Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and Development Part 22

With the first of January, 1886, the Unitarian a.s.sociation established a bureau of information in regard to southern education, of which General J.B.F. Marshall, who had been for many years the treasurer of the Hampton Inst.i.tute, was made the superintendent. This bureau, during its existence of three years, investigated the claims of various schools, and recommended those most deserving of aid.

In 1891 Miss Mabel W. Dillingham and Miss Charlotte R. Thorn, who had been teachers for several years in the Hampton Inst.i.tute, opened a school for negroes in Calhoun, Ala. Miss Dillingham died in 1894; and she was succeeded by her brother, Rev. Pitt Dillingham, as the princ.i.p.al of the school. The Calhoun School has been supported mostly by Unitarians, and it has been successful in doing a practical and important work.

During the first eight years of the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute it received $5,000 annually from Unitarians, and in more recent years $10,000 annually. This has been given by individuals, churches, and other organizations, but in no sense as a denominational work. Concerning the aid given to the Hampton Inst.i.tute this statement has been made by the princ.i.p.al: "The Unitarian denomination has had a very important part in the work of Hampton. Our first treasurer was General J.F.B. Marshall, a Unitarian who made it possible for General Armstrong first to gain access to Boston and secure friends there, many of whom have been lifelong contributors to this work.

General Marshall came to Hampton in 1872, and for some twelve years took a most important part in building up this inst.i.tution. He trained young men for the treasurer's office, who still hold important positions in the school, and others who have been sent to various inst.i.tutions. The home of General and Mrs. Marshall here was of incalculable help in many ways, brightening and cheering the lives of our teachers and students. Unitarians have always had a prominent part in the support of Hampton. Mrs. Mary Hemenway was the largest donor to the Inst.i.tute during her lifetime. She gave $10,000 for the purchase of our Hemenway Farm, and helped General Armstrong in many ways."[25]

[Sidenote: Educational Work for the Indians.]

At three different periods the Unitarian a.s.sociation has undertaken educational work amongst the Indians. The first of these proved abortive, but is of much interest. James Tanner,[26] a half-breed Chippeway or Ojibway from Minnesota, appeared before the board of the a.s.sociation, February 12, 1855, in behalf of his people. He had been a Baptist missionary to the Ojibways, but had found that he could accomplish little while the Indians continued their roving life and their wars with the Sioux. He therefore wished to have his people adopt a settled agricultural life. The Baptist Home Missionary Society, with which he was laboring, would not accede to his plans in this respect, and desired that he should confine himself to the preaching of the gospel. Unable to do this on account of his liberal views, he went to Boston with the hope that he might secure aid from the Baptists there. He was soon told that he was a Unitarian, and he sought a knowledge of those of that faith. He was thus led to apply to the Unitarian a.s.sociation for help, which was granted. He secured an outfit of agricultural and other implements, and returned to his people in the spring of 1855. In December of that year Mr. Tanner attended a meeting of the board of the a.s.sociation, accompanied by six Ojibway chiefs. On this unique occasion the calumet was smoked by all present, and addresses were made by the Indians. In April, 1856, the board reluctantly abandoned this enterprise, because the money for the yearly expenditure of $4,000, which it required, could not be secured.[27]

In 1871 President Grant inaugurated the policy of educating the Indians under the direction of the several religious denominations of the country.

To the Unitarians were a.s.signed the Utes of Colorado. The reservation at White River was placed in charge of Mr. J.S. Littlefield, and that at Los Pinos of Rev. J. Nelson Trask. Several other persons took up this work, including Rev. Henry F. Bond and his wife. In 1885 the Utes were removed to a reservation in Utah. In the spring of 1886 Mr. Bond returned to them for the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng a boarding-school amongst them; but, not getting sufficient encouragement, he went to Montana, where in the autumn he opened the Montana Industrial School, with eighteen pupils from the Crows in attendance. Buildings were erected, farm work begun, carpenter and blacksmith shops put in operation, all at a cost of $20,000. The school was located on the Big Horn River, thirty miles from Fort Custer.

It was the object of the Montana Industrial School to remove the Indian children from their nomadic conditions and to give them a practical education, with so much of instruction in books as would be of real help to them. The boys were taught farm work and the use of tools, while the girls were trained in sewing, cooking, and other useful employments. At the same time there was constant training in cleanliness, good manners, and right living. The school was fairly successful; and the results would doubtless have been important, could the experiment have gone on for a longer period.

In 1891 Mr. Bond withdrew from the school on account of his age, and it was placed in charge of Rev. A.A. Spencer. With the 1st of July, 1895, however, the care of the school was a.s.sumed by the national government.

Extended as this chapter has become, it has failed to give anything like an exhaustive statement of the philanthropies of Unitarians. Their charitable activities have been constant and in many directions. This may be seen in the wide-reaching philanthropic interests of Dr. Edward Everett Hale, whose Lend-a-hand Clubs, King's Daughters societies, and kindred movements admirably ill.u.s.trate the practical side of Unitarianism, its broad humanitarian spirit, its philanthropic and reformatory purpose, and its high ideal of Christian fidelity and service.

[1] Memoir, III. 17; one-volume edition, 465.

[2] Memoir, III. 61, 62; one-volume edition, 487, 488.

[3] Boston Unitarianism, 127.

[4] Harvard Graduates, 155.

[5] Boston Unitarianism, 253.

[6] Elizabeth P. Peabody, Reminiscences of Dr. W.E. Channing, 290.

[7] Eber R. Butler, Lend a Hand, October, 1890, V. 681.

[8] Elizabeth P. Peabody, Reminiscences of W.E. Channing, 273.

[9] Gilbert Haven, Anecdotes of Rev. Edward T. Taylor, 114.

[10] Ibid., 119.

[11] Gilbert Haven, Anecdotes of Rev. Edward T. Taylor, 330.

[12] American Notes, chap. iii.

[13] Frank B. Sanborn, Biography of Dr. S.G. Howe, Philanthropist, 110.

[14] Frank B. Sanborn, Biography of Dr. S.G. Howe, Philanthropist, 170.

[15] Reminiscences, 161.

[16] Francis Tiffany, Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix, 58.

[17] Francis Tiffany, Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix, 355.

[18] Ibid., 327.

[19] Ibid., 290.

[20] Ibid., 375.

[21] Report of the National Conference, 1895, 205.

[22] Sermons of Ephraim Peabody, introductory Memoir, xxv; Memorial History of Boston, IV. 662, George S. Hale on the Charities of Boston; A.P. Peabody, Harvard Graduates, 155.

[23] Besides the Fragment Society, the Children's Mission, and the Boston Provident Society, already mentioned and still vigorously at work, several other societies are wholly supported by Unitarians. Of these may be named the Howard Benevolent Society in the City of Boston, organized in 1812, incorporated in 1818; Young Men's Benevolent Society, organized in 1827, incorporated in 1852; Industrial Aid Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, organized in 1835, incorporated in 1884.

[24] Alfred Manchester, Life of Caleb Davis Bradlee, 8; First Anniversary, address before the Boston Young Men's Christian Union by Rev. F.D.

Huntington, Appendix.

[25] Personal letter from Mr. H.B. Frissell.

[26] Edwin James, A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner during Thirty Tears' Residence among the Indians of North America. (John Tanner was the father of James.)

[27] Quarterly Journal, II. 326, 344; III. 64, 257, 449, 625.

XVI.

UNITARIANS AND REFORMS.

The belief of Unitarians in the innate goodness of man and in his progress towards a higher moral life, together with their desire to make religion practical in its character and to have it deal with the actual facts of human life, has made it obligatory that they should give the encouragement of their support to whatever promised to further the cause of justice, liberty, and purity. Their att.i.tude towards reforms, however, has been qualified by their love of individual freedom. They have had a dread of ecclesiastical restriction and of any attempt to coerce opinions or to establish a despotism over individual convictions. And yet, with all this insistence upon personal liberty, no body of men and women has ever been more devoted to the furthering of practical reforms than those connected with Unitarian churches. No one, for instance, was ever more zealous for individual freedom than Theodore Parker; but he was essentially a reformer.

He was a persistent advocate of peace, temperance, education, the rights of women, the rights of the slave, the abolition of capital punishment, reform in prison discipline, and the application of humanitarian principles to the conduct of life.

[Sidenote: Peace Movement.]

"It may be doubted whether any man who ever lived contributed more to spread just sentiments on the subject of war and to hasten the era of universal peace," said Dr. Channing of Noah Worcester, who has been often called "the Apostle of Peace." It was the second contest with Great Britain that led Dr. Worcester to consider the nature and effects of war. In August, 1812, on the day appointed for a national fast, he preached a sermon in which he maintained that the war then beginning was without sufficient justification, and that war is always an evil. In 1814 he further studied the subject, with the result that he wrote a little book which he called A Solemn Review of the Custom of War.[1]

The Solemn Review was widely circulated, it was translated into many languages, it made a deep and lasting impression, and it had a world-wide influence in preparing the minds of men for the acceptance of peace principles. The remedy for war it proposed was an international court of arbitration.[2] Through the efforts of Dr. Worcester the Ma.s.sachusetts Peace Society was organized December 28, 1815, one of the first societies of the kind in the world.[3] William Phillips was made the president, and Dr. Noah Worcester the corresponding secretary, with Dr. Henry Ware, Dr.

Channing, and Rev. Francis Parkman among his councillors. On the executive committee with Dr. Worcester in 1819 were Rev. Ezra Ripley and Rev. John Pierce. Other Unitarian members and workers were James Freeman, Nathaniel L. Frothingham, Charles Lowell, Samuel C. Thacher, J.T. Kirkland, and Joseph Tuckerman; and, of laymen, Moses Grant, Josiah Quincy, and Colonel Joseph May. In 1819 Dr. Worcester began the publication of The Friends of Peace, a small quarterly magazine, a large part of the contents of which he wrote himself. After the first number, having obtained the a.s.sistance of several wealthy Friends, he relinquished the copyright; and the numbers were republished in several parts of the country, thus obtaining a wide circulation. He devoted himself almost wholly to this publication and the advocacy of the cause of peace until 1829, when he relinquished its editors.h.i.+p. "This must be looked upon as a very remarkable work," wrote Henry Ware, the younger. "To his wakeful mind everything that occurred and everything that he read offered him materials; he appeared to see nothing which had not a bearing on this one topic; and his book becomes a boundless repository of curious, entertaining, striking extracts from writers of all sorts and the history of all times, displaying the criminality and folly of war, and the beauty and efficacy of the principles of peace."[4]

In his efforts hi behalf of peace, Dr. Worcester had the support of Dr.

Channing's "respectful sympathy and active co-operation."[5] According to Dr. John Pierce, Channing was the life and soul of the Ma.s.sachusetts Peace Society. "For years," says his biographer, "he devoted himself to the work of extending its influence with unwavering zeal, as many of his papers of that period attest."[6] From his pulpit Dr. Channing frequently expressed his faith in the principles of peace, and he strongly advocated those Christian convictions and that spirit of good will which would make war impossible if they were applied to the conduct of nations.

Not less devoted to the cause of peace was Dr. Ezra S. Gannett, of whom his son says: "He thought that reason, religion, the whole spirit as well as the letter of the gospel, united in forbidding war. Probably, he was non-resistant up to, rather than in, the absolutely last extremity; although he writes that an English book which Dr. Channing lent him as the best he knew upon the subject, 'has made me a thorough peace man!'"[7]

"Let the fact of brotherhood be fairly grasped," wrote Dr. Frederic H.

Hedge, "and war becomes impossible."[8] "The tremendous extent and pertinacity of the habit of human slaughter in battle," wrote Dr. William R. Alger, "its shocking criminality, and its incredible foolishness, when regarded from an advanced religious position, are three facts calculated to appall every thoughtful man and startle him into amazement." "It is vain,"

he said, "to undertake to impart a competent conception of the crimes and miseries belonging to war. Their appalling character and magnitude stun the imagination and pa.s.s off like the burden of a frightful dream."[9]