The protestant personality and higher education: American philanthropy beyond the "progressive era"

International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society

Volumn 12, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 135-163

  Hewa, Soma ^a,b  

^a Rockefeller University ^*  (Canada)

^b ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34247421422     PISSN: 08914486     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1025910805108     Document Type: Review

References (127)

1. Andrew Carnegie, "Wealth," North American Review, June, 1889, pp. 653-61. Carnegie's essay received wide attention in North America and Europe. It was reprinted in Britain in the Pall Mall Gazette under the title "The Gospel of Wealth."
2. John D. Rockefeller, Random Reminiscences of Man and Events (New York, Sleepy Hollow Press and Rockefeller Archive Center), ([1908] 1984), pp. 92-3. Rockefeller praised Carnegie's benevolent activity: "I rejoice, as everybody must, in Mr. Carnegie's enthusiasm for using his wealth for the benefit of his less fortunate fellows,..."
3. John D. Rockefeller, Random Reminiscences of Man and Events Ibid., p.107.
4. Benjamin Franklin wrote numerous short essays and letters to his brother James's newspaper under the pseudonym "Silence Dogood." In these letters he used various characters, such as Bridget Saunders, Poor Richard, and Polly Baker, to express certain social commentaries that are loaded with Puritan moral advice. It is in these social commentaries that Max Weber found the "spirit of capitalism." In an essay titled, "The Way to Wealth" (1757), Franklin writes: "You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a little lunch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember what Poor Richard says, Many a Little makes a Mickle; and farther, Beware of little Expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship." Again in the same essay, he writes, "Wants of mankind thus become more numerous the natural; and as Poor Dick says, for one poor person, there are an hundred indigent. By these and other extravagances, the genteel are reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but who through industry and frugality have maintained their standing." Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography and Other Writings (New York, Penguin Classics), 1986 pp. 221-2.
5. Quoted by Robert Bremner, American Philanthropy (Chicago, The University Press of Chicago), 1988, p. 14.
6. Robert Bremner, American Philanthropy (1988, p. Ibid., p. 14.
7. Robert Bremner, American Philanthropy (1988, p. Ibid., p. 18.
8. Both volumes are by two historians, John Ensor Harr and Peter J. Johnson, and have been published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. The definition of the "Progressive Era" quoted here is from Steven Wheatley's introduction (pp. vii-xix) to the new edition of Raymond B. Fosdick s The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation (New York, Transaction Publishers), 1989, p. ix.
9. Wheatley, The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation op. cit., (1989),
10. Introduction, p. xi.
11. One author suggests that much of the political debates during the "Progressive Era" was about philanthropists themselves: "In 1909, with the progressive movement at flood tide, John D. Rockefeller, himself the object of so much reformist wrath, announced the creation of a comparatively modest and short-lived organization to confront a disease few people had heard of." John Ettling, The Germ of Laziness: Rockefeller Philanthropy and Public Health in the South (Cambridge, Harvard University Press), 1981, p. VII, Preface.
12. James H. Cassedy, "The Germ of Laziness" in the South, 1900-1915: Charles Wardel Stiles and the Progressive Paradox," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 1971, Vol. 45, pp. 159-69;
13. Steven C. Wheatley, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 45, pp. 159-69; op. cit., (1989), Introduction;
14. John Ensor Harr and Peter J. Johnson, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 45, pp. op. cit., (1988), pp. 57-61;
15. Robert E. Kohler, "A Policy for the Advancement of Science: The Rockefeller Foundation, 1924-29," Minerva, 1978, Vol. XVI, pp. 480-515.
16. Arthur J. Vidich and Stanford M. Lyman, American Sociology: Worldly Rejection of Religion and Their Directions (New Haven, Yale University Press), 1985, xi.
17. Peter Dobkin Hall, The Organization of American Culture, 1700-1900: Private Institutions, Elites, and the Origins of American Nationality (New York, New York University Press), 1982.
18. Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, Volume Two of a Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (Berkeley, University of California Press), 1987, p. 8.
19. Heinrich Rickert, Science and History, Critique of Positivist Epistemology, Translated by George Reisman (Princeton, D. Van Nostrand Company), ([1926] 1962), pp. 18-19.
20. Reinhard Bendix, "Max Weber's Interpretation of Conduct and History," American Journal of Sociology, 1946, Vol. 51, pp. 518-26.
21. Robert Kohler, "Science and Philanthropy: Wickliffe Rose and the International Education Board, Minerva, 1985, Vol. XXIII, pp. 75-95.
22. Robert Kohler, "Minerva, 1985, Vol. XXIII, pp. Ibid., p. 75.
23. Rockefeller Archive Center (RA, hereafter) Frederick T. Gates, Memorandum Regarding Mr Rockefeller's Gift to be devoted to the improvement of Medical Education in the United States, RG. 2 (OMR), GEB, Box 16.
24. Cassedy, Memorandum Regarding Mr Rockefeller's Gift to be devoted to the improvement of Medical Education in the United States, op. cit., p. 163.
25. Vidich and Lyman, Memorandum Regarding Mr Rockefeller's Gift to be devoted to the improvement of Medical Education in the United States, op. cit., p. xi, and p. 2.
26. Hughes H. Stuart, Consciousness and Society (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul), 1958, p. 183.
27. Max Weber, Roscher and Knies: The Logical Problems of Historical Economics, Translated by Guy Oakes (New York, Free Press), ([1906], 1975), pp. 120-2.
28. Max Weber, Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Wissenschaftslehre, Hrsg. V. Johannes Winckelmann (Tubingen, J. C. B. Mohr), ([1922] 1951), pp. 64-6.
29. Martin Albrow, Max Weber's Construction of Social Theory (London, MacMillan), 1990, pp. 30-1.
30. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Translated by Talcott Parsons (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons), ([1920] 1958). In large measure, Weber's complex methodological statements appeared as a part of the discussion in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Part of the reason was that while working on this essay, he was also engaged in his methodological interpretations of history. Hence, Talcott Parsons, the translator, suggests that "In order to thoroughly understand the significance of this essay in its wider bearings on Weber's sociological work as a whole it is necessary to know what his methodological aims were." p. 192. Translator's Note.
31. Marianne Weber, Max Weber, A Biography, Translated by Harry Zohn (New Brunswick, Transaction Books), ([1926] 1988), p. 335;
32. Arthur Mitzman, The Iron Cage, An Historical Interpretation of Weber (New York, Alfred A. Knopf), 1969;
33. Lawrence A. Scaff, Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber (Berkeley, University of California Press), 1989;
34. Albrow, Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber (1989; op. cit., p. 69.
35. Weber, Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber (op. cit., ([1926] 1988), p. 318.
36. Weber, Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber (op. cit., ([1920] 1958), p. 80.
37. Weber, Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber (1920] Ibid., p. 104.
38. Weber, Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber (1920] Ibid., p. 224.
39. Weber, Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber (1920] Ibid., p. 108.
40. Weber, Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in the Thought of Max Weber (1920] Ibid., p. 109.
41. John S. Flynn, The Influence of Puritanism on the Political and Religious Thought of the English (New York, Kennikat Press), 1920, p. 130.
42. Also Weber, The Influence of Puritanism on the Political and Religious Thought of the English (op. cit., ([1920) 1958), pp. 155-6.
43. Richard Baxter, Christian Directory (London), 1825, Vol. I, p. 253;
44. Weber, Christian Directory (I, p. op. cit, ([1920) 1958), p. 224, note 30). Although fundamental theological differences among various Protestant sects emerged as early as the seventeenth century, there was a "core of common values accepted by all." Many of these sectarian differences were largely confined to "matters of church ceremonies" and "esoteric theology." They had very little, if any, impact on religious ethos. Anglicans, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, Quakers and Millenarians, all subscribed to a more or less similar religious and ethical system of beliefs. "This common attitude of mind and mode of life," Merton writes, "may be denominated by that word of many shades, Puritanism.
45. See, Robert K. Merton, Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England (New York, Harper Torchbooks), 1970, p. 57. However, according to Merton, the current usage of the term Puritanism does not convey by any means the original sense of "the term as referring to the reform of the Church of England." Although the "ideal type" of Puritanism was for the most part determined by Calvinism, any of the actual theological differences among different sects were brought to convergence with fundamental social ethic. The only Protestant group - the Lutherans - that differed from the Puritan ethos was due to its emphasis on faith, which alone is sufficient to conquer this world. Weber makes a similar statement: "When we use the expression [Puritan] it is always in the sense which it took on in the popular speech of the seventeenth century, to mean the ascetically inclined religious movements in Holland and England without distinction of Church organization or dogma, thus including independents, Congregationalists, Baptists, Mennonites, and Quakers."
46. See Weber, Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England (op. cit., ([1920] 1958), pp. 96, 217.
47. Weber provides an interesting example to highlight the extent to which charitable works were used to display both the glory of God and to repudiate all human feelings: "[T]o mention a remnant of that atmosphere, in the field of charity of the Reformed Church, which in certain respect is justly famous, the Amsterdam orphans, with (in the twentieth century!) their coats and trousers divided vertically into a black and a red, or a red and a green half, a sort of fool's costume, and brought in parade formation to church, formed, for the feelings of the past, a highly uplifting spectacle." Weber, Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England (op. cit., ([1920] 1958), p. 226, note 34.
48. Baxter, Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England (op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 196-7.
49. Baxter, Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England (Ibid., pp. 122-4.
50. Baxter, Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England (Ibid., p. 580.
51. Weber, Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England (op. cit., ([1920) 1958), p. 119.
52. The extent to which the Protestant beliefs have contributed to the development of rational capitalism was examined by Weber. However, he suggested that the development of capitalism was only one aspect of this complex and multifaceted process that resulted from the Reformation in modern Western society. Weber concludes his work with the following remarks: "The next task would be to show the significance of ascetic rationalism ... for the content of practical social ethics, thus for the types of organization and the functions of social groups from the conventicle to the state. Then its relations to humanistic rationalism, its ideals of life and cultural influence; further to the development of philosophical and scientific empiricism, to technical development and to spiritual ideals would have to be analyzed." With these remarks, Weber invites us to examine what he called the "elective affinities" between the ascetic rationalism of Protestantism and a host of social organizations in modern society. His invitation is a broad theoretical mandate for social scientists from a wide range of specialties interested in various aspects of modern culture. His open-ended theoretical propositions are amenable to further interpretations in the context of continuing developments in Western culture and society.
53. Ibid., p. 183.
54. In accordance with his Kantian position, Weber does not define "spirit of capitalism" in precise terms. Instead, he conceptualizes it by applying numerous synonyms to it throughout the essay. The most frequently adopted expressions are "rationality," "the devotion to labor in a calling," "worldly asceticism," and a "type of attitudes which sees and judges the world consciously in terms of the worldly interests of the individual ego." All these terms were applied by Weber with a particular emphasis that "the orientation toward a methodical and systematic conduct in worldly activity."
55. Ibid., pp. 47-78.
56. Weber's only source of conceptualizing the "spirit of capitalism" was Franklin's essay entitle, Advice to a Young Tradesman (written 1748, Sparks edition, II, pp. 87ff).
57. Weber, Advice to a Young Tradesman (op. cit., ([1920] 1958), p. 48;
58. also see note 2 in p. 192.
59. Ibid., pp. 75-6.
60. Ibid., pp. 52-3.
61. Weber discussed in detail the question of public suspicion of the Puritan virtues, as they have become predominantly utilitarian even at the time of Franklin. Although Franklin himself attributed the origin of these utilitarian economic virtues to Calvinist teachings, these public criticisms persisted throughout modern time, as reflected in the "tainted money" controversy that embroiled Rockefeller in the early twentieth century. See RA, Gates Collection, Gates Letter to Rockefeller, Box 1, Folder 5. Reprinted from the Boston Herald of Monday Morning, April 17, 1905.
62. Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (New York, The Liberal Arts Press), 1949, pp. 57-8.
63. Roger Scruton, Kant (New York, Oxford), 1982, p. 65.
64. Undoubtedly, it was this sense of burden that was described by Andrew Carnegie when he suggested that "The man who dies rich dies disgraced. ... The day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free for him to administer during life, will pass away unwept, unhonored and unsung." Carnegie, op. cit., (1889), p. 664. Gates made similar remarks when he wrote Rockefeller in 1905 urging him to create a series of philanthropic foundations endowed with large sums of money. See, RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller, June 30, 1905. Box 2, Folder 48.
65. Weber, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller, op. cit., ([1920] 1958), pp. 175-6.
66. Max Weber, Sociology of Religion. Translated by Ephraim Fischoff (Boston, Beacon Press), ([1922] 1963), pp. 220-1.
67. RA, Gates Collection, The Secret of Mr. Rockefeller's Character and Success. Box 2, Folder 47. pp. 1-2.
68. John T. Flynn, God's Gold, The Story of Rockefeller and His Times (Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York), 1932, p. 47.
69. Allan Nevins, John D. Rockefeller, The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons), 1940, p. 19.
70. Rockefeller, The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (op. cit., p. 42.
71. Flynn, The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (op. cit., p. 42.
72. Weber, The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (op. cit., ([1920] 1958), p. 48.
73. Flynn, The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (op. cit., p. 42.
74. RA, Gates Collection, The Secret of Mr. Rockefeller's Character and Success. Box 2, Folder 47. p. 15.
75. Weber, The Secret of Mr. Rockefeller's Character and Success. op. cit., ([1920] 1958), p. 49.
76. Rockefeller, The Secret of Mr. Rockefeller's Character and Success. op. cit., p. 40.
77. Flynn, The Secret of Mr. Rockefeller's Character and Success. op. cit., p. 65.
78. Kenneth W. Rose, "Why Chicago and Not Cleveland? The Religious Imperative Behind John D. Rockefeller's Early Philanthropy, 1855-1900," Unpublished Paper, 1995, p. 2.
79. Quoted in Rose, Kenneth W. Rose, "Why Chicago and Not Cleveland? The Religious Imperative Behind John D. Rockefeller's Early Philanthropy, 1855-1900," op. cit., p. 3.
80. Kenneth W. Rose, "Why Chicago and Not Cleveland? The Religious Imperative Behind John D. Rockefeller's Early Philanthropy, 1855-1900," Ibid., pp. 5-7.
81. Gates, Why Chicago and Not Cleveland? The Religious Imperative Behind John D. Rockefeller's Early Philanthropy, 1855-1900," op. cit., p. 91.
82. Rockefeller, Why Chicago and Not Cleveland? The Religious Imperative Behind John D. Rockefeller's Early Philanthropy, 1855-1900," op. cit., p. 104.
83. Merton, Why Chicago and Not Cleveland? The Religious Imperative Behind John D. Rockefeller's Early Philanthropy, 1855-1900," op. cit., pp. 55-80.
84. Baxter, Why Chicago and Not Cleveland? The Religious Imperative Behind John D. Rockefeller's Early Philanthropy, 1855-1900," op. cit., Vol. I, p. 86.
85. Merton, Why Chicago and Not Cleveland? The Religious Imperative Behind John D. Rockefeller's Early Philanthropy, 1855-1900," op. cit., p. 69.
86. Baxter, Why Chicago and Not Cleveland? The Religious Imperative Behind John D. Rockefeller's Early Philanthropy, 1855-1900," op. cit., Vol. I, p. 375.
87. Steven C. Wheatley, The Politics of Philanthropy (Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press), 1988, p. 4.
88. Soma Hewa, "Toward the Well-Being of Mankind: Rockefeller Philanthropy and the Problem of Economic Research," International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 1998, Vol. 18, No. 11/12, pp. 85-129.
89. RA, Educational Interests, University of Chicago, Letter from H. L. Morehouse to John D. Rockefeller, Aug. 1st, 1888. Box 100.
90. RA, Educational Interests, University of Chicago, Letter from H. L. Morehouse to John D. Rockefeller, Aug. 9th, 1888. Box 100.
91. RA, Educational Interests, University of Chicago, Letter from John D. Rockefeller to Frederick T. Gates, May 15th, 1889. Box 100.
92. Nevins, Educational Interests, University of Chicago, Letter from John D. Rockefeller to Frederick T. Gates, op. cit., p. 210.
93. Nevins, Educational Interests, University of Chicago, Letter from John D. Rockefeller to Frederick T. Gates, Ibid., p. 211.
94. Gates, Educational Interests, University of Chicago, Letter from John D. Rockefeller to Frederick T. Gates, op. cit., p. 159.
95. Gates, Educational Interests, University of Chicago, Letter from John D. Rockefeller to Frederick T. Gates, Ibid., p. 163.
96. Vidich and Lyman, Educational Interests, University of Chicago, Letter from John D. Rockefeller to Frederick T. Gates, op. cit., pp. 132-33. As Vidich and Lyman suggest, Gates's attempt to bureaucratize Rockefeller's haphazard giving was consistent with what had already taken place in capitalist economic institutions a few years earlier.
97. Gates, Educational Interests, University of Chicago, Letter from John D. Rockefeller to Frederick T. Gates, op. cit., p. 286.
98. Gates, Educational Interests, University of Chicago, Letter from John D. Rockefeller to Frederick T. Gates, Ibid., pp. 185-6.
99. Soma Hewa, "The Protestant Ethic and Rockefeller Benevolence: The Religious Impulse in American Philanthropy," Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 1997, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 419-52.
100. RA, General Education Board, Purpose and Program, 2 (OMR), GEB, Box 15.
101. RA, General Education Board, Memorandum by Gates, Gates Collection, Box 2, pp. 2-3.
102. Raymond Fosdick, The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation, (Transaction Publications, New Brunswick), 1989, p. 9.
103. Also, See Fosdick, Adventure in Giving: The Story of the General Education Board (New York, Harper and Brothers), 1962.
104. Gates, Adventure in Giving: The Story of the General Education Board (op. cit., p. 218.
105. Gates, Adventure in Giving: The Story of the General Education Board (Ibid., p. 216.
106. Gates, Adventure in Giving: The Story of the General Education Board (Ibid., pp. 216-7.
107. RA, Letter of Pledge from F. T. Gates to Wallace Buttrick and Starr J. Murphy, Secretaries and Executive Officers of the General Education Board. June 30, 1905, 2 (OMR), Box 18.
108. Also, see Some Reflections on Questions of Policy, prepared by Gates. 2 (OMR), GEB, Box 19, Folder 19.
109. Some Reflections on Questions of Policy, Ibid., p. 3.
110. Some Reflections on Questions of Policy, Ibid., p. 4.
111. Gates, Some Reflections on Questions of Policy, op. cit., p. 218.
112. Gates, Some Reflections on Questions of Policy, Ibid., pp. 4-5.
113. Gates, Some Reflections on Questions of Policy, Ibid., p. 6.
114. Gates, Some Reflections on Questions of Policy, Ibid., p. 14.
115. Gates, Some Reflections on Questions of Policy, Ibid., p. 16.
116. RA, Memorandum, by Starr J. Murphy and Wallace Buttrick to the General Education Board, October 10, 1905. 2 (OMR), GEB, Box 15.
117. RA, Memorandum by Stair J. Murphy to the General Education Board, September 24, 1906. 2 (OMR), GEB, Box 16.
118. RA, Letter from F. T. Gates to Wallace Buttrick, November 26, 1906. 2 (OMR), GEB, Box 16.
119. RA, Letter from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to the General Education Board, February 5, 1907. 2 (OMR), GEB, Box 18.
120. RA, Mr. John D. Rockefeller's Gifts to the University of Chicago, p. 10 (no date). 2 (OMR), University of Chicago, Box 108.
121. RA, Memorandum Regarding the General Education Board, pp. 1-4. 2 (OMR), GEB, Box 16.
122. Donald Fisher, "The Role of Philanthropic Foundations in Reproduction and Production of Hegemony: Rockefeller Foundations and the Social Sciences," Sociology, 1983, Vol. 17, pp. 206-33.
123. Flynn, Sociology, 1983, Vol. op. cit., p. 306.
124. Flynn, Sociology, 1983, Vol. Ibid., p. 306.
125. Weber, Sociology, 1983, Vol. op. cit., ([1920] 1958), pp. 181-2.
126. Jurgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston, Beacon Press), 1971, p. 193.
127. Weber, Knowledge and Human Interests (op. cit., ([1920] 1958), p. 182.