Chapter II: Part 2

Those were bright, sunny, happy, idyllic, and fruitful days of the Positivist Episode, when the first of the two following letters which my wife and I now contribute to the "Memories of Mrs. Croly," were written. That episode, of which these letters represent the beginning, and the end throws an explaining light not only over the life of her whom this memorial is to honor, but over that of her husband, who passed to the higher life in 1889; and largely also over the lives of others more or less associated with, or affected by, the introduction of the study and culture of Positivism into America, of which they may be regarded as the chief promoters.

Yes, as friends of Mrs. Croly and of those dear to her, we may well recall, as she often did, this Positivist Episode as among the pleasantest of her--and may we not also add of ours?--earthly days. The first letter shows the movement well under way, when meetings had begun to be held, and visits to be made to the homes of those deeply interested. Never shall we forget the first of those visits made by Mrs. Croly to our then "almost out of town" home in 116th street, where our house, pleasantly overlooking the East River, was clothed with trees and vines. The Catawbas on a large trellis, trained in stories with upright canes, excited her admiration, and she assured us that she had "never seen nor eaten anybody's grapes with such delight." Naturally, a basket or two of grapes soon followed to her home away down and over to the other side of town at number 19 Bank street. Thus the "vines" and "fruit" referred to in her letter are explained; and with them was thus associated in holy sympathy her love with ours of "the kindly fruits of the earth." Mr. Croly also referred to gifts of this kind in the New York _World_--thirty varieties of grapes raised under and in proof of the "law of correlation, expounded by the raiser as the law which held us of the world together."

But when our turn came as Positivist students to visit at their home, we found the cosey parlors well filled with the higher samples and fruits of human culture and intellect. Mrs. Croly's social position, sustained by the ability of Mr. Croly and his prominence as managing editor of the New York _World_, and afterwards of the _Graphic_, enabled her to call together the leaders, and many interested in the then (and now?) two leading schools of scientific and constructive thought; the Positivist school of Augusta Comte, represented by Henry Edgar and partly also by Mr. Croly and others; and also in contrast therewith, the Synthetic Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, represented by Edward L. Youmans, John Fiske and others. Nor were there wanting those who, like the present writer, would combine those two schools, and more, into the scientific and republican growth of our newer world and life in America.

The initiative of these meetings was a course of lectures procured by Mr. Croly, to be delivered by Mr. Edgar at De Garmo Hall early in 1868. Out of the interest thus excited, Mr. and Mrs. Croly called around them the elements above referred to, including, among miscellaneous attendants, perhaps a hundred earnest students of Positivism and of the higher religious and scientific philosophies. The meetings were not always held at the homes mentioned, but at the home of Mr. Courtlandt Palmer and of other participants. All the parties named, and many others, took part in the discussions of this unorganized circle, until its name and influence reached and interested generally the thinkers of the city. This interest, as the years rolled on, resulted in or influenced the forming of many societies, among which were a Positivist Society, the Society of Humanity, the New York and Manhattan Liberal Clubs, the Philosophic Society of Brooklyn, the Nineteenth Century Club, the Goethe Society, and indirectly a Dante Society and several others. All of the clubs and societies of women with which Mrs. Croly and her work have been associated may be thus included. Certain it is that this "positive factor" in her life was the source from which the new, altruistic inspiration originally came which made her finally recognized as the "Mother of Women's Clubs" and of their beneficent influences--the new life, light, and hope of women, of which they are the beginning.

Nor less should be said for the literature that has sprung from the same source. It began with the "Positivist's Calendar," by Mr. Edgar, and Professor Youmans's admirable collection of articles, and the introduction, on "Correlation" of the physical and other forces, published by Appleton, and never to be outgrown. Then Professor Fiske published in the New York _World_ his able series of lectures on the "Positive Philosophy," which some think he weakened by turning into the "Cosmic Philosophy." Then (for further details are not in place here) Mr. and Mrs. Croly and Mr. Bell and most of us went into literature in some way, to an extent that made quite a library, now mostly lost or forgotten. Would that I could "lend continuance to the time" of those disputants, and show why and how they drifted apart instead of together! For the shadow of oblivion seems to be creeping over all; and against that I, as the last survivor, seem to be their only and yet their helpless protector. Yet we can now see, as they mostly did not, that their divergence was really a "differentiation process," leading each to a higher integration of truth.

Thus, what I cannot do for each, the volunteer seeding of time is doing silently for all, though they noticed not the good seed they scattered. For instance, Mr. Croly wished these words to be placed over his grave: "I meant well, tried a little, failed much." He saw not that the sound seed of which he was a real and great sower, were his well-meant and effective efforts to bring Positivism, as the sum and synthesis of science and humanity, before all thoughtful American people, as the real religion and basis of their modern life. That view of life was then new, but now it is replacing or changing all dogmatic or supernatural religions. In a word, modern scientific thought is becoming practical, constructive, and positive in religion; directed more and more toward advantages in the human future on this earth. The real basis of sentiment is the new science of Sociology and the new sense of altruism--first named by Auguste Comte and first brought to the American people in and by this "Positivist Episode."

It is by the up-coming of such seed as was then sown, that the old issues and their old world have been replaced by the new; which we should gratefully inherit from those sowers. It is said that they seemed to look upon much of their life as failure because they did not see the harvest in their day as the direct result of their hands. How strange that the faith of evolution did not give them the "after sight" which is the crown and reward of those who "mean well," and who "work and hope!"

To Mrs. Croly did come not only the well-wishing and the patient labor, but also a foretaste of her reward. Her days were extended until her purposes fulfilled met the gratitude of her successors. Even "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," referred to in her last letter to us, were warded off by the human providence which, in her own words, "realizes the eternal goodness of the perfection of the order which governs the universe."

Thus her friendships with the many she loved and served have closed with unalloyed satisfaction--to me and mine a sincere friend for more than thirty years! And no words come that I might wish unsaid unless these: "Be careful now, for I have told more than one that you are my god-father!"

From Mrs. Croly to Mr. Wakeman

19 BANK STREET, NEW YORK,
Sept. 26, 1870.

My dear Mr. Wakeman:

Thank you very much for allowing us to share so largely in the luxuries of your pleasant home, and in the rewards of your labor. The grapes were a great treat to us, and we have enjoyed them exceedingly. The variety is wonderful; and the difference in the flavors, each one being perfect in itself, constantly excited our admiration.

I hope by this time your term of bachelorhood is at an end, and that Mrs. Wakeman and the children are with you. If she has arrived, please convey to her my acknowledgments for the card she left for me, and say how much I regretted not seeing her. Please also to remind her that next Monday (first Monday in October) is the meeting of Sorosis, and that I shall expect to find her at Delmonico's, corner of 14th Street and Fifth Avenue, at 1 P.M., as my guest. She can walk straight upstairs, and a waiter will send in her name to me, so that she need not enter alone; or she can arrive a little earlier (I am always there early) and see the ladies as they come.

As I have not many occasions for writing notes to you, Mr. Wakeman, I desire to say to you, with the deliberation with which one puts pen to paper, that I am thankful for having known so true a man, and happy that my husband can count him friend. One thing done is worth many words spoken, yet I am doubly glad when words and acts walk harmoniously together.

Always your obliged friend,
J.C. CROLY.

From Mrs. Croly to Mrs. Wakeman

7 BENTRICT TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK, N.W.,
LONDON, December 24, 1900.

MY DEAR OLD FRIEND:

I am sure that you have thought many times that I was forgetful and ungrateful, but indeed the first part of the indictment cannot be laid to my charge. I never forget you, and if I have not written, it is because I have suffered and enjoyed many things during the past two years, and have permanently lost the power of rapid movement, or of doing anything under great stress and pressure.

But now that this wonderful year is ending, this Sabbath of the centuries, I feel that I must at least send my love and unforgetness to you; also my hope that you are finding on the other side of the continent of North America, compensation for all that you left behind in the east, and greater promise for the future.

For all that I have gained for some years past I have to thank my losses. Chief among my gains is, I hope, a little realization of eternal goodness; of the perfection of the order which governs the universe, and the relation of every separate atom to the Divine Unity of the whole. I know Goethe proclaimed it a hundred years ago; but every separate part has to grow to its knowledge for itself.

I wonder how you are spending Christmas. This year seems to me so remarkable that it is a privilege to live in it. I am trying to use its last days as if they were mine, in doing the things I should be most sorry to leave undone.

I expect to return home soon--that is, in a few months. Or rather, as I have no home now, and a trustee has lost the money I had saved and entrusted to him in making provision for my old age, I shall only try to find a corner to rest in.

I hope you have been dealt with more kindly in body and estate. Please remember that I never forget the union of the spirit we once enjoyed--that the Positivist Episode was a positive factor in my life, and that I shall always recall Mr. Wakeman as my chief helper in it.

With love to you and yours, I am unforgettingly,
J.C. CROLY.

(It has seemed pertinent and interesting as bearing upon the
"Positivist Episode" to here insert extracts from
testimonials to Mr. Croly published in the memorial issued
at the time of his death in May, 1889.)

From a Testimonial to Mr. Croly, by T.B. Wakeman

David G. Croly must not be forgotten. He rendered our country an invaluable service, not yet recognized. He was the man who _planted Positivism in America_. The many who have felt, the thousands who hereafter will feel its influence for good, should learn to bless, and to teach others to bless and continue his memory and influence.

In 1867-68 he began his great work. Henry Edgar had the seed from Comte direct, and then tried to sow it in a course of lectures given in a hall chiefly paid for by Mr. Croly. But the seed would not take. After Edgar had gone, the sturdy brain and hand of D.G. Croly took the matter in charge and actually made the growth start. Then the _World_, with him at its head, evoked and published John Fiske's "Lectures on Positivism," far better in their first shape than when pared and cooked over into the "Cosmic Philosophy." Then came the "Modern Thinker" and "Positive Primer." Then Dr. McCosh came out, in reply, with his volume on "Positivism and Christianity." Then Positivist Societies and Liberal Clubs, one after another, were formed and some continue, whence John Elderkin, Henry Evans, James D. Bell, the writer of these lines, and not a few others commenced to ray out the new light, which never has been, and never will be extinguished. By the aid of that light let a distant posterity read with gratitude the names of _David G. and Jane Cunningham Croly_, for without them I know it would not have been.

T.B. WAKEMAN.

From a Testimonial by Herbert D. Croly

... I should like to relate one incident in the history of my father's relations with myself--an incident which was eminently characteristic of certain aspects of his nature.

From my earliest years it was his endeavor to teach me to understand and believe in the religion of Auguste Comte. One of my first recollections is that of an excursion to Central Park on one bright Sunday afternoon in the spring; there, sitting under the trees, he talked to me on the theme which lay always nearest his heart--that of the solidarity of mankind. There never, indeed, was a time throughout my whole youth, when we were alone together, that he did not return to the same text and impress upon me that a selfish life was no life at all, that "no man liveth for himself, that no man dieth for himself." His teachings were as largely negative as positive. While never, perhaps, understanding the Christian religion as a man with a weaker faith in the truth of his own convictions might have understood it, his attitude was one, I judge, of sympathetic scepticism. He was always endeavoring to impress upon me that, while there must necessarily have been something great and good in a faith that had been the inspiration of so many souls, and comfort of mankind through so many centuries, yet at the same time it was incomplete; that very often the followers of Christ gave more to the doctrine than they received from it; and that the teaching of Auguste Comte supplied what was lacking in the teaching of Jesus Christ. His desire to impress upon me a belief which he held himself with all the force of religious conviction led him to attempt explanations which the mind of a child could neither grasp nor retain. He even discussed, for my benefit, theoretical questions as to the existence and nature of the Supreme Being; discussions, of course, that I could so little understand that it was like pouring water on a flat board. It was simply the fulness of his belief that led him to do this. His desire was that, surrounded as I was by people who burnt their candles at the altars of the Christian faith, I should have full opportunity to compare the Positivist _Grand Être_ with the Christian Cross. Under such instruction it was not strange that in time I dropped insensibly into his mode of thinking, or, more correctly, into his mode of believing.

While I was at college I was surrounded by other influences, and while retaining everything that was positive and constructive in his teaching, I dropped the negative cloth in which it was shrouded. My change in opinion was a bitter disappointment to him, as several letters which he wrote at the time testify. But intense as was his disappointment, it never took the form of a reproach. This is very remarkable when we consider what an essential part of his character his beliefs constituted. Here was an end, for which he had striven through many years, failing at the very time when it should have become most fruitful. And his disappointment must have been all the more severe because he exaggerated the differences that existed between us. It was his opinion that his negative opinions were necessarily connected with those which were positive; and that it was impossible truly to hold the one without the other. Yet, as I said, his disappointment never took the form of a reproach. "It is your right; nay, it is even your duty," he used continually to say, "to work your own salvation. It has turned out to be different from mine. Well, then, mine is the loss."

From an abstract point of view it may not seem to be so much of a virtue that a father should consider his son's intellectual honesty to be of more importance than his own opinions. But I am not writing from an abstract point of view. We are all but children of the earth; not good, but simply better than the bad. So it was with David G. Croly. His opinions, crystallized by the opposition which they met on every side, were so very much the truth to him that he wished his son to perceive them clearly and cherish them as devoutly as he did. That wish became impossible of fulfilment. Part of his life-work had failed. "Mine is the loss."

H.D. CROLY.

From Mr. Croly to His Son Herbert at College

LOTOS CLUB, Oct. 31, 1886.

My Dear Boy--You said something about the divergence between my ideas and those of the philosophers whose works you are reading at college. Let me beg of you to form your own judgment on all the higher themes--religion included--without any reference to what I may have said. All I ask is that you keep your mind open and unpredisposed. In the language of the Scripture, "prove all things and hold fast to that which is good." Be careful and do not allow first impressions to influence your maturer judgment. You say you are reading the controversy between Spencer and Harrison on religion. In doing so keep in mind the fact that Spencer's matter was revised, while that of Harrison was not; and that upon the latter's protest the work was withdrawn in England.

I wish during your college year that you would read:

(1) Miss Martineau's translation of Comte's "Positive Philosophy." (2) Mill's Estimate of Comte's Life and Works. (3) Bridges's Reply to Mill. (4) All of Frederic Harrison's writings that you can find. (5) All of Herbert Spencer's works that are not technical. (6) John Fiske's works. (7) The works of the English Positivists, such as Congreve, Bridges and Beasley.

By noticing the dates I think you will find that Spencer appropriates a great deal from Comte and that he tries to shirk the obligation. It would be well to read the latter's "General View of Positivism" further along.

My dear son, I shall die happy if I know that you are an earnest student of philosophic themes.

Do cultivate all the religious emotions, reverence, awe, and aspiration, if for no better reason than as a means of self-culture. Educate, train every side of your mental and emotional nature. Read poetry and learn the secret of tears and ecstacy. Go to Catholic and Episcopal churches and surrender yourself to the inspiration of soul-inspiring religious music.

Ever your affectionate
FATHER.

From a Testimonial by Edmund Clarence Stedman

My intimacy with Mr. Croly began in 1860, when we were together upon the editorial staff of the New York _World_. We had many notions, socialistic and otherwise, in common. With these, however, we did not venture to imperil the circulation of that conservative newspaper. He was City Editor, and knew his business. I was struck by the activity of his mind, and his combination of shrewd executive ability with inventive skill. I found him a staunch friend, loyal to his allies, helpful to his subordinates; moreover, a man of strong convictions--which he asserted with a fine dogmatism; an idealist withal, quite unhampered by reverence for conventional usage and opinion. Absolute mental honesty was his chief characteristic.

He was a humanitarian, in the Positivist sense of the word. All his aspirations were for the future glory and happiness of the human race. Faith in the reign of law, and a prophetic certainty of man's elevation--these were his religion. As a thinker and talker he certainly was of the same breed with Tennyson's poet, who

"Sings of what the world will be
When the years have died away."

He bore good fortune and adversity with an equal mind, and he displayed stoical courage throughout prolonged illness of a most depressing type.

Others will add to your own feeling statement of his varied labors. But let me say that, whether our paths came together or diverged, I always thought of him as in every sense a comrade. His loss makes the lessening roll of those with whom I touched elbows in the old newspaper days seem ominously faded.

EDMUND C. STEDMAN.

From a Testimonial by J.D. Bell

Mr. Croly was a great journalist. He was not a great editorial writer, but he was a great editor. He had the true executive temper and power--that is, the ability to obtain from others the work that was in them. He never made the mistake of endeavoring to do everything himself. He was just, as well as generous to his subordinates, and many of the younger journalists have reason to remember his kindness to them. In any company in which he was thrown he was sure to attract attention, and there were very few companies in which he did not take the leading part by virtue of his ability and not of his self-assertion. He never used tobacco in any form, and was otherwise a strictly temperate man. In his utterances he was often very radical, but in practice he was always thoroughly conservative.

His social predilections led him to study the writings of Auguste Comte. He accepted his doctrines and endeavored to popularize them in writings and meetings, but with very limited success. Indeed, he often said that while intellectually Positivism was in the air, as a social doctrine it was too far in advance of the present age to become popular.

He was essentially a family man and loved his home and household. During the greater part of his married life, however, the exacting editorial duties and literary labors of himself and his wife prevented them from enjoying the society of the home circle to the extent that each desired. Here, as in so many other cases, the individual was sacrificed for the benefit of the public.

From a Testimonial by St. Clair McKelway

... David G. Croly's personality was always healthy and hopeful. He commended with justice, he censured with consideration, he changed or cut out your copy with regard exclusively to the increased value of the article for newspaper purposes. The staff was like a large family under him. Every one's equal rights were regarded, every one's special talents were stimulated, every one's peculiar fads or foibles were genially borne with. Officially he had no favorites. Personally he chose his friends among the staff as freely as he would do among outsiders. The unrecorded kindnesses of the man were fragrant and not few. To newcomers he would intimate what were the prejudices or susceptibilities or limitations of those among whom they were cast. He would be just as careful to see that the old standbys did not make things rough or unfair for the newcomers. He had little respect for the gifts or views that could not be made interconvertible with newspaper results. He took a public view of party questions and rarely a personal view of any questions. Between what he thought and wished as an iconoclast, a reformer, or a reconstructor of foundations and what he was intrusted to say as an editor, he drew the line sharp and clear. While, as I have remarked, he was rarely a writer with his own hand, the articles which he suggested or poured into or pulled out of others were made so eminently characteristic of himself that they were stamped with his quality as truly as if he had written them himself. He was very proud of the success of the men in after life who started on their newspaper careers under him. He followed them with good wishes always, he spoke strong words for them when, where, and to whom they little suspected, and he rightly regarded their success as a vindication of his own prescience in having set them on their way, and also as a gratification not merely to his confidence in his own opinion concerning them, but to the wishes of his unselfish heart in desiring that they should take the pinnacles of achievement in whatsoever field of newspaper work inclination, necessity, opportunity or destiny marked out before them.

ST. CLAIR MCKELWAY.
The _Eagle_ Office, Brooklyn, May 14, 1889.

From a Testimonial by John Elderkin

David G. Croly was a strong man. He was strong in his convictions, his honesty, and his capacity to meet all the requirements of life in the most populous, enterprising, and brilliant city of the continent. His strength begot independence, and he was before all else independent in the formation and expression of his views, both on public affairs and those which are more personal and philosophical. He never apologized for his opinions, and his life needs no apology. His mind dwelt on that side of every question which involved the interest and welfare of the whole mass of mankind, and his religious philosophy was pure Humanitarianism. His reverence for Comte was the result of his intellectual conviction that in his altruistic teaching was to be found the only remedy for the wrongs and sufferings of the world.

In personal intercourse Mr. Croly was suggestive, inspiring and encouraging. It was always with a slight shock to preconceived notions and prejudices that one listened to his comments on any current movement or event, for he was sure to take an original and characteristic view which could not be calculated.

From Mrs. Croly's Contribution to Her Husband's Memorial

Mr. Croly was in his twenty-seventh year when I first knew him, but as yet had made no mark in journalism. He had not found his place in it. He was employed as City Editor of the New York _Herald_--a position which had not then developed the importance which attaches to it to-day--and his duties consisted mainly of making out the "slate" for the staff of reporters, and doing such reportorial work as it was the province and habit of the City Editor to perform. This afforded little scope for a man of Mr. Croly's latent power; and his dissatisfaction and desire to find a new field was the cause of our going West within three years after our marriage and starting a daily paper in a Western town. Had the town been larger the story would have been different. As it was, we spent our money, not without result; for Mr. Croly discovered that his forte was not execution, but direction, and that his fertility of brain only needed a sufficiently wide field to develop powers capable of greater expansion.

He was the most utterly destitute of the mechanical or "doing" faculty of any man I ever saw, and never used his own hands if he could possibly help it. But ideas flowed freely upon all subjects in which he was interested, and he distributed them as freely, knowing that the reservoir though forever emptied was always full. This amazing fertility was in some respects a detriment, for it led him into too many projects, and made him careless whom he enriched, while his dislike of the mechanism of his work made profit for others at his expense. I know no other journalist in New York City, during my own journalistic career of thirty-three years, who has made so many and such diverse publications, or put so much originality and force into the detail of his work. The _World_, and particularly the Sunday _World_, which was the foundation of the Sunday newspaper, the New York illustrated _Graphic_, the _Round Table_, and other journals were built up by his energy, and owed their most striking and successful features to his suggestiveness. He was particularly unselfish in his estimate of other men and his appreciation of their work. He was as proud of discovering the good qualities of a man on his staff as a miner of finding a nugget, and never wearied of expatiating upon them. Indeed, he did this more than once to his own disadvantage, thus furnishing an instrument to treachery.

I am sure the "boys" of the old _World_ staff, St. Clair McKelway, A.C. Wheeler ("Nym Crinkle"), T.E. Wilson, H.G. Crickmore, Montgomery Schuyler, E.C. Stedman, and others, will look back with a little sigh for the "old times," and for the generous recognition they received from one who was never at a loss for a subject, or for the treatment of a topic, and was always a good comrade and heart and soul sympathizer in their work, its trials and its achievements.

A chief quality with Mr. Croly was faithfulness to the interests he served. This was put to some severe tests; but they could not be called temptations, for disloyalty did not present itself as a possibility to him. His faults were those of a nervous temperament, combined with great intellectual force and a strength of feeling which in some directions and under certain circumstances became prejudice. He could never, in any case, be made to run a machine. He hated the obvious way of saying or doing a thing. He cultivated the "unexpected" almost to a fault, and always gave a touch of originality even to the commonplace. His pessimistic and unhopeful temperament was doubtless due to inherent and hereditary bodily weakness, and to the lack of muscular cultivation in his youth, which might have modified inherent tendencies. His mental lack was form not force; and he had enough original elemental ideas to have supplied a dozen men. In that respect he was superior to every other journalist I have ever known--not excepting Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond and Frederick Hudson.

But the time has gone by for ideas. It is not that they are a drug in the market, but that there is no market for them. To-day is the apotheosis of the commonplace, the iteration of the cries of the street, the gabble of the sidewalk, and the gossip of the tea-table; neither originality nor force is needed for such journalism as this, and they may therefore well rest to the music of the pines.

One of the strongest influences in Mr. Croly's life was his acquaintance with the Positivist movement in England, and his interest in the works of Auguste Comte. Up to this time he had experienced none of the undoubted benefit which accrues to every man and woman from the possession of an ideal standard, and settled convictions which inspire or take the place of religious aspiration. Positivism did all this for Mr. Croly, so far as anything could, and he became one of its most eager and devoted adherents.

Mr. T.B. Wakeman, himself one of the earliest and most able leaders, credits Mr. Croly with being the "father" of the movement in this country, and in fact he was the first to make known that any representative of Positivist ideas existed in America. He invited and paid for the first lecture ever delivered in New York City upon the subject; it was given by Mr. Edgar, an unknown "apostle," in a little hall (De Garmo) on the corner of 14th street and Fifth avenue, on a certain Sunday some twenty or more years ago. The result of the lecture was that a dozen people formed a little society and engaged Mr. Edgar to give them a series of Sunday talks on the practical bearings of the religion of humanity. Mr. Edgar was not in himself an interesting exponent of his ideas, but his message inculcated duty, love to man, a life open and free from concealments, the possession of personal gifts or acquired property as trusts to be used for the good of others, and the recognition of value in all that has been and is.

These ideas became more or less an actuating principle. They brought together a circle of men and women of the best quality, who endeavored to live up to their standard, and by work and daily life, rather than by active propagandism, to crystallize opinions into a vital force. For several years the regular meetings were held at our house, the "festivals" of the year being often given at the residences of other members of the society--Mr. T.B. Wakeman, or Mr. Courtlandt Palmer. There is still an "old guard" left, of as good, brave, and unselfish men and women as ever walked on this earth, and though some differed from. Mr. Croly, and from each other on some points, yet they all knew and acknowledged that he brought to them the beginning of the best inspiration of their lives.

Mr. Croly's latest expressed wish was that all the usual forms should be disregarded in the event of his death, except the simplest service and the presence of flowers. "If any one thinks enough of me," he said, "to bring me flowers, let them; but have no elaborate mourning, and bury me close to the earth, near the pines, and facing the sea." The legend he left for his grave-stone was: "I meant well, tried a little, failed much." But this will not be the verdict of those who came under the influence of his strong and many-sided personality.

Mrs. Croly's Club Life

_By Haryot Holt Dey_

There is a pleasant and not irrational fancy in the mind of the writer that somewhere in space there exists the abiding-place of ideas, and that as fast as earth-dwellers are ready for them they are released. Like a bird the idea takes flight and seeks a home in the brain of some one who is singled out to forward and exploit it for the benefit of humanity. Thenceforward, that person becomes the apostle of the idea. "We are not in the possession of our ideas," says Heine, "but are possessed by them; they master us and force us into the arena where like gladiators we must fight for them." But it is only to the elect that great ideas are assigned, one who either through heredity or by special development is qualified to carry the message. This fanciful reasoning applies admirably to the idea for women's clubs--organizations for women--and in its selection of Jenny June it made no mistake in the character of its agent.

The first woman's club was organized in March, 1868, and was the outcome of feminine protest, because women were barred from the reception and banquet tendered to Charles Dickens by the Press Club of New York City. Among those who applied for tickets on equal grounds with men was Mrs. Croly, then an active, recognized force in journalism, and when the idea of a woman's club took possession of her she had become the most indignant and spirited woman ever locked out of a banquet hall.

Forty years ago it required courage for a woman to step aside from the ranks of conservatism and organize a woman's club; it was regarded as a side issue of "woman's rights," a movement then in grave disrepute. But Mrs. Croly had dared untrodden paths once before when she stepped into the field of journalism, and her experience there had developed self-confidence. She had been writing for women for many years, and through her mission had acquired instinctive knowledge of their needs; and so when the affront was put upon her by her male colleagues of the press she conceived the idea of a club for women. It should be one that would manage its own affairs, represent as far as possible the active interests of women, and create a bond of fellowship between them, which many women as well as men thought at that time would be impossible of accomplishment. Mrs. Croly wrote in her "History of Clubs" thirty years later: "At this period no one of those connected with the undertaking had ever heard of a woman's club, or of any secular organization composed entirely of women for the purpose of bringing all kinds of women together to work out their objects in their own way." And then again: "When the history of the nineteenth century comes to be written women will appear as organizers and leaders of great organized movements among their own sex for the first time in the history of the world."

"The originator specially disavowed any specific object, only asking for a representative woman's organization based on perfectly equal terms in which women might acquire methods, learn how to work together for general objects, not for charity or a propaganda."

"This declaration of principles was the cause of much abusive criticism, as well as failure to obtain aid and sympathy. Had Sorosis started to _do_ any one thing, from building an asylum for aged and indigent 'females' to supplying the natives of Timbuctoo with pocket handkerchiefs, it would have found a public already made. But its attitude was frankly ignorant and inquiring. It laid no claims to wisdom or knowledge that could be of any use to anybody. It simply felt the stirring of an intense desire that women should come together--all together, not from one church, or one neighborhood, or one walk of life, but from all quarters, and take counsel together, find the cause of separations and failures, of ignorance and wrong-doing, and try to discover better ways, more intelligent methods."

Under this banner Sorosis was launched. Alice Cary was its first president. The story of Sorosis from the beginning is a very interesting one; from the view-point of the press its doings and sayings and business affairs generally have always afforded subject-matter for comment and conjecture. Of its early days Mrs. Croly wrote: "The social events of the first year were memorable, for they were the first of their kind, and practically changed the custom of confining public dinner-giving to men. The first was offered as an _amende honorable_ on the part of the New York Press Club, and consisted of a 'breakfast' to which the Press Club invited Sorosis, but did not invite it to speak or do anything but sit still and eat, and be talked and sung to. The second was a 'tea' given by Sorosis to the Press Club at which it reversed the order, furnishing all the speakers and allowing the men no chance, not even to respond to their own toast. The third was a 'dinner,'--the brightest and best of the whole--at which the ladies and gentlemen each paid their own way and shared equally the honors and responsibilities." This is said to be the first public dinner at which men and women ever sat down on equal terms. A report of it in a daily newspaper closed as follows: "The entire affair was one of the most delightful events of the season, and will long be held in pleasantest memory by all who had the honor to participate in it. We believe we violate no secret when we say that the gentlemen were most agreeably surprised to find their rival club composed of charming women, representing the best aristocracy of the metropolis, an aristocracy of sterling good sense, earnest thought, aspiration and progressive intellect, with no perceptible taint of strong-mindedness."

The growth and expansion of Sorosis were watched by Mrs. Croly with the same eager interest with which a mother contemplates the development of a child, not knowing just how its character will shape, guarding it always with love, for a potential force in its directing. It was her spirit that steered it over rough places; that brought harmony out of discord; that inspired, soothed, provided wise counsel, and that many times sacrificed personal feelings for the good of the whole. To do this required mental qualities of a high order--courage, foresight, judgment, and not a little of the martyr spirit. Women had never organized before, and the conditions to be met and the problems to be solved stood absolutely alone, with no precedent to build upon or decide even the simplest question. What firmness was required in the leader at that time, when, for example, women who had been her staunchest allies deserted the ranks because they could not select the club name! It was a firm hand that kept the unorganized body from going to pieces on the rocks of dissension, and it was at that time that the leader proved her inalienable right to her title. She had led women into the field of journalism, and now she was leading them into organization. Clubs began to form in all parts of the country, and when Sorosis arrived at its twenty-first birthday, it was Mrs. Croly's idea that they should all come together, and when the invitation was issued they came. Thus was formed the General Federation of Women's Clubs. At present there are 800,000 women belonging to that federation; each State has its own federation, New York forming first, at Mrs. Croly's suggestion, and now containing 32,000 enrolled members. The General Federation was formed in 1889. The writer recalls the triumph in Mrs. Croly's tone when she replied to the appeal of a man who came to her to beg to be given the names of the women belonging to the federation. "If you choose to send a woman to copy the names," she said, "you may do so, but it will take her more than a week." And the General Federation was less than three years old at the time.

Mrs. Croly organized the Woman's Press Club of New York in 1889. It is due to her wisdom that it was carried through many crises. She was its president from the day it was founded to the day of her death; always its loving teacher, her enthusiasm regarding its development never flagged. She lived to see it firmly established, a harmonious and delightful organization, and she was satisfied.

Mrs. Croly was neither parliamentarian, orator, nor politician, but she had a fund of good sense, wise judgment, and a power of expression which, could clarify an atmosphere when mere knowledge of the "Rules of Order" would have failed. She had spiritual vision, and by it she knew the soul of the club; no amount of dissension could shake her faith in its ultimate good, and in times of crisis she presided with a serenity only accountable in the fact that she viewed from the mountain summit what her associates saw only from the housetop. What years of development she enjoyed long before the club idea possessed her, endowing her with wisdom and mental breadth, and what associations that urged and demanded that she become a student of sociology! The seeds of thought planted in those early days of journalistic experience, inclusive of what she terms the "Positivist Episode," blossomed in her later, more mature years, and all the harvest she brought and applied to the organization of women. To the casual observer an organized body of women differed in no particular form from any ordinary assembly of women. What it was to her one can only realize by a careful perusal of her writings on club formation, and the moral awakening that sounded the bugle note of progress when women began to organize.

Once it came to the hearing of this gentle apostle of development, that she had been said to represent a cult. The occasion was a reception given in her honor by one of her clubs on her seventieth birthday. There had been speeches and congratulations, and the scene was one of general rejoicing. "Oh, she is the leader of a cult," whispered a guest, and the remark was repeated to Mrs. Croly. She received it with a sorry smile of regret that any one should so misinterpret the significance of the scene. As if the narrow and exclusive word "cult" could be applied to an assembly that stood for organization and human development, which, in her prophetic vision, only needed time to unite races, and ultimately to extend around the globe. To her it signified "the opening of the door, the stepping out into the freedom of the outer air, and the sweet sense of fellowship with the whole universe, that comes with liberty and light."

Few women carry their enthusiasm till past three-score-and-ten, as Mrs. Croly did. With the failing of physical strength the wand of power passed into the hands of younger women whom she hailed as her successors, and whose growth and development were the blossoms springing from the seed she herself had planted; and in the last years of her noble life, when the glow of sunset was on the garden of her activities, the love she bore her fellow-women was her unfailing joy and inspiration.

At the time of life when people recognize the fact that their forces are waning, and that a well-earned period of rest has arrived, Mrs. Croly set for herself the last task of her busy life. She felt she had something to tell about the success of her great idea, her message to women, and she wrote the "History of the Woman's Club Movement in America," a volume containing eleven hundred and eighty pages, which told the story of nearly all the clubs in the General Federation. This book will remain a monument to the founder of women's clubs. Into it she put the skill and experience of her long years of editorship, urging every faculty to the work, and applying herself with a degree of industry that characterized the zeal of her best working years. And it testifies to the martyr-like nature of her spirit, that she even rallied from the disappointment consequent upon the financial failure of the book. The dedication of the work reads as follows: "This book has been a labor of love, and it is lovingly dedicated to the Twentieth Century Woman by one who has seen and shared in the struggles of the Woman of the Nineteenth Century." But nothing that is good is lost, and the book testifies to the illimitable ideas, the trust in eternal goodness, and the strength of purpose of one who had a glorified estimate of latent feminine forces that require to be developed.

Essays and Addresses by Jane Cunningham Croly

Beginnings of Organization[1]

Women in Religious Organization

When the history of the Nineteenth Century comes to be written, women will appear for the first time in the history of the world as organizers, and leaders of great organized movements among their own sex.

[Footnote 1: _History of the Woman's Club Movement in America._]

The world of to-day, both for men and women, is a different world from that which furnished the outlook for the men and women of a hundred years ago. Science, invention, have changed its material aspects; and while retiring some individual activities and occupations, they have created new fields of industry that are rapidly changing the face of the world, and making new demands upon strength and energy.

The world which man has conquered, and is still conquering, is no longer the purely physical. He is working now toward the discovery and control of the powers of the air, and has already harnessed some of them to do his bidding. The succession of great events and discoveries will mark this century as an epoch in the world's history, and is responsible for economic changes which create social disturbance, and to which both men and women must adjust themselves, often without knowing the why or wherefore of that which is so different from what has been. It is one of the paradoxes in human nature that women, while being made responsible for human conditions, have been condemned to individual isolation. It has been largely the result of general physical differentiation and the dependence that grew out of it, and, secondarily, the long ages required to produce settled social conditions and a reversal of that great unwritten law of kings and men--that might made right.

It is true that there was a time, some traditions of which are still preserved among the Indian tribes of North America, when the woman possessed controlling influence and power. This matriarchal or mother age passed with the primitive period in which the energies of men were absorbed in hunting and fighting. It was a tribal effort through tribal women to formulate and give importance to family life, and it must have been accepted and more or less sanctioned by the men. This tribal leadership, at first domestic and social, disappeared with the development of military leaders, the acquisition of military powers, and the centralization of property in lands, houses, and personal belongings, that required constant and effective methods of protection and defence.

Instances are not wanting of heroic women of those early days who were capable of holding and defending person and property against aggression and warfare. But the logic of events was strong then, as now, and the destiny of the woman was not that of military supremacy.

The first step in associated life taken by women was a simple protest against the use and abuse of power on the part of men, wrought up by fear or loathing to the point of desperation. Women, usually of rank, fled to the desert with one or two companions, and encountered unheard-of hardships rather than submit to the fate to which they had been condemned by father, brother, or some other man who could exercise authority over them. The first Church-sisterhood grew out of such beginnings, and gradually obtained the sanction of the Church. A recent remarkable work, "Women in Monasticism," shows how wide and powerful the system of religious sisterhoods had become as early as the fifth century, and traces its growing strength and enlargement until its decline, which was coeval with the Reformation.

The strength of this extraordinary development lay in the fact that it furnished women with a vocation; it gave employment to faculty. The sisterhoods of the convents and monasteries were the nurses, the teachers, the students, the caretakers of the poor, and the guardians of the orphaned rich. The Fathers of the Church--St. Jerome, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine--all bear witness to the high character of these sisterhoods and to their individual members, to their virtues and lives of self-sacrificing devotion. Many of these women became learned by the exercise of memory alone, for they had no books. Many enriched their convents with manuscript books--the result of lives of painstaking labor. The Beguines, who founded hospitals and schools, were the best educated women of their day--the eleventh century. They read Tacitus and Virgil in the original, and were skilled in medicine. Disease often took loathsome forms, and only women whose lives were consecrated to self-denying labor could have been the patient ministers to the diseased poor.

This is all the more noteworthy because the idea of vocation was not the early incentive to monastic life. It was sought as a refuge; it developed into a vocation; and it is a matter of interest to women to-day that these spontaneous vocations, growing out of an enforced life, were inspired by love of well-doing, desire for study, the acquisition of knowledge, its distribution, and the ever-ready spirit of helpfulness at the sacrifice of every personal indulgence.

Naturally the monastic life of women was controlled by the Church, and could have continued to exist only by permission. A Spanish lady of rank who had befriended Ignatius Loyola as a young student of Barcelona, attracted by the odor of sanctity and scholarship which attached itself to the Order which he founded, gained reluctant permission to establish (1545) an Order of Jesuitesses, subject to the same strict rules and discipline. This was the beginning of a strictly woman's Jesuit "college," which flourished notwithstanding all the efforts Loyola himself made to get rid of it, and the restrictions put upon it. Many noble ladies joined it, and it became the foundation of a number of houses of the same name and character, extending into Flanders and England, when, without cause, except fear perhaps of their extent and influence, they were finally suppressed by a bull of Pope Urban VIII, bearing date, January 13, 1630. This Order of Jesuitesses existed for nearly a century. Their colleges were scholastic, and had given rise to preparatory schools, when they were summarily suppressed because of their independent life.