The New Social Outlook

The Quaker Social Conscience

The recognition of responsibility for the social condition of the country began, among Friends as elsewhere, as an individual matter. It was a Christian duty for one who had advantages to assist another who was lacking in these ; that such help should be constructive, dealing with the framework of society, was an idea that developed slowly. This was largely owing to the limitations imposed upon Friends, along with other nonconformists, as well as to the very strong bias towards an individualistic outlook from the traditional Quaker training. What seems far more surprising, in looking back on the progress * I2 Swarthmore Lecture of last century, is how very small a part the organised Quaker Church took in guiding the social activities of its members. The warning against ” creaturely activity ” sounded clearer than the encouragement to join in work for the betterment of humanity.

In the first “General Advices,” issued in 1834 to be read in Friends Meetings, laying down in concise form the lines on which a Christian life should be ordered, the only references to a relationship to the world outside the Quaker community are:

Follow peace with all men, desiring the true happiness of all; and be liberal to the poor, endeavouring to promote their temporal, moral and religious well-being.”

Maintain strict integrity in all your transactions in trade and in your other outward concerns, remembering that you will have to account for the mode of acquiring, and the manner of using, your possessions.

Encourage your apprentices and servants of all descriptions to attend public worship, make way for them herein, and exercise a watchful care for their moral and religious improvement.

That is all! When the whole of the social and industrial life of England had just been transformed by the enclosures in the country and the growth of factories in the towns, when the Poor Law was in the melting pot, when elementary education was springing into life, and the people were demanding a share in the government of the country! Three general principles are recognised and pressed home to the individual conscience-liberality to the poor, integrity in trade, and personal care for the religious life of immediate employees. The document shows the Society of Friends still a body of employers-farmers, shopkeepers and small manufacturers-who could live the Christian life apart from the world as isolated units, not responsible, any more than the early Church was responsible, for the organised community in which they were situated.

The revision of the Advices in 1861 adds the sentence: “Guard against a spirit of speculation and the snare of accumulating wealth.” In 1883, and not till then, Friends seem to have realised that some of their body were poor and amongst the wage-earners, and introduced that extraordinarily inept passage, the first sentence of which has since disappeared:

Let the poor of this world remember that it is our Heavenly Father’s will that all His children should be rich in faith. Let your light shine in lives of honest industry and patient love. Do your utmost to maintain yourselves and your families in an honourable independence, and, by prudent care in time of health, to provide for sickness and old age, holding fast by the promise ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’

This paragraph still remained in the edition of 1906, and was not revised until 1911 , when an addition was also made to the Queries which are read month by month in the Meetings of Friends. A thirteenth Query was added, as follows:

Do you, as disciples of the Lord Jesus, take a living interest in the social condition of those around you? What place do you give to personal service for others ? Do you seek to understand the causes of social evils, and to take your right share in the endeavour to remove them ?

Nineteenth Century Philanthropy

The nineteenth century is marked by the growth of organised philanthropy. The Indus trial Revolution cut off class from class and made the old individual means of dealing with poverty, sickness and distress wholly inadequate. For individual charity was substituted the charitable organisation, supported by subscriptions and donations from sympathetic people. One of the first of these Societies dealt with the miseries of the little boys who, like Kingsley’s Tom, climbed chimneys; others founded schools, hospitals, reformatories, orphanages, promoted temperance, morality, health. Their successors to-day are the Welfare Committees dealing with . Maternity and Infant Life, with School Children, with Juvenile Workers or Juvenile Crime, which are springing up all around.

A hundred years ago there was much in the philosophy of the times to stifle any compunction as to the inequalities of society, and to hinder any efforts at radical change. Both the political economy and the religion of the period were fatalistic, and reasoned that ” Whatever is, is best.” Mr. and Mrs. Hammond in The Town Labourer, 1760-1832, discuss the reasons for the acquiescence of the well-to-do in the misery that existed around them. “Laissez-Faire ” economy popularly held that enlightened selfishness and uncontrolled competition would work out in the best interests of the labourer in the long run, that the increase of population was regulated by the food supply, and that the wages fund was fixed by natural causes. The community was regarded as consisting primarily of property owners, and people ” thought that, if society looked after the capitalist, the capitalist would look after the workman, and that if society took care of the interests of property, the deserving poor would become rich.”

The Evangelical Movement taught the same acceptance of existing conditions from the religious point of view. Providence had ordained for each his place and his circumstances, and had provided spiritual comfort and the hope of another and better world. As the Hammonds put it: “Whereas one man looking out on the chaos of the world calls for reform, the other calls for contemplation: one says, who can tolerate such injustice? the other says, who would not rejoice that there is another world? One says, Give these people the conditions of a decent life; the other says, Teach them to read the Bible. The economist besought the reformer not to quarrel with nature; the Christian might warn him not to quarrel with the dispensations of God. For such minds Christianity was not a standard by which to judge the institutions of society, but a reason for accepting them.”

In the Mendip Annals Hannah and Martha More exemplify this spirit, caring devotedly for the souls of the poor people of the parish, and exhorting them to bear privation and scarcity in a Christian spirit. Wilberforce, too, acted consistently on his own principles. His great mission in life was to make men moral as he understood morality. What tortured him was the thought that a man who read Painę and talked like a Jacobin, who grudged the rich their wealth, and the aristocracy their power, might still be at large, spreading the irreligious spirit of discontent…. In questions where this disturbing element did not enter, where the demand was not that working men should be treated as persons with rights and liberties, but that suffering unnecessary from the point of view of discipline should cease, Wilberforce was a humane man.”

One more quotation from Mr. and Mrs. Hammond sums up the attitude of many such good people. It cannot be an exaggeration, for similar teaching has lasted to within quite recent memory, and may still be heard even in the present century.

The religious philanthropy taught two main lessons. The first was the duty of private benevolence. The rich and comfortable ought to visit the poor, to teach them the Bible, to take an interest in their welfare, to give them advice, alms and soup, to found societies like the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor. Many persons carried out these tasks with great devotion, some, like John Howard and Mrs. Fry, with heroism. It was in this way, rather than by seeking to modify the arrangements of society, that the comfort able should discharge their obligations to the unfortunate. That a great deal of misery was alleviated by these ministrations is undoubted. The second lesson was the lesson of subordination and discipline. The rich and the poor were equal in the sight of God, but the effective recognition of equality was to come in another world. In this world the poor were not to presume on that principle ; they were to learn patience and gratitude…. Unfortunately the poor learned gratitude slowly, and hence it was necessary to make sharp laws for keeping them in order. The day would come when all classes would pursue the virtues that respectively became them according to the revelation of the Gospel. For the present the poor must be taught their responsibilities by the Bible. Thus the philanthropy of the rich, like the political economy of the day, helped to reconcile the conscience of the upper classes to a servile standard for the poor. For resignation was the message of religion as it was the message of nature.

Nineteenth Century Quakerism

The outlook of members of the Society of Friends was not widely different from that of other good Christian people. The Evangelical Movement had its effect within the Society. Quakerism however had something which tended to modify the current views, even though the position was not stated definitely. The resemblances and the differences are exemplified in the many activities of William Allen on behalf of the poor and degraded. His sympathy and interest, as well as that of many Friends, was turned to education as a remedy for many evils, Joseph Lancaster, himself admitted into membership in 1801, introduced the method of instruction by means of pupil teachers, and passed on his own enthusiasm to a group of philanthropists who founded the British and Foreign Schools Society. A kindred organisation, The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the principles of the Established Church, was founded at almost the same time by those who believed that simple Bible teaching was insufficient and even dangerous. The objects of this latter Society are set out very clearly in words which correspond closely to the description of the Evangelical outlook given above: “the sole object in view being to communicate to the poor generally, by means of a summary mode of education lately brought into practice, such knowledge and habits as are sufficient to guide them through life, in their proper station, especially to teach the doctrines of religion according to the principles of the Established Church, and to train them to the performance of their religious duties by early discipline.” I can find nothing so limited in outlook regarding the British Schools. The Bible was the only book to be used for all purposes, but there seems to have been some recognition of the claims of the individual. The statement which suggests the narrowest outlook is from William Allen as follows:

Here (in Joseph Lancaster’s school) I beheld a thousand children collected from the street where they were learning nothing but mischief, one bad boy corrupting another, all reduced to the most perfect order, and training to habits of subordination and usefulness, and learning the great truths of the Gospel from the Bible. The feelings of the spectator while contemplating the results which might take place in this country and the world in general by the extension of the system thus brought into practice by this meritorious young man were overpowering and found vent in tears of joy.

Another quotation from William Allen shows how little he looked to economic changes to remove existing and recognised evils.

All these objects (Poor LawReform, etc.), however, are in my mind only secondary to the great cause of the general education of the poor. If the population generally could be rendered virtuous, a large portion of the present misery would disappear. Wise measures must be taken for ameliorating the condition of mankind, and I look upon the universal diffusion of knowledge, the general spread of the Holy Scriptures, and the exertions of wise and good men in different directions, to promote the happiness of their fellow creatures, as the first grand step towards the abolition of war.

Another of the problems that Friends had to face a hundred years ago was that of association in social and philanthropic work with those who were not inspired with the same religious motives. William Allen’s co-operation with Robert Owen in carrying on the mills at New Lanark and in introducing amenities into the lives of the workers, including schools for the children, was troubled by many misgivings on his part, both as to the nature of some of the activities, and as to the possibility of any good work being done by an unbeliever. To the modern reader the story seems needlessly tragic. Here was Robert Owen, inspired by a wonderful spirit of humanity, with ideas far in advance of his time, hampered at every step by the hesitations of an honest and liberal-minded Christian, who could not recognise the tree from its fruit—forgot that the test of discipleship was love of the brethren.

I am indebted to a Friend for the sight of some extracts from the Place MSS. at the British Museum. Francis Place worked with the promoters of the British Schools, and formed an extremely poor opinion of both the capacities and the principles of Friends. His personal outlook probably ill-fitted him to judge the Quaker temperament, but his criticism suggests the limitations of many good Friends.” I cannot say,” he says, “I found more than one man, and that man Wm. Allen, for whom I could entertain any very considerable share of respect. I know that several others have kind feelings to a certain extent ; I know than many of them profess domestic virtues, but I know no one who has knowledge enough of books, of things and of mankind, to form in him an expanded or profound understanding, while by far the greater part of those I saw enough of to decide, as I believe with something approaching to accuracy, were remarkably ill-informed, and possessed of very narrow understandings.” “A considerable share of vulgar charity and some remarkable displays of benevolence have obtained for them a character as a body far above their merits.”

All through the Nineteenth Century, social service in more and more varied forms occupied the sympathies and leisure of Friends. More than many of their contemporaries they had incentives to this outlet for their energies. They were still mainly of the middle class, people who had command of some time and some property. Their training kept them apart from many worldly occupations, and endowed them with business-like aptitudes. Their recognition of equality within their own Community, and their belief in the religious endowment of every human personality, encouraged a wider recognition of the claims of humanity as such.

Two activities stand out pre-eminently as having a claim on Friends, Education and Temperance. Wherever there was any considerable group of Friends, some would be found managing a British School, and some would be actively engaged in Temperance propaganda in some form. Both of these activities, and they are but illustrations, are concerned with the existing social order : the desire of the philanthropist was to help the working people to live more contented and more wholesome lives within the conditions belonging to their class, to teach them thrift, to assist them in sudden and difficult emergencies, to provide interests and occupations for their leisure.

A passage from a pamphlet, Quakerism and Capitalism, by J. T. Walton Newbold, enlarges this idea, and may be quoted in part:

Another concern which took hold of Friends in the early nineteenth century was the cause of Temperance. Nothing is more remarkable than to find Friends the great brewers of the later eighteenth century, and then to witness their change of attitude. It is, at first, so strange a phenomenon, this sudden passion for Temperance which awoke in the capitalist class in the early nineteenth century. It is, indeed, very difficult for a man, with the proletarian view point, to sit and listen dispassionately to some prosperous plutocrat expatiating on the saving grace of Temperance and the sinfulness of Drink. Yet the Temperance Movement was a natural development engendered by reflection on the ghastly conditions of life which prevailed in the manufacturing centres immediately after the Industrial Revolution, when whole populations gathered and bred as a consequence of the urgent demand for ‘hands’ which machine production made. Old social customs and forms dissolved with the change in the methods and organisation of production, towns grew out of villages, and agricultural families left the homes of generations to settle around the new mills, mines and works, where relays of wage workers were used up in the ruthless profit-making process. No provision, no systematised provision, was made for housing, for recreation, even for animal conveniences, such as sanitation. The workers were torn from the soil and herded in mushroom aggregations of brick boxes called ‘homes.’ There was no education provide , and the people, naturally, relieved their worn-out frames and jaded nerves with bestial enjoyment of liquor drunk to excess. Philanthropists saw the phenomenon of drunkenness and saw the evil of drink. Masters saw the effects of alcohol on the steadiness of the worker, on his productive capacity, on his reliability. They saw his wages disappear without rebuilding his strength and renovating his body and his wits.

They saw also their fellow-capitalists fall behind when they neglected the saving grace of thrift, a virtue of pre-eminent importance in that formative period of capitalist industry, when every fraction of ready money counted so much in taking advantage of the momentary opportunities of a competitive struggle. They did not realise, and could not be expected to realise, that the introduction of the more costly machine and the complex of machines which constituted the mills of the new factory system made it impossible for more than a favoured few to attain to independence, to competence or mastery. They still retained the economic theories, the business generalisations, the attitude of mind appropriate to a vanishing condition of tool production, of small undertakings, of personal relationships, and of easy transition from craftsmanship to mastery.

They believed in the law of struggle, of private enterprise, of individual initiative, worth, and the all importance of personal sobriety, integrity and self-help. These were all of them important factors when the tool, the tool system, contributed but a fraction to the process of production, and the individual man contributed much. Great volumes of capital were only beginning to be the determining or, at any rate, the obvious determining factors in the rivalry between man and man, master and master, firm and firm. Temperance Reform is an ideal essentially of the thrifty, painstaking industrialist, and just as essentially attracts and holds the working man who would be, but has no hope of becoming, a master, and of the small shopkeeper and small master who aspire to become capitalists. Temperance Reform has, however, no power to emancipate a propertyless class from economic dependence. It may enable a few to climb out of their class, but it cannot save the class as a whole. It will result in higher wages for some, but if it results in an all round increase in productive capacity it can only enrich the capitalist class, because what determines wages is the cost of subsistence of the workers.

Hardly an echo of all this varied interest was heard in the Friends’ Meetings for Discipline until the present century. A noteworthy exception was the consideration given to the question of “Poverty” in the Yearly Meeting of 1889, on a Minute sent up from Yorkshire. This Minute speaks of consideration given to the question “how far our duty as members of a Christian Church is concerned in relation to the deep poverty and degradation in which large masses of our countrymen exist,” and alludes to “the pauperism so largely prevalent, the insanitary condition of dwellings, the over crowding so constantly prevailing, the frightful extent of infant mortality, and the evils of excessive competition in some branches of industry.” Emphasis is laid on the need for licensing reform and on the value of the service of Friends on Municipal and County Councils and other public bodies. The Minute of the Yearly Meeting, in summing up the discussion, “commends the subject to the thought, prayers and earnest effort of our members everywhere.” The General Epistle of that year mentions, among the matters which had claimed attention, “the wide-spread suffering of the poor and degraded in many of our large centres of population; the miseries resulting from the drinking customs of the day.”

Triennial Reports from the Quarterly Meetings referred occasionally to the work carried on by members individually; Lancashire and Cheshire Quarterly Meeting in 1900 makes an interesting reference to the introduction of the Elberfeld System of Relief in Liverpool; and Westmorland speaks of efforts for the temporal well- being of the poor and neglected. Quaker societies were formed to forward certain ideals, and these organisations were allowed to hold their Annual Meetings at the time of Yearly Meeting, and to report to Yearly Meeting. In 1909, a Committee on Social Questions, set up by the Yearly Meeting itself, reported the result of an enquiry made of the Clerks of Preparative Meetings as to various kinds of social work carried on by the Meetings themselves and by individual Friends in those Meetings. The replies were partial, and full statistics were not obtained, but the report furnishes very interesting reading. It seems that 522 places on Public Bodies were occupied by Friends; over a hundred Meetings had members serving in the cause of public education as managers of schools, members of Education Committees, etc. Temperance work was nearly universal, and the report comments: “It is evident that Friends have this matter much at heart and possess, in these various organisations, an instrument capable of affecting considerable numbers of the population. It may be doubted whether this instrument is as effectively used as it might be, owing probably to lack of study and grasp of the wider aspects of the problem, but this does not mean that excellent work is not being done.”

The Report endeavours, at the end, to sum up the extent and value of the work done. “It tells a story of much quiet, unobtrusive work, well worth doing, and probably generally well done; but it also suggests, although it does not say it in so many words, that there is far less than there might be of what should be termed skilled social service, dependent on study and training. Goodwill rather than expert knowledge is probably the largest factor in that which is being done. There seems to be too little sense that Quakerism has a message of social responsibility. A steady effort should be made to make what used to be called ‘outside’ work also ‘inside’ work.”

Of late years some time has frequently been given in the Yearly Meeting itself to the consideration of aspects of social work. It seems a very late recognition of that side of the spirit of Quakerism. In considering the state of the Society year by year, attention was concentrated on its internal rather than its external manifestations, and warnings were not infrequent against over much activity.

The revision of the Quaker Book of Discipline as it related to Christian Practice, completed in 1911, gave an opportunity of introducing sections dealing with the Stewardship of Wealth, Public Offices and Social Service. It was found that there were no suitable passages among the published documents of the Society, except those of quite recent date, and practically all the paragraphs in these sections are dated 1910 or 1911. A memorandum on the Stewardship of Wealth had been adopted in 1910.

Just at the moment when the philanthropic movement had exhausted itself, when the mind of the Society was coming to realise that Social Service as ordinarily understood, even in its most developed form, was not enough for a religious body, and might be harmful as well as inadequate—just then the Society of Friends first put on its books its convictions on these questions. Instead of stimulating its members to new efforts, to fresh enterprises, it does little more than sum up the experience of the past.

The defect of being behind instead of leading the advance can be more easily recognised when it is not one’s own Church that is in question. Not long ago the Interdenominational Conference of Social Service Unions issued a Programme of Christian Social Reconstruction, dealing with the Right to Life, Employment, Education, Marriage. It is all very good and sound; there is little to object to in its statements, but a reader with the new vision feels at once that there is something wrong. A Church has no place for a minimum, it ought to set out an ideal, it ought to be in advance of the ordinary worker and point his goal. This programme is the culmination of the Philanthropy of the past, it does not open out the new social outlook.

The attitude of the Yearly Meeting of recent years towards Social Questions may be shortly summarised.

Since 1906, when the Yearly Meeting decided to devote at least two Sessions in 1907 to consider “the most effectual way of stimulating a sense of the responsibility of the Society and of its members in regard to Social Problems and Social Service,” the sense of concern has grown and deepened. It was, however, limited in its outlook and more limited in the number of Friends who really held it, and this is still true. A Committee was appointed in 1907 as a result of the consideration given at that time. The next year in their report they say:

We desire to emphasise the importance of drawing the attention of the whole Society to those Social responsibilities and services, which we feel rest upon Friends as the direct outcome and issue of our distinguishing views of truth. The application of the broad principles of Brotherhood and Spiritual Liberty, which these tenets involve, to the social inequality and injustice which surrounds us, seems to us to be our immediate duty.

Each year since then the Yearly Meeting has definitely recognised this side of Quaker activity. In 1910 the Committee in its final report realises “that social service is likely to be increasingly a matter of Government action and therefore of politics, inasmuch as we are living in a time when private liberality and initiative are expanding into public responsibility under a more enlightened public conscience.” In 1911 the Advices were revised and the new Query added, and in the autumn the last edition of the Book of Christian Practice was adopted. In 1911 and 1912 the question of Christianity and Business was considered very seriously. The evils of competition were dwelt on, and the Minute speaks of the need to “remove or remedy the faults of the industrial system.” Following this the need of a “Living Wage” was recognised as “of momentous responsibility to our national life.”

The urgency of a reconsideration of fundamentals as a result of the war led to the setting up of the War and Social Order Committee, and lastly to the holding of the Conference on the Society of Friends and the Social Order in the autumn of 1916. It is the Social Order which is now in question, and the Yearly Meeting has at last recognised a new social outlook which may lead to great enterprises in time to come.

The New Outlook

What then is this new social outlook ? It can be summed up in two words-self-determination and co-operation.

Self-determination—the freedom for each individual to work out his own destiny, to develop to his full manhood.

Co-operation—the voluntary merging of some personal and private liberty into that of the organised group, in order to achieve a wider freedom.

The first term has been used freely during the past year or two with regard to nations. Mr. WoodrowWilson’s four principles which must be applied to territorial boundaries are, mutatis mutandis, applicable to the intricate problem of adjusting personal relationships within the state.

1. Each part of the final settlement must be based on its own essential justice.
2. Peoples and provinces must no longer be handed about like chattels and pawns in a game.
3. Every territorial settlement must be made with a view to the benefit of the population concerned.
4. National aspirations must be accorded the utmost satisfaction short of introducing new elements of discord.

Self-determination—the claim of the individual to a control of his own life, to the right to decide for himself what is good for him-this is the ideal which has been accepted as the only possible one for an educated people. In the past, the philanthropist, “the bourgeois,” has endeavoured, within the restriction of trade and industry and the accepted order, to provide alleviations for the worst ills, distractions for the dullness, opportunities of escape from the dead level, by means of ladders leading to a higher social class. Now it is recognised that the social order which gives to a limited number of people so large a control of the lives of others has itself to be modified so as to allow a much wider self-determination, not only of the hours of leisure, but of the whole life.

This principle is no new one to the Society of Friends; it is but a return, under more complicated conditions, to a belief always held in the seed of God implanted in each man, which must have room to germinate and grow. The claim of Labour to decide its own destiny is one which should appeal to every Friend; and the principle, which has been to some extent at least put into practice within the Society, should be accepted as of general application. Quakerism is not a privilege of a small select group, but a Truth to be promulgated everywhere. The new clothing, the new phraseology, should be a help, not a stumbling block. Such a term as economic-, or wage-slavery expresses forcibly an evil which must be remedied, and which calls for the consideration of all who believe in freedom.

But, it may be objected, this right of individual freedom, of self-determination, is the very thing that is being endangered by the collectivist tendencies of the present day; the true supporter of self-determination is the laissez-faire believer of a century ago. The answer to this is that this principle of unrestricted competition does not work and never did work justly. It was never applied fairly, but always by the property-owning class in their own interests. Conditions were not equal, and could not be made so. The philanthropist had to abandon the theory in part almost before it was accepted, The Factory Acts checked free competition, first in the interests of women and children, and later of adult men as well. At the same time more and more undertakings were assumed by the State collectively, whether nationally or locally. The Friends who have been members of local governing bodies have found that the community could best be served through municipal enterprise. Middle- class philanthropy has gradually given place to collectivism. The public spirit of the individual has found its freest opportunity to serve, not in voluntary societies of propertied people, but within the organisation of the State, where men of various training and endowment may meet and each contribute his share. Socialism demands that this process should be continued until all means of production and exchange are nationally owned; other schemes suggest alternatives in method or limitations of the process. The present problem is the practical one of the extent to which the principle of collectivism is to be carried.

The new spirit which should pervade all social work was described in memorable language in Sir John Robert Healey‘s Ecce Homo: A Survey in the Life and Work of Jesus Christ, more than fifty years ago. He showed philanthropy at its best, and suggested the more far-reaching developments which are only now being inaugurated.

The obligation of philanthropy is for all ages, but if we consider the particular modes of philanthropy which Christ prescribed to His followers we shall find that they were suggested by the special conditions of that age. The same spirit of love which dictated them, working in this age upon the same problems, would find them utterly insufficient…. Prevention is better than cure, and it is now clear to all that a large part of human suffering is preventable by improved social arrangements…. When the sick man has been visited and everything done which skill and assiduity can do to cure him, modern charity will go on to consider the cause of his malady, what noxious influence besetting his life, what contempt of the laws of health in his diet or habits, may have caused it, and then to enquire whether others incur the same dangers and may be warned in time. When the starving man has been relieved, modern charity enquires whether any fault in the social system deprived him of his share of nature’s bounty, any unjust advantage taken by the strong over the weak, any rudeness or want of culture in himself wrecking his virtue and his habits of thrift.

Christ commanded His first followers to heal the sick and give alms, but He commands the Christians of this age, if we may use the expression, to investigate the causes of all physical evil, to master the science of health, to consider the question of education with a view to health, the question of labour with a view to health, the question of trade with a view to health; and while all these investigations are made, with free expense of energy and time and means, to work out the re-arrangement of human life in accordance with the results they give.

The Christian law is the spirit of Christ, that enthusiasm of Humanity which He declared to be the source from which all right action flows. What it dictates, and that alone, is law for the Christian. And if the progress of science and civilisation has put into our hands the means of benefitting our kind more and more comprehensively than the first Christians could hope to do if instead of undoing a little harm and comforting a few unfortunates we have the means of averting countless misfortunes and raising, by the right employment of our knowledge and power of contrivance, the general standard of happiness-we are not to enquire whether the New Testament commands us to use these means, but whether the spirit of Humanity commands it.’

Thus ought the enthusiasm of Humanity to work in these days, and thus, plainly enough, it does work. These investigations are constantly being made, these reforms commenced . But perhaps it is rather among those who are influenced by general philanthropy and generosity, that is, by indirect or secondary Christianity, than among those who profess to draw the enthusiasm directly from its fount, that this spirit reigns. Perhaps those who appear the most devoted Christians are somewhat jealous of what they may consider this worldly machinery.

The individual duty of caring for the poor and afflicted developed into a collective duty in which everyone was concerned, and which could be fulfilled first by group philanthropy and then by civic and State action. At the same time attention was turned more and more away from the exceptional needs of the sick and the indigent to the universal needs of all the members of the community. The philanthropy which was an appendage of property has had to give place, more and more, to forms of service in which all can share. Too much emphasis has been laid on the “stewardship of wealth,” which assumes the continuance of private property, and leaves to a few the privilege, which should belong to the many, of caring for the weak and helpless. In a recent essay by Principal Jacks, On Minding Our Own Business, occurs this criticism of the order that is passing away:—

I believe good citizenship, patriotism and indeed Christianity itself were not well served when doing good to others ‘ became the war-cry of the moralists. Incidentally they caused a new division of classes that, namely, between the people who fancy it their mission to do good, and the others to whom good is done. Without intending it, they set up a small aristocracy, which called itself ‘we,’ and at the same time they created (in imagination) an enormous moral proletariat known as ‘others.’

It is not wholesome for any man to think of himself as one of the ‘we’ who do good to others. He is apt to become a Pharisee without knowing it. Nor is it better for him, but worse, if he think of himself as one of the ‘others’ to whom good is done; he will almost certainly fall into the habit of neglecting his own business especially if it happen to be difficult.

The desire for a larger measure of freedom for each to plan his own life found expression first mainly in the political sphere, and the extension of the franchise gave to one class after another a share in the common government. At last it is recognised that persons and not property are the basis of representation, and that the greatest stake in the country is the liberty of the individual, not the possession of great wealth.

The next stage in progress was to obtain a minimum of security and comfort so as to leave room for some play of choice and some variety of leisure occupation. This is being achieved partly by legislative and municipal activity, and partly by the operation of Trade Unions and other voluntary organisations.

Of late years the demand of the workers has been for something beyond wages and other material advantages. There is the desire to share, not only in the fruits of industry but also in its workings. A man cannot, should not, be content with being a mere hand for the larger number of his waking hours, and becoming a man with mind and emotions and will for the few moments of his leisure. Industry, he feels, is as much his concern as that of the capitalist or the manager; those who supply the manual work have an equal claim to the ownership of the joint undertaking with those who furnish the capital. Even the model factory ceases to be ideal if its ordering is imposed from above, and has not the voluntary co-operation of the many men and women concerned in its working. The claim that a man may do what he will with his own gave place to the responsibility of philanthropy, the idea of the stewardship of wealth, and this again is yielding to the enquiry whether one small section of the community has the right to hold so large a share of property, and in what sense these selected individuals can claim this property as their own.

In politics, in social life, in industry, the ideal to aim at is a community of men and women each with wide opportunity of ordering his own life, but each relinquishing some of his liberty for the common good, and acting with others in larger or smaller groups.

This ideal has yet to be expressed in practical schemes. No form of State control must hamper the freedom of the individual, and there must be room left for very varied grouping. Co-operation and mutual service cannot be secured by any formal system imposed even by the will of the majority. Each member of the community has his talent to make use of, and he must find the method best suited for the purpose. There will remain many stewardships, but among them the two that now seem most prominent should largely disappear-the stewardship of class and the stewardship of wealth. When all have leisure and education, each can contribute his special gifts for the common good. The welfare of the whole people can be achieved, partly through the operation of the State, partly by the municipality, partly by industrial organisations, partly by smaller and less permanent groups; the contrast between public and private will largely disappear, as every citizen recognises that the whole system is built on the free choice of each member.

The Call to the Society of Friends

What is the part that Friends should be taking in this new ordering of Society ? Accepting the need for re-construction, and recognising that this must come from within the body politic, and cannot be imposed from without, they should be co-operating in many ways with those groups of people who are working for a fairer distribution of life’s opportunities. The choice is varied, but the service should be in the direction of doing good with rather than in doing good to any set of people. Fortunately Friends have at last realised that many of their mem bers are wage-earners, that the poor whom they desire to help are not a class entirely outside themselves, and that there are many connecting links with organised labour. The Adult School has been a splendid education for many a Friend, showing him his own defects and his own opportunities; like other schools, it is a place where adventitious differences do not count. Every Friend can find some way of entering into the needs and desires of his neighbours, and working with them for a larger share of self-determination . The large schemes for reconstructing society need the co-operation of many minds before they can issue in practical changes. Both Socialism and Syndicalism must contribute something to the final ordering of society.

Marxian Socialism will never establish itself in its entirety, human nature is far too varied for that, but it must help to shape the future. No one can say as yet at what point liberty is restricted rather than furthered by State and Municipal enterprises; but even with the great changes due to the war the limit is certainly not yet reached. Many Friends are now joining the Socialist bodies and finding a place in the great Labour Movement.

Syndicalism seems to ignore the claims of the consumer, but for the producer it offers an escape from wage- slavery, and gives him a chance of ordering his life as a whole and not merely his scant leisure. Many Friends are considering the relations of employer and employed, and within Trade Unions or in joint Conferences can help to transform industry from a competitive to a co-operative undertaking.

Some Friends have a gift for carrying out separate and partial experiments as object lessons for the larger reconstruction which will follow. A model factory may show how far self-government may be carried even within the capitalist system; a new town on co-operative lines may be the precursor of a transformation scene from which a score of new cities may arise. The originators of the New Town experiment speak of “such an experiment in land tenure and mutual aid in agriculture, manufacture and distribution as will give freer scope for the development of a fuller and more harmonious civic, economic and personal life.”

Some notes by a group of Quaker employers, setting out the lines on which adaptation of present methods is possible, say that “pioneers and explorers and the makers of roads are needed just as urgently in the industrial sphere as in the opening up of new tracts of fertile country.” There is opportunity for the full use of every talent. For myself, if I desire rather that Friends should merge themselves, one here one there, in the larger efforts of labour, than that they should undertake separate experiments, it is because I believe that the time has gone by when capitalist ventures were in the direct line of progress, and that the world is ready for revolutionary changes.

Very often when these questions have been discussed by Friends, the challenge has been given our fathers did thus and thus, why should we depart from the old lines ? The answer is our fathers were pioneers, sharing the outlook of their time, and yet impelled to move forward, devoting themselves to new forms of service as they were prompted by the Spirit within them. We can only share their labours by building on their foundations, by exploring beyond their furthest posts, by taking advantage of new machinery. Our fathers have made possible the new developments which are coming and which we must have a part in.

The new outlook has made obsolete the old lines of separation between philanthropy and politics, between religious and secular. Politics cannot be relegated to some outer place, but must be recognised as one side of life, which is as much the concern of religious people and of a religious body as any other part of life. Nay, more than this, the ordering of the life of man in a community, so that he may have the chance of a full development, is and always has been one of the main concerns of Quakerism. It may not be the duty of the Church to consider the details of the working out of principles, nor to pass judgment on particular schemes, but it must see that the principles are understood and accepted.

It is no longer possible for Friends to work as a group apart, and to disregard the efforts of other organisations. The same spirit is operating for the same ends in very varied classes of people. In some there is little consciousness of the source of inspiration; but the fruit is witness of the character of the tree. The claim that Friends should do their own work alone is contrary to the new understanding. It is a splendid thing that Quakers and Socialists are in prison for the same offence, for witnessing to the same spirit of love and brotherhood. The fact that Friends, in approaching the consideration of the Social Order, do so with a recognition of the source of the Light which points out their path, must make it easier for them to co-operate with a similar attempt to follow the Light in others. Fellowship and brotherhood are ideals which spring from the leading of Christ wherever they are manifested. The disciples once came to Jesus saying-We saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and we forbade him, because he followed not with us; and Jesus said, Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us.

As individual Friends recognise the call to them to share in the new venture, the Society as a whole will take up the concern and put into language the spirit which animates the different enterprises. The Church should be holding up an ideal and calling on its members to devote themselves to its pursuit. Instead of merely recording the point reached, it should be directing to a goal far ahead.

A living Church might remind its members from time to time that God’s Kingdom is to be established here and not only in another world; that the existing order is not His ordering, and that the only sense in which it can be said to be in accordance with His will is that He has given to man the right to choose good or evil, and it is His will that that right should be exercised; that none of the features of our social system are necessarily unchangeable, and that they are to be tested by the unchangeable principles of justice, mercy, brotherly love. The Church may well consider and test both existing conditions and schemes for amelioration in the light of those principles; such questions as private property, the wage system, criminal law, industrial self government, maternity, are illustrations of the kind of problem that can be illuminated in the light of the Christian idea of human personality. And in upholding or condemning any plan of reform there should be no question of the dogmas held by its promoters, but only of whether the reform will conduce to a wider liberty and a fuller development of personality, and whether it is being advocated in such a way as to lead to the results aimed at.

Has not the time come for issuing a new set of General Advices, which should not only encourage Friends as isolated individuals to live consistent lives, but should also remind them of their duty as members of a community to work as well as to pray that the Father’s will may be done on earth as it is done in Heaven?

Instead of “Guard watchfully against the introduction into your households of books of a harmful tendency,” the advice might run “Take pains to secure for all the young people in your town or neighbourhood the provision of clean and wholesome literature, opportunities for cheerful recreation and companionship, access to gardens and galleries, where they may became acquainted with the beauties of nature and of art.”

When the Society of Friends as a body recognises its responsibilities, the ways in which it can exercise them will open out in right ordering.

The Yearly Meeting has already considered the principles of the new Social Order, at a Conference held in the autumn of 1916, and has sent down for the consideration of its subordinate Meetings the report of that Conference. The main ideas in the report are that man has the right to determine his own life, and that the State should be organised on a principle of service rather than of competition. This Yearly Meeting has the opportunity of adopting some statement based on the Message of the Conference, and issuing it as a stimulus and encouragement to Friends to take up the great work of reconstruction.

Suppose the Society of Friends were to have a vision of a new heaven and a new earth, and were to impart some glimpse of it to members far and wide, what might they not accomplish! The Hebrew prophets were not afraid of speaking to the condition of their times; we need a modern prophet to point to the evils in which we acquiesce, and call upon us all to share in bringing in a new order.

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? (Isaiah 58:6-7)

How shall the Church put into fitting words the application for the twentieth century of the commandment: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”?

It is not for me to attempt this; all I can suggest is that the recognition of the relationship of the individual to the world around him, and his responsibility thereto, are not subsidiary matters to be brought in for consideration from time to time, but are fundamental. The Society of Friends has shut itself up in an inner world of its own; it is high time it unfolded itself and opened its eyes on the real world.

The New Outlook on Education

Of all the directions in which reform is urgently needed at the present time, none demands the thought and labour of Friends more emphatically than Education, and to this field Friends have always had a special drawing. From the time of George Fox, and more particularly from the inauguration of the modern development of schools by Joseph Lancaster, Friends have brought their talents into this service. In addition to those who are school managers and members of Education Committees, there are at the present time at least two hundred Friends and Attenders teaching in Public Elementary Schools and one hundred and fifty in Secondary Schools. If all this great body of Friends could view their work in conformity with the new outlook what great things might be hoped for! For every child we desire the opportunity of full development of personality in a fitting social environment.

A century ago those who started the Lancasterian schools had, as we have seen, a definite though limited ideal in view. Today it often seems as though the educationist had no distinct ideal. Mr. Arthur Clutton-Brock, in The Ultimate Belief, says that the difference between Germany and England in this matter is that while Germany has a bad philosophy, England has none, “and the consequence is that many of us acquire a false philosophy without knowing it. If the great evil in Germany is the conscious worship of Germany, the great evil in England is the unconscious worship of money, and against that our boys and girls have no philosophical protection whatever.” He goes on to point out that there are but three ultimate good things-truth, beauty, goodness; and that these must be sought for their own sakes.

What is the ideal to aim at in education? Some put militarism forward, and wish to produce better fighting men; they train the bodies of the children, and they inculcate obedience, order and mechanical uniformity. Some think in terms of industrialism, and want to train better workers; they discriminate between class and class, and, whilst looking for accuracy and information from all, they expect initiative and power to direct from a selected few. Others look upon the children as the citizens of the future, and wish to mould them definitely to this end, neglecting some of the more individual possibilities of development. Larger than all these ideals is that expressed in self determination and co-operation ; the business of the educator is to provide a suitable social environment, and see that the individual has room for free and healthy growth.

How this is to be attained is still a matter for experiment and thought, but the ideal at least can be upheld—that the child must be considered for his own sake and not for any purpose he may serve for others. Friends have inherited special qualifications for this work; they believe in the worth of the individual, and they understand something also of mutual dependence; they realise that right conduct must spring from the right spirit and cannot be imposed by an external discipline.

Mr. Bertrand Russell, in Principles of Social Reconstruction, has some illuminating passages as to the aim of education, of which one or two paragraphs may be quoted.

Certain mental habits are commonly instilled by those who are engaged in educating: obedience and discipline, ruthlessness in the struggle for worldly success, contempt towards opposing groups, and an unquestioning credulity, a passive acceptance of the teacher’s wisdom. All these habits are against life. Instead of obedience and discipline we ought to aim at preserving independence and impulse. Instead of ruthlessness, education should try to develop justice in thought. Instead of contempt, it ought to instill reverence, and the attempt at understanding; towards the opinion of others it ought to produce, not necessarily acquiescence, but only such opposition as is combined with imaginative apprehension and a clear realisation of the grounds for opposition. Instead of credulity, the object should be to stimulate constructive doubt, the love of mental adventure, the sense of worlds to conquer by enterprise and boldness in thought.

If thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds men back-fear lest their cherished beliefs should prove delusions, fear lest the institutions by which they live should prove harmful, fear lest they themselves should prove less worthy of respect than they have supposed themselves to be. Should the working man think freely about property? Then what will become of us, the rich? Should young men and young women think freely about sex? Then what will become of morality? Should soldiers think freely about war? Then what will become of military discipline? Away with thought! Back into the shades of prejudice, lest property, morals and war should be endangered! Better men should be stupid, slothful and oppressive than that their thoughts should be free. For if their thoughts were free they might not think as we do. And at all costs this disaster must be averted.’

No institution inspired by fear can further life. Hope, not fear, is the creative principle in human affairs…. It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves a great result…. Education should not aim at a passive awareness of dead facts, but at an activity directed towards the world that our efforts are to create. It should be inspired, not by a regretful hankering after the extinct beauties of Greece and the Renaissance, but by a shining vision of the society that is to be, of the triumphs that thought will achieve in the time to come, and of the ever-widening horizon of man’s survey over the universe. Those who are taught in this spirit will be filled with life and hope and joy, able to bear their part in bringing to mankind a future less sombre than the past with faith in the glory that human effort can create.”

A few practical suggestions can be given here as to the direction of reform.

In the schools class distinction must be obliterated; money and social position must confer no special privileges. The people have the right to give to their own children the best opportunities that are available, and no one can claim more. Schools have been, and are still, far too exclusively bookish, and as a result even the books do not convey culture. Much more variety of occupation is needed, much more free choice. John & Evelyn Dewey , in Schools of Tomorrow , describes what is being done in America in the way of experiment on newlines.

The problem of educational readjustment thus has to steer between the extremes of an inherited bookish education and a narrow so-called practical education It is comparatively easy to clamour for a retention of traditional materials and methods on the ground that they alone are liberal and cultural. It is comparatively easy to urge the addition of narrow vocational training for those who, so it is assumed, are to be the drawers of water and the hewers of wood in the existing economic régime, leaving intact the present bookish type of education for those fortunate enough not to have to engage in manual labour in the home, shop or farm.

There must not be one system for the children of parents who have more leisure and another for the children of those who are wage-earners. The physical separation forced by such a scheme, while unfavourable to the development of a proper mutual sympathy, is the least of its evils . Worse is the fact that the over-bookish education for some and the over-‘practical’ education for others brings about a division of mental and moral habits, ideals and outlook. The academic education turns out future citizens with no sympathy for work done with the hands, and with absolutely no training for understanding the most serious of present day social and political difficulties. The trade training will turn out future workers who may have greater immediate skill than they would have had without their training, but who have no enlargement of mind, no insight into the scientific and social significance of the work they do, no education which assists them in finding their way on, or in making their own adjustments. A division of the public school system into one part which pursues traditional methods, with incidental improvements, and another which deals with those who are to go into manual labour, means a plan of social predestination totally foreign to the spirit of a democracy.

The democracy which proclaims equality of opportunity as its ideal requires an education in which learning and social application, ideas and practice, work and recognition of the meaning of what is done, are united from the beginning and for all.

The ideal school must foster initiative and freedom; right behaviour which is merely imposed from without may be a hindrance to moral and intellectual development. The power to choose implies the wrong choice with its inevitable consequences.

There must be room for active doing as well as passive receiving; handicraft should not be a mere excrescence on the ordinary school routine; there should be an experimental and constructive side to every branch of school work.

Some at least of the products of school activity should be real things, not mere models or imitations. The wood-work specimens, the diminutive dishes turned out from cookery lessons, the needlework samplers are all part of the old collective drill where each has to conform to one set pattern. The class-room should encourage co-operation as well as merely individual effort . It is not necessary to leave to the playing-field, the power to foster mutual aid and voluntary adjustment to a larger whole. In any collective enterprise some contribute more and some less; there is even the possibility that some may be content to be mere onlookers. Is this an evil? Which gives the better result, to leave a boy free to look on and see good work done, or to oblige him unwillingly to do something second-rate by himself? There is as yet no certain answer to such questions as these, and further experiment is called for.

Lastly, among the things to be desired for the ideal school is a closer association with the outside world. There is too high a wall imposed between the life of the school and the life of the streets. The boys and girls are growing up to become the men and women of their own particular town, not of a city in the clouds, and the power of adjustment, the spirit of co-operation, needs to be applied to the special circumstances.

It may be that in this matter of education, as in others, there is room for private experiment, and that Friends can serve the community by making the schools for their own children models which may be reproduced on a wider field . They have no right to do less than this whilst they preserve exclusive denominational schools; the principles of the new order should be exemplified. This, however, is not enough, when the whole system of Elementary and other State Education is being shaken, and the chance of re-construction which is here now may have gone tomorrow. A little group of people who are not satisfied with anything but the best, and who care most for those who have the least advantages, can effect great changes.

The need is visible enough everywhere. The world has acquiesced in second best—in third or fourth-rate education; it has accepted the easy path and promoted the convenient virtues. The teachers are trained to fit in with the scheme. A writer on the need for re construction of the Training College has recently used these words:

The task of the teacher is the splendid adventure of remoulding the world to the heart’s desire, yet he is trained as if his function were to be as acquiescent as a churchwarden. Seclusion from the streams of national life, lack of vivacious intensity, constraint of anæmic convention, repression of initiative, adjustment to immediate proprieties, these are the traits of existence within their airless halls, for which the winds of heaven are judged as visiting too roughly.

…If our educational system is to make our people wide-minded, daring, ready of vision, eager of all the aspects of truth, our teachers must be trained in conditions that favour the growth of such qualities.

How soon the Social Order would reconstruct itself if the rising generation brought to the task minds and spirits grown to full stature, alive and eager and yet prepared to subordinate personal and private claims to the common good! What better task can fall to the lot of any Christian body than to help in bringing this about!

Lucy Fryer (whose married name later was Morland) was an English Friend. Below is an article about a trip she took to visit Friends in Australia and New Zealand:

“Miss Lucy Morland: An Interesting Visitor”
Rockhampton, Queensland. June 28. 1934.

A pleasant lack of formality characterised a meeting which was more in the nature of a friendly talk than an interview, with Miss Lucy Fryer Morland, at the Criterion Hotel yesterday. Miss Morland is an Englishwoman and a prominent member of the Society of Friends and is spending a few davs

The members who have embraced the Quaker faith are not numerically strong. In Australia, but there are groups in every State and each group is being visited by Miss Morland with a view to giving encouragement to and meeting members and adherents. She commenced her visitations nine months ago in Western Australia and journeyed through Tasmania, Victoria, and New South Wales before coming to Queensland. On each occasion she contrives, it possible, to travel by a different method and route, by ocean liner, by train, and on one occasion by aeroplane, when she enjoyed the experience, but ‘did not feel thrilled.’ she said. The trip up the Queensland coast was made on a boat carrying passengers on an island cruise and Cairns, Townsville, and Charters Towers were visited on the return journey.

Miss Morland has not had the opportunity of secin&r many of the beauty spots in the Rockhampton district, with the exception of a delightful drive and a most enjoyable outing to Emu Park last week-end. ‘English people would not drive their cars on such a road as that leading from Rockhampton to Emu Park,’ she said. Neither does she like the Queensland trains, which lack the convenience and comfort of those in other places. Incidents of her previous visits were recalled and she expressed regret that two leading members of the Society of Friends (Mrs. Frances Hopkins and Mr. Goes) had passed away since she was last in Rockhampton.

Miss Morland is a vigorous personality and is keenly interested in gaining knowledge of the different countries she visits. Yesterday afternoon she addressed a gathering of women members of the local Society and wives of ministers and representative members of the churches at the YWCA. Club rooms, and on Sunday next meetings will be held at the Friends’ meeting house on Kent Street.

Next Tuesday she will leave for Brisbane, where she will spend some time before going to Towoomba. On her homeward trip to England she hopes to visit Los Angeles and other centres in America.