary influences, such as the wrong teacher or the wrong text book. Some Friends went into the field of textbook authorship. George Fox with Ellis Hookes wrote some. Anthony Benezet wrote a "1st book for children," the rules of which became the rules of many Friends' schools. Goold Brown in 1823 wrote the same kind, & it was used in NY until 1900. 

  George Fox the younger, John Woolman, & the Ackworth school also wrote this kind of book [22 others cited]. By far the most popular Quaker writer of grammars, spellers & readers was Lindley Murray (1745-1826), called "the father of English grammar," whose books went through from 50 to more than 100 editions. At least 6 textbooks used in NY Friends' School were by Quaker authors. A history textbook in which war wasn't emphasized was urgently needed, but it wasn't until 1900 that Allen C. Thomas, wrote one. Barclay's Apology &Catechism, Penn's Reflections and Maxims & Advice to His Children were used as readers.

A "guarded education" meant, for more than 150 years, exclusion of music, drama, dancing & the fine arts as "vain customs of this world." Light & frivolous conversation was reproved. Restrictions originally arose in middle class society. They came to be an expression of what might be called Quaker realism, dependence on fact rather than emotion & imagination. This realism was evident throughout Quaker educational policy. Fiction portrayed a non-existent world. Music wasn't "in the Truth" for it stirred up feelings that corresponded to no objective facts & resulted in no action. They feared teaching music was "preparation of our young folk to practice it in our meetings." It is said of Dolly Madison that she was taught to ignore graceful accomplishment most thought necessary. Sincerity & simplicity produced [grace & dignity] which were essential elements in Quaker character.

 Quaker teachers have now discovered the necessity of educating feeling, imagination, & aesthetics within school experience. The child of today who lives too much of the time in a fictitious world may find it difficult to "submit to the operation of Truth." The emphasis of the Society of Friends' religion upon direct experience rather than on [solely products of the reasoning mind] presents a difficult teaching problem. The Quaker school, although it made no pretense of preparing ministers, did tend to develop concerned Friends, some of whom would become more competent ministers because of their Bible, Quaker literature & practice education. The religious motive in education was hidden & seldom explicitly stated until late in the history of Quaker education.

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 Pupils were constantly exposed to religious influences. Bible readings happened every day, but explanatory lessons were not offered until recent times; memorization was required. There were frequent periods of devotional silence. At Aimwell (1807) "in the morning and afternoon ... silence is then to be observed and insisted on by remonstrance and example on the part of Teachers." Friends travelling in the ministry were frequently given an opportunity to convey their message while visiting Friends' schools, just like when visiting families. Unplanned silences, called "opportunities" offered the minister an occasion for delivering a religious message if so inspired. School committees used opportunities in a similar way. In meeting for worship on 1st Day and in the middle of the week, the student was no longer treated as a child. Former pupils of Friends' schools remember meetings for worship vividly and gratefully, even though some resented the obligation.

 Some meetings would hold "Youths' Meetings" at irregular intervals; some meetings held them quarterly. [1 17th century, 3 19th century and 4 early- to mid-20th century books were cited]. The memorizing of Biblical passages was intimately connected with the method of Quaker worship. In the silence the language of scripture would rise up in one's mind fraught with a meaning more compelling and illuminating than if it had been presented from lectern or pulpit. 

 This method of teaching has been around a long time. Religion truly was one of the 4 R's of Quaker education but its teacher was not mortal. Divine intimations could not be heard unless the student was protected from influences arising out of a lower source. Anthony Benezet writes: "Ought not the educating and training of the youth, both with relation to time and eternity, next to our more immediate duty to God, be the chief concern of every one that really desires the welfare and enlargement of the borders of Zion?"

 Quaker Educational Policies in the Past: 3. Dedicated & Concerned Teachers—The main & sometimes only reason for the existence of Friends' Schools when other schools were available was the high moral & religious qualifications of the teachers. John Woolman wrote: "If tutors ... follow the Maxims of the Wisdom of this World, such children who are under their Tuition [are] in Danger of imbibing Thoughts & Apprehensions, reverse to that Meekness & Lowliness of Heart, which is necessary for all true Followers of Christ. Sarah (Tuke) 

  Grubb writes: "If children are to be instructed in the ground work of true religion ought they not discover in those over them a lively example thereof ... however children may suffer ... under [harsh tempers, language, & treatment] they aren't instructed in the ground work of true religion." Meeting minutes complain of the lack of spiritually minded teachers who also knew their subjects. Sometimes schools are given up for lack of the right teachers. Friends did secure many good and great teachers, men and women. Job Scott and John Ford are the most notable. They achieved change in students by "patience and quietness," and they stuck to their principles when it was costly to do so, in seeking equality and in not promoting war.

 Beginning teachers are prepared by teaching and study at the school under the guidance of experienced teachers as apprentices. The scarcity of properly qualified teachers in Friends' schools was one factor leading to the establishment 1st of boarding schools and later of teacher colleges. Swarthmore College was created with this in mind. 100 of the 1st 400 students at New Garden Boarding School became teachers; other boarding schools had similar results. There are now as many as 1,000 teachers in the membership of London YM. Anthony Benezet wrote: "It seems to me that our principles, which in the [midst of corruption] seems to prohibit our meddling in offices, naturally point out to us as a people rather than others, to serve God & country in education of youth."

 4. Non-violent Discipline & Methods—In early Friends' schools severe discipline was rigidly enforced, sometimes by corporal punishment. [Westtown & Haverford were examples of that style of discipline]. Authoritarian methods conformed to educational theories of the time in schools & families. They were used in the primitive Indiana Friends' school, which were 1st to put aside the rod. In 1839 Friends in England reported that corporal punishment was no longer used in Friends' schools. Sarah Grubb advocated work-ability of the law of love.

John Lancaster put most of the instruction in the care of the older pupils. He advises: "The teacher should be only a silent spectator and overseer. The less the pupils hear the voice of the teacher the better they obey him." The Lancastrian system was used widely, in New York, Baltimore, and Russia. Prizes & awards as inducement to study were seen as "cherishing the spirit of pride & love of praise," & were discouraged in Quaker schools. For Friends reward was the heavenly experience & was something to be enjoyed here & now. Friends' schools should be calm, unhurried & free from strain; nearly all Friends' schools were.

 5. Appeal to the Inward Sense of Rightness—Inward Light shines into the conscience of children & adults. As the individual becomes sensitive & obedient to Divine Light, reliability & insight develops. Sarah Grubb writes: "Religious concerns can't be carried forward without order & method. When [right rules & method] are found they call for great care ... to keep them [from being something] not in the spirit ... but [something] made perfect in the flesh ... a fine-spun system of positive rules, untinctured with faith in divine aid's sufficiency." Most Friends' schools have been [slow] to keep abreast with allowances for individuality & less regimentation.

  Conscience, as informed by the Light within, is a collective as well as individual phenomenon. The individual student must test one's own insight through the insights of the whole Society of Friends. The Calvinistic "human depravity" resulted in an attempt to make children righteous by the application of moral rules & religious creeds. Edward Parrish wrote: "The innate innocence of children as distinguished from the dogma of original sin ... furnishes the key to that method of development which is [being] recognized by enlightened educators."

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 The historic Quaker position is between the extremes of Calvinism & Progressivism. A child is simply innocent, having evil propensities which pull one down & good propensities which pull one up. The basis for "religiously guarded education" is to give every opportunity for the good principle in the soul to be heard and followed and as little opportunity as possible for the evil principle to be heard and followed. 

  Quaker autobiographies show 1st memories of hearing the Divine Voice between the ages of 7 and 10. A mother is imagined to say: "Thou must mind, my dear, that within thee, [the Spirit of God], that secretly inclines thee to be good and warns thee of the evil thou art going to do in time for thee to let it alone." John Woolman writes: "Conduct toward children that tends toward their Acquaintance with Divine Light and strengthens them in Obedience therein, appears to me to be a Duty on all of us." John Bellers wrote: "They are capable of being saints on earth and angels in heaven."

 [Moral Education]—John Dymond says: "You cannot impart moral education as you teach a child to spell ... Religion is the basis of morality." It begins with a knowledge of God. Moral education is "the supply of motives to adhere to what is right." He also says: "It is of more consequence to adhere steadily to conscience, though it may not be perfectly enlightened, than to possess perfect knowledge without consistency of obedience. ... they who obey most know most ... who are directed to the law written in the heart."

 [In considering morality, Quakers envision] humans hovering in their reason between Light of God and evil desires. To help one's pupils overcome evil, the educator must know how to help them turn their attention that way. [In this regard Phipps believes reason isn't enough, & sees the need for] "the application of a superior Principle." Quaker schools should be neither authoritarian like the Puritans nor anarchistic like ultra-progressives. It begins with rules & regulations, keeping in mind that the object of moral education is to make external rules unnecessary. The higher way can only be achieved with small units & thoroughly dedicated, enlightened teachers.

 6. Equal Education of Both Sexes—Friends' equality of the sexes carried over to the schools. Boys & girls were at 1st instructed separately in a single school. Friends noted difficulties in conducting a coed school when a very small percentage of the patronage and enrollment are Friends. The YM Boarding School was simply a family on a large scale, where the usual Quaker family customs were faithfully carried out. Friends were for a long time almost alone in solving the difficult problems associated with coed boarding schools. All Quaker colleges are coed except Haverford, of which Bryn Mawr College was designed to be the feminine counterpart.

 Friends early employed women as teachers. It was the hardships of maintaining "one-room schools ... rather than discrimination that kept men teachers in the majority of Quaker communities. [Quaker women's position on the public platform] had undoubtedly a liberalizing effect on women's position in the 19th century. Until very recently it was customary in Friends' boarding schools to enlist a husband & wife as superintendent & matron, as well as representatives of the school committee. The same tendency is seen today in AFSC work-camps.

  7. Equality in Education of Races and Classes—George Fox wrote: "Let your Light shine among the Indians, the Blacks and the Whites that ye may answer the truth in them." Fox asked Friends in Barbadoes to "teach, instruct and admonish Negroes, Tawnies and Indians." Freed slaves of Friends were being educated either in Friends' homes, in Friends schools with white children, or in Negro schools like those Philadelphia set up in 1770 and 1786, or Haddonfield in 1794. From 1760 on Virginia and Baltimore YM regularly contain references to the religious instruction of Negroes. Maryland began the same process in 1778.

 Quakers were very involved with the Freedmen's Association after the Civil War. In Baltimore a meeting house was used as a Negro Normal School. What Philadelphia did in 1786, Indiana did between 1834-1869; in 1837 the Institute for Colored Youth was founded in Cheyney, PA; it became the Training School for Teachers and was transferred to state control in 1921. In 1870 Philadelphia maintained 46 school for Negroes. Friends have not always carried their doctrine of race equality to its logical conclusion. The contact of members of different races has obvious educational advantages. After 17 months of severe persecution, Prudence Crandall of Canterbury, CT, had to close her Female Boarding School, her school having been almost destroyed by a mob.

[Seeking] equality of educational opportunity for poor & rich was done before the rise of public schools by educational endowments. Many YMs still have an annual query regarding the number of members educated in Friends' schools. Unless Friends' schools offer something distinctive in carrying out Friends' doctrine, they may be strengthening the sense of class consciousness. If there is no difference between standards of the small religious community & the general community, or if the difference doesn't appear in the school, the main reason for Friends' school has ceased to exist. The private school may exist in order to permit educational pioneering.

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 8. Moderation in Dress, Speech and Behavior—Friends' schools used to insist upon the "plain language" and the "plain dress" [Scattergood Boarding School's admonition at the end of its dress regulations is cited]. Great importance was attached to these "minor testimonies" long after their original importance and significance was lost; they became badges and symbols of membership in the Quaker community. Dr. John Fothergill writes: "When they cease to be distinguished from others by garb and deportment, they too often cease to be distinguished ... by their morals and the rectitude of their conduct." 

  The last to keep the formal plain dress was the Friends Boarding School at Barnesville, OH (Olney Friends' School), which gave it up about 1928. But the testimony of simplicity is needed more than ever in our schools today. It has been wisely said that tradition is the condensed originality of a people. The Quaker tradition of simplicity is in reality far deeper than 18th and 19th century manifestations. Pendle Hill provides an example of simplicity of living. The newer schools such as Scattergood and Pacific Ackworth are good examples of Quaker simplicity.

 9. Scholastic Integrity/ 10. Emphasis on Practical Subjects in the Curriculum—Only that is simple which is genuine & sincere & not elaborated beyond what is its own inner nature & function. "Scholastic integrity" describes a characteristic quality of nearly all Quaker schools, & a quality shared by many other educational institutions as well. Early on in America (1790) PA's requirements were that masters & mistresses should: have high moral character; be members of the Society of Friends; be competent to teach the subjects taught; 60 to 70 schools met that requirement. Friends' schools & colleges continue to maintain high scholastic standards.

  Simplicity required no superfluous or ornamental subjects be taught. [Simplicity was] command of basic processes needed to be useful in society. Religious & moral instruction was practical as needed for the good life. Latin, Greek, & French were taught in some schools. Since most learned books were written in Latin, Latin was a practical subject. Teaching scientific & semi-vocational subjects began with Fox & Bellers. Fox & Penn planned a "garden schoolhouse" near London. Thomas Lawson writes: [God's] works within & without, even the least of plants, preaches forth the power & wisdom of the Creator, & eyed in the spaces of eternity humbles man.

 Penn writes: "We are in pain to make them scholars not men, to talk rather than to know...We press their memory too soon, puzzle, strain & load them with words & rules [for] grammar & rhetoric. A strange tongue that [likely will] never be useful, leaving natural genius to mechanical, & physical or natural knowledge uncultivated & neglected...It were happy if we studied nature more in natural things, & acted according to nature."

 A school for manual labor at Clerkenwell was established in 1695; it was not entirely a success, there being too much work and not enough play. The Meeting for Sufferings recommended schools in which children can learn languages & other sciences & also some remunerative trade or skill... which will ... combat ... the temptations ... to idleness. Because of fines & persecution, [personal wealth was scarce] & the teaching of useful arts was the more necessary subject. Before his death at 31 years-old, Jonathan Dymond wrote: "Science is preferable to literature, the knowledge of things to the knowledge of words." Classical languages have no cultural value, for they aren't really learned except by a few nor are they useful mental exercises.

  Dymond holds that not only correct grammatical speaking but also spelling and writing should be learned by students while engaged in tasks which are interesting and useful in themselves. He also writes: "While our children are pouring over lessons which disgust them we allow the magazine of wonders which Heaven has stored up to lie unexplored." His Essays on the Principles of Morality had a profound influence on the thought of the Society of Friends. As a result many Friends became scientists or at least pursued scientific hobbies. At least 18 Quakers published botanical works before 1850. 
           Swarthmore proposed "to give greater prominence to the physical sciences than is common in ordinary colleges." Dr. John Griscom, one of the most famous Quaker educators, was the 1st to teach chemistry in America. [Science and practical mathematics was used as a substitute for fiction and other amusements]. The empirical, experimental attitude toward religion was carried over into a similar attitude toward nature. New Garden Boarding School announced: "A knowledge ... of created things has a tendency to expand the view, enlarge the mind and raise the affections to the great Creator." Dymond [set great store] "by what laws the Deity regulates the operations of nature."

 Today the educational pendulum in America has swung far over toward the practical and experimental type based on our modern mechanistic and materialistic culture, which has little to do with the Quaker teaching theory, [for which inclusion of experience in the spirit's world is essential]. Christopher Taylor writes in 1676: "We deny nothing for children's learning that may be honest and useful for them to know, whether relating to divine principles or what may be outwardly serviceable for them to learn in regard to the outward creation."

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 [Physical Labor and Book/Lab-learning]—London YM writes: "There is a concern on us ... that your children may not only be instructed in the languages and sciences, in the way of Truth, but likewise in some profitable and commendable labor or industrious exercises ... to prevent many temptations." English Friends established 3 boarding schools intended for "mixing manual labor and literary instruction" (Rawdon, 1832; Penketh, 1833; Ayton, 1841). Philadelphia YM writes: "The tendency of manual labor is to preserve the health of the students by furnishing regular and steady exercise and forming habits of industry and regularity which are applied to their studies." Mose Brown, New Garden Boarding School, [later Guilford College], and West Lake School in Canada, [later Pickering College] also endorsed manual labor [as part of the program]. 
            Between 1845 and 1850, 2 similar schools, in IN and 1 in IA were also started. After many years of ups and downs, 1 school in IN and the one in IA are now functioning successfully. Toward the end of the 19th century athletics became more organized with the avowed purpose of accomplishing one of the purposes once aimed at by a mixture of learning and labor. Competitive games claimed the youth's attention to the exclusion of other interests. Student work programs were started during the WW II labor shortage; its educational value led the program to be retained. At Pendle Hill nearly all the physical tasks are performed by the students.

 CHAPTER V: Direction of Further Developments:—The philosophy of education which arose out of Quaker principles was applied most effectively in the period between 1750 & 1850. Before 1750 this philosophy was slowly taking shape & after 1850 it gradually became less effective due to decay of older forms & the changes & instability in society. To recapitulate, the Society of Friends' primary doctrine concerns Inward Light; secondary is meeting for worship & business; tertiary is social outreach implications & doctrines of the meeting's community.

   The school is a special community in which these social doctrines can be embodied. The embodiment gives rise to the policies of: sense of belonging; religiously guarded education; dedicated, concerned teachers; non-violent discipline; inward sense of rightness; equality of sexes, races, & classes; moderation; scholastic integrity; practical subjects. Here are suggestions as to the further development of some of these policies.

  Sense of Belong & Religiously Guarded Education/ Search for Dedicated and Qualified Teachers—The schools of olden times knew what they were trying to do because the Quaker way was fairly definite; today there is bewilderment. The "Quaker" objective is no longer clear & there is doubt arising [from concerns] that such an objective is exclusive & undemocratic. If Quaker schools are to have a right to exist they must have an objective not shared with public schools, a peculiar mission. Those of us who have lived in the fading twilight of [Quakers as a "peculiar people" in their dress, speech, honest directness, avoiding compromise, and strong social convictions] may experience a nostalgic longing for it but old days and ways will not come back.

 Since the mid-19th century the Quaker cultural pattern has been slowly weakening partly because of influences from the outside. A narrow evangelical religion pulled in one direction; rationalistic & materialistic thought pulled in another. [Technology] breaks through privacy walls & [takes us to] places far away; easy transportation scatters communities & families. [Even our subconscious isn't refuge] from psychological inquiry. [All this] tended to efface the boundary between the Society of Friends' specialized divine-human community & the great secular community of this world. 

  Quaker schools can't prepare for a special community that no longer exists distinctively enough to be an educational goal. [On the other hand], perhaps the schools can be central in working out a way of life for the Society of Friends, a way which will be as distinctive for our day & as much a product of fundamental Quaker principles as was that of an earlier time; perhaps the schools can lead the Society. The school's character is within our control to a greater degree than is the larger community's character.

 Sects have cycles of creativity and organization/consolidation. 17th century was creative; 18th was organization/consolidation; 19th century was structural fading. Let us now hope we are entering on a new creative age. Our meetings for worship or business and our schools may be laboratories in which the new way of life is both discovered and elaborated. It is a central doctrine of the Society of Friends that only religion can dissolve the hard crust of self-centeredness and permit the group to grow together in a genuine organic community life. 

  The Quaker school community, if it is to lead into further developments of ancient procedures must learn how to become welded together through worship into a cooperating whole. Education must still be religiously guarded. [There should be protection from exposure to excessive propaganda leading to wanting thrills and luxuries]. Also, an understanding of propaganda methods especially as used in advertising and politics must be taught.

 Obtaining dedicated & qualified teachers now is more difficult now than it was in the beginning. [It is expected that there will be continuing education]. Some of this study should help the teacher better understand the ideals of the Society of Friends and of Quaker education. A study group of teachers should form a small genuine community which has some of the characteristics of the larger school community for which they are preparing, including worship, discussion, and work. It may help to strengthen and direct qualifications already present.

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 Non-Violent Discipline; Appeal to an Inward Sense of Rightness—These address the concern to create in the student non-belligerent, peaceable habits & attitudes, based on a spirit of understanding & cooperation. Quaker schools & colleges try to help students be internationally minded. School must train for tolerance, understanding & cooperation. School should approximate cooperative life similar to meeting for worship.

 Aldous Huxley writes: " The decline of democracy has coincided with the rise to ... political power of the 2nd generation of compulsorily educated proletariat." Authoritarian education produces a submissive attitude toward superiors and a bullying attitude toward inferiors. Absorption of more and more people into an authoritarian and pitiless industrialism, with it mass-mindedness and loss of respect for individuality, has had more effect than mass education; big businesses are swallowing little businesses. If education is to be practical student must be prepared for this authoritarian world. Students want subjects of study which enable them to succeed financially and socially. Religion and ethics are no help to such success.

 The Quaker school should prepare for a special kind of life which is in the world, not of it; its methods must conform to that special kind of life. The teacher would be able to use a technique similar to Friends' meeting for business by which the meeting arrives at united judgment from a synthesis of many judgments. This is valuable training in the use of non-violent power. Methods which cultivate cooperative peaceableness are opposed to self-centered & competitive attitudes required for conventional success. They are creative of the new & unforeseen & hence they can educate the pioneers of a better society. The Quaker meeting seeks light from a level higher than the human & the Quaker classroom shouldn't neglect this source. A human finds their highest freedom & deepest knowledge in submission to the authority of Truth, Beauty & Goodness & the stern discipline of facts.

 Equality of Education for Gender, Race, and Class/ Simplicity—When we consider how much has been sacrificed for minor testimonies, further sacrifice in behalf of a major testimony cannot be shirked. A more active obedience to Divine admonitions may again make the Quakers pioneers in social developments.

Simplicity is one of the most difficult tenets to apply today. How shall we distinguish between necessity and luxuries? We cannot and should not revive the standards of the past. We should not give up trying to establish through choice a more self-denying discipline in our homes and schools. Well-to-do non-Friends and Friends themselves support making the school more like the students' home in equipment and activities. As a result Friends' schools are becoming more costly & sometimes exhibit no more simplicity than do other schools. 

  Simplicity involves a kind of life which does not depend for happiness on the abundance of material things but rather on inner serenity of soul. In times like these when worldly possessions seem more uncertain and perishable many are suffering from an anxiety which robs of their joy in life. The school must learn how to create for its pupil a set of inner dimensions large enough for a habitation of the soul, a center of life somewhat detached from outward changes and independent of changing fortunes. "Other worldliness" was based on a distinction between this temporal world and the eternal realm all around it. It gave to social activity its power and goal.

 Curriculum of Practical Subjects—The words "practical" and "useful" as employed in Quaker education applied quite as much to the spiritual as to the intellectual and utilitarian; education must minister to the needs of the whole man. Material success might even be regarded as ornamental and superfluous compared to spiritual development. In the medieval curriculum there was useful arts, liberal arts and divine arts. In Western education, education was 1st religiously centered; then it was intellectually centered; now it is socially and economically centered. America has gone through the same process in a short 300 years. An education that does not develop personality on the superhuman (divine), human, and sub-human levels is incomplete and insufficient.

 Gerald Heard shows that early Friends discovered the power which can be developed in small groups devoted to silent worship and meditation. Friends lost this power by misunderstanding the means by which it was produced. New educational procedures based on Friends' original discoveries are the means to recover the Friends' lost power. The subconscious and the means to educate the sources of the will need to be taken into account along with the rest of the mind. [A school with these new procedures and this new focus] must detect how this power was generated, and how it may be generated today to transform both individuals and society.

 If the needs of the whole person are to be met, substantial portions of time should be devoted to body and spirit. We have overdeveloped the intellect and its tool-making capacity and are being ruined by the tools we have created. Political dictators have realized this lack of balance, but they seek the kind of balance which was attained in primitive society, not the kind which is attained in the Kingdom of Heaven.

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 The democratic society glimpsed by American educators, where human personality is respected as sacred, inviolable and capable of genuine self-sacrifice is essentially a Christian society. Only religion can overcome selfishness enough for men and nations to work together willingly. Many Americans expect religious results by secular means and education; this is impossible. There is a power other than religion which enables people to work together unselfishly in a cooperative society; it is patriotism.

  As a quasi-religion it possesses remarkable effectiveness. Patriotism is more likely in the long run to lead toward authoritarianism than toward democracy, as the average patriot desires a strong state. There is a higher patriotism which is not in disagreement with internationalism. Religion teaches that there is Higher Power than the state which can and will judge the states, and to which the states must submit in order to live in peace. A spirit which admits no narrow self-interest, no narrow national interest [must be sought and nurtured by education].

 [Lifelong Education of the Spirit/ Conclusion]—Education of the spirit must come through slow development. Throughout life there should be ongoing development in religious insight. Friedrich von Hügel suggests that the child's religion is based on tradition & institutions; the youth's religion is based on questions & arguments; the adult's religion is based on intuitions, feelings & volitions. The child doesn't choose a religious or moral code. It comes from environment [i.e.] family, church, or school. The youth rationalizes what one received as a child. 

  When one's reasoning, argumentative, abstracting faculties develop, they challenge one's childhood religion. One may marginalize it, or discard it. If one's religion answers one's demand for clear thinking & arguments, one can keep it, strengthen it, & let it grow. Approaching adulthood, the youth finds reason & science insufficient as a basis for life. Religion becomes a matter of inner experience. Intuition replaces authority or reason as a basis for truth. Suffering is transformed into strength & insight. This adult religion is pragmatic & mystical.

 Many children today aren't received into any system of religious & moral ideas either at home or at school; they are spiritually & morally homeless. The child has a right to be offered something positive, the very best of the group into which one is born or placed. One will take bad food for one's soul rather than no food. Children need a "religiously guarded education," with some dependence on the inward. On the whole teachers must realize that in childhood religious feelings will more likely be aroused by precepts & examples than by the inward.

 Colleges must minister to the newly-won ability to think and reason. Often the student is unable to choose. The general effect of college training in criticism and analysis is to destroy the old without developing power to build the new; sometimes there are genuine discoveries in the religious. With adulthood there is an increasing ability to attain a mature religion based on deep inward experience as well as on authority and reason. The adult school [should focus on synthesis, integration, meaning, insight, and meditation with deep inward, spiritual experience, rather than applying the minds tools without any spiritual connection]. There should be a deliberate attempt to cultivate sensitivity to Inward Light and to that which unites people to God and to one another. Mystical religion needs to be encouraged to grow. There will be no grades, credits, or degrees here.

 Such a school will not be essentially new in Quaker education, but rather fruition of educational policies which have long existed [only partially expressed and developed]. The history of the present time shows that the older forms of education have failed to develop the whole man. A form of education must be made available which enables us to the discover the Divine and through it to sense our goal.
           Quaker education must be mainly authoritative in childhood education, rational in youth education, and mystical in [adult education]. All 3 approaches must always, in some degree be present. [The Quaker process] is 1st the authority of the group which has discovered a way of life which is good and which it seeks to extend by imparting it to its children. The school is a small community preparing for the larger religious community.

   2nd , it is criticism and rationality in college which either harmonizes the old with new self-knowledge, or it preserves [as much of the old as seems worth saving]. 3rd, [there is seeking the mystical], sensitizing ones inner life through study, worship, work and community life. Here the past and the present are transformed in the light of inner and outer searching which looks toward the future. Quaker education need not change its old objectives. It need only seek a higher measure in their achievement. William Penn wrote: " Men not living to what they know, cannot blame God that they know no more."

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10. Community and Worship (by Douglas V. Steere; 1940):

  About the Author: Douglas Steere was Professor of Philosophy at Haverford, author of Prayer & Worship, On Beginning from Within, On Listening to one Another, Dimensions of Prayer. His concern for the inner life is fused with a concern for action; with his wife, Dorothy, he has gone on numerous missions to Africa, Europe, & Asia for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The 1st draft of this essay was prepared before his departure for Central Europe on behalf of the AFSC. Revision were made without being able to consult with him. 

  Introduction—The pitiful words of a would-be assassin, "I belong to nothing ... only to myself, & I suffer," express the pain in the hearts of a vast number of modern men & women. A religious community could have dispossessed them of themselves, & freed them to belong to life. Where can these isolated people come into contact with the releasing Agent & the health-giving atmosphere of a community that frees them to belong somewhere and belong to life? When the currents of secular life have weakened the natural bonds and world events threaten to dissolve them further, something more elemental [than a "Sunday morning social club"] becomes imperative if we are to be strong enough [to resist our] time's demonic forces. Where then, can seeking men and women find a community and be part of the informal natural life of a close religious fellowship? 

 TYPES OF COMMUNITY: Therapeutic Groups—Psychotherapists today are seeking to meet this need by setting up institutions with gymnastic, relaxation, and handicraft teachers, spiritual directors and those suffering from nervous tensions. Long overdue readjustments of patterns of living can be made. But one has been given no adequate philosophy to take with one, and one's deepest hunger has been neither recognized or fed. 

 Gerald Heard has been sensitive to this need for centers of close community life. His community would be built around a master or masters who have themselves found the way to inner health and who have developed inner maturity. There is released through them an unmistakable and almost irresistible spiritual power, [a sort of guru]. They would be the modern and progressive form of the Franciscan Third or lay order. Heard's proposals seem too much like Hinduism and Zen Buddhism for most critical readers, yet his proposals point the way to the necessary, spiritually integrated community. 

 The Monastic Community/ The Third Order of the Franciscans—In the Benedictines, manual labor, intellectual studies, and devotional exercises supply the needs of body, mind, and spirit, and result in a fertile organic community. It helped hold together 1,000 years of western civilization. It's exclusion of the family and its rigid medievalism limit the scope of its usefulness. 

   In 1220 Francis of Assisi preached up & down Italy. Many with the responsibilities of family & livelihood longed to respond to God's love. The 3rd Order Francis set up in response was a lay society of men & women living a normal life in the world, & yet resolved to live a life especially near to God, in fervent response to God's love. The seeker made strenuous effort to make restitution for any wrongs consciously committed. They ate less & spent so little time & money on themselves, that they had a surplus to pour into the Lord's work to the sick, prisoners, the poor, & peacemaking. They refused to bear arms, take oaths, or submit [legal disputes to court]. They confessed more often, & met monthly to among other things help each other on the matter of grave personal faults. They were important leaven in church life, until they became a stiffly organized church fraternity. 

  The Ashram Movement—E. Stanley Jones writes: "The ashram in India springs from the ancient forest schools, where a guru, or teacher, would go aside with his chelas, or disciples, & together search for God through philosophical thought & spiritual exercises"; there is no standard type of ashram. "Its central characteristic would be simplicity of life & an intense spiritual quest." Jones with others experimented with a Christian ashram in India, combining the Indian spirit, with the development of men of Kristagraha, Christ-force. The fellowship includes the renunciation of secret criticism & complete frankness with one another. One day a week is given to silence. Life in  the ashram is a corporate discipline; [each member's growth in Kristagraha is the goal]. 

  THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS—The early Christian community knew what it was "to be all with one accord in one place," to experience the Spirit's visitation together. To respond to the good news meant joining a local Christian fellowship that touched every side of their lives. When there is genuine concern for one another and they meet together for worship they are truly open as a corporate group for the Spirit's deepest working. 

  The Society of Friends is designed to be exactly such a fellowship. The lay character of its ministry enables small units to survive without being forced to gather large numbers & resources for a minister. Few Friends meetings today can claim to offer this ideal type of fellowship. Friends & the Christian Church as a whole would be stamped Not Dangerous by rival national, racial, and class religions that have sprung up in our day. 

  Out of the college and university centers, out of the ranks of professional people, and out of the ranks of those who work with their hands, "there is a people waiting to be gathered." Is there a place with you for us to be renewed and transformed by this inward power that a few of you have found? Are you just another formal, respectable, non-intrusive religious group? The answer must be honestly given in concrete terms by each local meeting. Even including our service organizations and our study centers, the Society of Friends must still live or die by the character or quality of its local meetings. Are our local meetings "intimate fellowships of those who are about the Christian Revolution"? The cultivation of this fellowship will be greatly assisted by the following 3 steps. 

 The Ministry of Hospitality/ The Ministry of Visiting—The revival of Christian hospitality in which food is eaten together is essential. A return to simplicity would help bring about the revival of this precious sacrament. Members of the meeting should visit one another in the spirit of that fellowship which they have felt in the meeting for worship. It should not be restricted to any official body in the meeting. [These absolutely essential and continual] visits help to draw the meeting for worship into a basic fellowship that can yield to the Spirit, and in time of need can draw on the bank of God's healing power for members in difficulties. 

 The Ministry of Small Fellowship Groups—Out of hospitality and visiting there may grow a desire in several members to gather in one another's homes, perhaps for a meal and for a quiet evening of conversation. Teresa of Avila wrote of having 5 of her friends "meet together, for the purpose of undeceiving each other, for conferring on the means of reforming ourselves, and of Giving God the greatest pleasure." The several little fellowships my wife and I have been a part of have been of inestimable value. [Difficult decisions were often brought there]. These occasions have also been gay, joyous times together. [In a time when bearing testimony against war can be even more isolating], groups like these can be not an elective, but a necessity. Sometimes these groups spend days at a time together, and return to their ordinary lives with a sense of gratitude. 

  In several Scandinavian countries, where meetings weren't yet or just started, I have seen small fellowship groups meeting every other week. These groups have been the source & the indispensable auxiliary of meetings for worship. In these groups, larger surfaces of our lives are opened to each other. Meetings for worship in Quaker work camps where the group had been at manual labor together seem to take on a fresh reality, with fellowship already partly built through common work. It may take on practical applications for the meeting or for social service projects. [For those in crisis] wouldn't it mean much to have little fellowship cells into which these people could be invited? Lay groups within the church in many different centuries speaks for their essential function. The Society of Friends offers a peculiarly hospitable provision for the return of this movement today. 

 WORSHIP AS THE SOURCE & CULMINATION OF THIS RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY—In corporate silence people gather weekly to work & let God work. The work includes stilling the body & stilling surface distractions of the mind, readying one's self to be open to the Inward Guide. Distractions of the mind can best be treated by not trying to resist them, by acknowledging their presence & sinking to a depth beneath them. 

  [Offering Prayers]--In the confessional of silent prayer I may unlock the secret chamber of hidden thoughts. Donn Byrnes' words "There were great battles fought in great fields, but there was never a harder one than that between myself & myself in that little [meeting] room." The facing of hidden fears in the silent confessional, the dying to fear, letting God have God's way, is part of our work there. Upon deeper scrutiny, what we thought we longed for most of all may prove to be something very different. A young woman had come to work camp bent on transforming that underprivileged community into a cell of the new social order she was alive to spread. She later confessed that neither she nor most she knew had the discipline to live in that order, let alone spread it. 

  Someone has called intercessory prayer "unselfishness in prayer." There we can hold up the needs of others and the longings we have for them as in no other way. Isaac Penington wrote: "[In intercessory prayer], Are they blinded and hardened so that they can neither see nor feel as to this particular [fault]? Retire, sit awhile, and travail for them. Feel how life will rise in any of you and how mercy will reach toward them and how living words from the tender sense may be reached forth to their hearts deeply by the hand of the Lord for their good." Or we may work with the grain of God by holding up the sufferings of the world, letting God identify us with them and increase our responsibility for them. We become God's conscripts for the work of the alleviation of suffering. Finally there is a time of silent fellowship with God when we confess nothing, desire nothing, intercede for nothing, but simply enjoy God in thankfulness. Thomas Story wrote: "My concern was much rather to know whether they were a people gathered under a sense of the enjoyment of God." 

 Let God Work—It is good to work. It is still better that our work should lead up to letting God work. It is good to pray. It is still better to be prayed into. Dick Sheppard, an English Christian peace apostle felt an illness coming on and was terrified because he was solidly booked with important appointments. He had a dream where God wrung God's hands at the prospect of Dick being ill. He awoke in the morning smiling at himself and his indispensability complex. John Woolman speaks of being brought low in the silence. That is letting God work, which results in "24 hours in which to do the 1 thing needful, instead of 10 or 12 hours in which to do a dozen ... There will be time to place ourselves at the disposal of anyone in real need ... no time to be devising schemes for our own amusement ... There will be time to pray long and passionately for the coming of the Kingdom, no time to question its present security or its ultimate triumph" (Natalie Victor). 

 This is not passivism. Things that must be done are laid upon worshiping individuals and worshiping groups. Work done under such a concern is no longer an outside philanthropy; it becomes an intimate relationship. We may let God work when we listen to vocal ministry, to one who has allowed what had to be said to be hammered out in the molten center which is the gathered life of the worshiping group. [Or we may be brought to that molten center to have a message laid upon us to speak be hammered out]. 

  The community that has no such common experience to gather it into an inward fellowship as a children of a single loving Father, has not experienced the deepest fellowship of all. It is here in meeting for worship, that all of the preparative experiences of religious community mentioned earlier culminate. There might well be such joy, even a holy exuberance, if we each had daily contacts with Jesus Christ. Meeting for worship is soil that has been plowed and harrowed and disked by common experiences. It has been made open for the planting of the seed.    

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