The "kingdom of god on earth" and early chicago pragmatism

Educational Theory

Volumn 56, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 89-105

  Tröhler, Daniel ^a  

^a University of Applied Sciences at Teachers College   (Switzerland)

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EID: 35448959431     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2006.00005.x     Document Type: Article

References (84)

1. Laurence R. Vesey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 174ff.
2. James Hayden Tufts was born on July 9, 1862 in Monson, Massachusetts, and was taught by his father at Monson Academy. After graduating from Amherst College in 1884, he served as high school principal in Westport, Connecticut, for one year and then taught mathematics at Amherst College for two years. From 1887 to 1889, he studied at Yale Divinity School under William Rainey Harper, who would later become president of the University of Chicago.
3. James Hayden Tufts, "The Sources and Development of Kant's Teleology" (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1892).
4. James Hayden Tufts, "Germany," n.d., James H. Tufts Papers, box 3, folder 13, University of Chicago Regenstein Library.
5. Robert Baird, Religion in America (New York: Harper and Bros., 1844).
6. It should be noted that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, some of the German states - including Prussia, Baden, Hessen, Nassau, and Pfalz - had a so-called united church, meaning that the Lutheran (evangelical) and Calvinist (reformed) churches were joined together. However, Lutheranism remained dominant even in these areas.
7. Tufts does not appear at all in the thirty-volume Encyclopedia Americana, for example, nor in Michael McGerr's recent book on this period, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920 (New York: Free Press, 2003).
8. Tufts does not even figure in the canon of the so-called Pragmatists, which is generally restricted to Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey (see, for instance, Israel Scheffler, Four Pragmatists: A Critical Introduction to Peirce, James, Mead, and Dewey [London: Routledge and Kegen Paul, 1974]).
9. There are exceptions, of course: see James Campbell, The Community Reconstructs: The Meaning of Pragmatic Social Thought (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1992);
10. James Campbell, ed., Selected Writings of James Hayden Tufts (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992);
11. Andrew Feffer, The Chicago Pragmatists and American Progressivism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993);
12. and John R. Shook, The Chicago School of Pragmatism, 4 vols. (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2000).
13. William James, "The Chicago School," Psychological Bulletin 1 (1904): 1-5.
14. Ibid. James characterized this group as follows: "Some universities have plenty of thought to show, but no school; others plenty of school, but no thought. The University of Chicago, by its Decennial Publications shows real thought and a real school. Professor John Dewey, and at least ten of his disciples, have collectively put into the world a statement, homogeneous in spite of so many cooperating minds, of a view of the world, both theoretical and practical, which is so simple, massive, and positive that, in spite of the fact that many parts of it yet need to be worked out, it deserves the title of a new system of philosophy" (p. 1).
15. This is the reason I do not consider here accounts such as Steven Rockefeller's impressive study, John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991),
16. or Bruce Kuklick's Churchmen and Philosophers: From Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985).
17. Rockefeller takes a biographical approach and provides a study of arguments and concepts rather than an investigation of languages or mentalities. Furthermore, his study is pedagogically motivated. Rockefeller describes his goal as demonstrating the "relevance of Dewey's philosophy to the dilemmas of contemporary American society and the merging global community," and he maintains that Dewey's views continue to hold for "for all those throughout the world today who love freedom and seek to pursue the democratic way of life" (pp. 5, ix). The problems with Rockefeller's missionary tone are quite apparent in the current political context. Kuklick's study runs counter to my own analysis from a methodological perspective. My aim is to explore the mental dispositions and intellectual options that led to the development of a network of thought, while Kuklick, in asserting that "Dewey's arrival [at the University of Chicago] in 1894 created a 'school' of thought," seems to suggest that philosophical systems spring from individual thinkers.
18. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985).
19. Theodore T. Munger, cited in William R. Hutchinson, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Durham and London: Duke University Press 1992), 76.
20. Munger, in his volume on Horace Bushnell, the prominent Congregationalist minister who rejected distinctions between the sciences and Christianity, constructed a prehistory of "New Theology." See Theodore T. Munger, Horace Bushnell: Preacher and Theologian (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1899).
21. It is not by chance that another Congregationalist minister, Washington Gladden, is held to have been the inaugurator of the Social Gospel. For a good overview, see Charles Howard Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940).
22. Recently, critical studies on this German reaction have also appeared. See, for example, Georg Kamphausen, Die Erfindung Amerikas in der Kulturkritik der Generation von 1890 [The Invention of America in the Cultural Criticism of the Generation of 1890] (Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2002);
23. and Daniel Tröhler, "The Discourse of German 'Geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik'- A Contextual Reconstruction," Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education 39, no. 6 (2003): 759-778.
24. Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
25. Compare this with Thomas L. Haskell, The Emergence of Professional Social Science: The American Social Science Association and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Authority (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).
26. Kersten Jacobson Biehn, "Kanonisierung der Freien Künste: DerAufbau eines säkularen Lehrplans-das Beispiel derPrincetonUniversität" [Sanctifyingthe Liberal Arts: TheConstructionof a SecularCurriculum- the Example of Princeton University], Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Historiographie 10, no. 2 (2004): 74-82.
27. Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim's Progress while in prison from 1678 to 1684, during the period of the English Restoration. The book follows a Christian's arduous journey from his home to the heavenly city. In German Pietist circles, the book was read as an illustration of the inner journey upon which Christ had to embark; Americans saw the story as emblematic of their own task, to realize the kingdom of God in the United States. It is no coincidence that in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, The Pilgrim's Progress was the only book besides the Bible that the Joad family possessed. David Tyack shows clearly that between 1860 and 1960 many American school superintendents patterned their autobiographies after Bunyan's description of life in The Pilgrim's Progress; in turn, this Protestant self-understanding and worldview exerted a strong influence on the field of education generally.
28. See David Tyack, "Pilgrim's Progress: Toward a Social History of the School Superintendency, 1860-1960,"
29. History of Education Quarterly 16, no. 3 (1976): 257-300.
30. Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994), 264ff.
31. It is important to see that theology is not what is at issue here-that is, we are not examining questions about the character of the Trinity or the doctrine of Holy Communion, for example. Instead, my interest lies in the mental dispositions that emerge from the practice of life and that limit intellectual options. Ultimately, I argue that people who are born into a Protestant Congregationalist community and are raised and socialized within that community have a different mentality than people brought up in, say, a Catholic milieu, particularly with regard to the issues of individual responsibility and political-democratic engagement. Given this background, Rockefeller's concern that Dewey did not become a member of a church in Chicago and did not send his children to Sunday school is less important; see Rockefeller, John Dewey, 214. Before the 1980s, there was virtually no research on American congregations in the area of intellectual history. At that time, the Congregational History Project was launched and it has since produced promising new research perspectives.
32. See, for example, James P. Wind and James W. Lewis, eds., American Congregations,vol. 2 New Perspectives in the Study of Congregations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
33. Walt Whitman, "Democratic Vistas," in Leaves of Grass and Selected Prose, ed. Ellmann Crasnow (1871; repr. London: Orion, 1993), 521.
34. Walt Whitman, "Starting from Paumanok," in Leaves of Grass (London: James R. Osgood and Company, 1881), 23.
35. John Dewey to Alice Chipman Dewey, April 16, 1887, The Correspondence of John Dewey, vol. 1, no. 00057 (Charlottesville, Virginia: InteLex Corporation, 2002).
36. Frederic Henry Hedge, cited in George M. Marsden, "The Soul of the American University: A Historical Overview," The Secularization of the Academy, eds. George M. Marsden and Bradley J. Longfield (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 9. engagement. Given this background, Rockefeller's concern that Dewey did not become a member of a church in Chicago and did not send his children to Sunday school is less important; see Rockefeller, John Dewey, 214. Before the 1980s, there was virtually no research on American congregations in the area of intellectual history. At that time, the Congregational History Project was launched and it has since produced promising new research perspectives. See, for example, James P. Wind and James W. Lewis, eds., American Congregations, vol. 2 New Perspectives in the Study of Congregations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
37. See Daniel Day Williams, The Andover Liberals: A Study in American Theology (New York: King's Crown Press, 1941).
38. Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972), 774-775.
39. Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2001), 285ff.
40. John Dewey to James H. Tufts, June 20, 1889, The Correspondence of John Dewey, vol. 1, no. 11892.
41. Unlike many other academics, Dewey had not studied in Germany. He was one of the first to obtain a doctorate in philosophy in the United States (from Johns Hopkins University).
42. John Dewey to James Rowland Angell, May 10, 1893, The Correspondence of John Dewey, vol. 1, no.00478.
43. Martin Luther and German evangelical Protestantism hold to the doctrine of the two kingdoms. In Christ's kingdom, governed by the spiritual authority of the Word and the Sacraments, there is grace and forgiveness of sins, and there are no differences among men. The other realm, the secular kingdom, is ruled by the temporal authority of the ruler, the sword, and the law; there is neither grace nor equality. Lutherans view the two kingdoms as instituted by God as mutually beneficial. The realm of Christ benefits from the temporal realm, because secular authority enforces peace in the world, and the temporal realm is served by the realm of Christ in its proclaiming of the Gospel through the Word. This Evangelical Protestantism holds further that it is of prime importance not to confuse the two kingdoms: God rules the spiritual kingdom through the Gospel. The Gospel is not meant to rule the secular kingdom, which is ruled by its own power and laws. Any attempt to use the Gospel to rule the secular world is an error. Politically, this doctrine -particularly since it was accompanied by a state church - was tantamount to total deprivation of people's right of decision making. This makes clear once more the fundamental difference between the Baptist faith and Congregationalism, and it explains why American Lutherans and Presbyterians did not follow the liberal turn of theology - that is, in the words of William R. Hutchinson, they were "most resistant to change."
44. See William R. Hutchinson, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1992), 114.
45. These problems were primarily found in urban areas, such as Chicago. William Stead, son of a British Congregationalist minister, wrote an impressive account of the conditions in Chicago around 1893-1894;
46. see William Thomas Stead, If Christ Came to Chicago! A Plea for the Union of All Who Love in the Service of All Who Suffer (Chicago: Laird and Lee, 1894).
47. John Dewey to Joseph Villiers Denney, February 8, 1892, The Correspondence of John Dewey, vol. 1, no. 00462.
48. Gilman, cited in D.G. Hart, "Faith and Learning in the Age of the University: The Academic Ministry of Daniel Coit Gilman," in The Secularization of the Academy, eds. Marsden and Longfield, 107.
49. William Rainey Harper, "America as a Missionary Field," in William Rainey Harper, Religion and the Higher Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1904), 175.
50. Ibid., 180-181 (emphasis added).
51. Ibid., 184.
52. James Burrill Angell, cited in Bradley J. Longfield, "From Evangelicalism to Liberalism: Public Midwestern Universities in Nineteenth-Century America," in The Secularization of the Academy, eds. Marsden and Longfield, 46.
53. Fiske's work in this area was controversial - at Harvard, he was condemned as an atheist and denied permission to teach. Tufts stood by him, however. In a 1916 letter, Tufts explicitly and positively identified Fiske as one of the few contemporary authors mentioned in Dewey's Democracy and Education. James Hayden Tufts to Edith Foster Flint, March 9, 1916, James H. Tufts Papers, box 1, folder 7, University of Chicago Regenstein Library.
54. See also John Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916; repr. New York: Free Press 1944), 45n.
55. Jane Addams, "The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements," in Philanthropy and Social Progress, ed. Henry C. Adams (New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell, 1893), 1.
56. Ibid., 19-20 (emphasis in original).
57. George Herbert Mead to Henry Northrup Castrup, March 20, 1885, Mead Papers, box 1, folder 2, University of Chicago Regenstein Library (emphasis in original; asterisk indicates uncertain reading of Mead's handwriting).
58. George Herbert Mead, untitled essay on Jesus, love, activity [ca. 1893], Mead Papers, box 10, folder 1, University of Chicago Regenstein Library: 20-21.
59. Ibid., 21.
60. Ibid., 26.
61. William James, Principles in Psychology (New York: Henry Holt, 1890), 449-450.
62. Mead, untitled essay on Jesus, love, activity, 37f. (punctuation as in original).
63. John Dewey, "Christianity and Democracy" (1893), in John Dewey: The Early Works, 1893-1894, vol. 4, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971), 6-7.
64. David Tyack, "The Kingdom of God and the Common School: Protestant Ministers and the Educational Awakening in the West," Harvard Educational Review 36, no. 4 (1966): 447-469.
65. Taylor's private papers contain the following description of his settlement house: "Chicago Commons is a 'Social Settlement' located at the corner of Grand Avenue and Morgan Street. It was founded in May, 1894, and is the home of a group of people who want to share the life of the neighborhood its comforts and discomforts; its privileges and responsibilities; its political, civic and personal duties and pleasures. They offer their home as a social center for the neighborhood, in which they desire to be friends, fellow-citizens, neighbors," Graham Taylor Papers, Chicago Commons Scrapbooks, box 1 (1900-1906), Newberry Library, Chicago.
66. Graham Taylor, "The Unity of Human Interests - Address at Thanksgiving" [November 30, 1882], Graham Taylor Papers, Newberry Library, Chicago.
67. John Dewey, "The Study of Ethics: A Syllabus," in John Dewey: The Early Works, vol. 4, ed. Boydston, 245.
68. George Davis Herron, "The Christian State - The Social Realization of Democracy," in The Christian State: A Political Vision of Christ (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1895), 76-77.
69. Herron was a Congregational Church minister and professor of applied Christianity at Grinnell College from 1893 to 1899. In many ways, his views were closer to those of Graham Taylor. In fact, Taylor invited him to teach "social religion" at the Chicago Commons School of Social Economics in 189 (see Graham Taylor Papers, Chicago Commons Scrapbooks, box 2, Newberry Library, Chicago).
70. After his scandalous divorce in 1899, Herron resigned from Grinnell College and joined the Socialist Party. The passage cited here, which is as representative of Pragmatism as it is of Christian Socialism, shows how closely connected the various social reform movements were; specifically, it indicates that thementality of liberal Protestantismlinked these movements together.
71. Ibid., 74-75.
72. John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (1927; repr. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1954).
73. This book is an answer to Walter Lippman's The Phantom Public (1925; repr. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929).
74. Lippmann, the son of second-generation German-Jewish parents, declared himself a socialist during his years at Harvard, but, starting at the turn of the twentieth century, he turned to radical liberalism in the European sense. In The Phantom Public, Lippmann criticized the Protestant-republican ideology of homo politicus: "The environment is complex. Man's political capacity is simple" (p. 78).
75. He wrote that the ideal of the old American communities, whereby "the voter's opinions were formed and corrected by talk with their neighbors," was no longer effective within the complexity of the "Great Society" (p. 181).
76. For this reason, Lippmann called for a plural public, arising from the exchange of interests: "I have conceived public opinion to be, not the voice of God, nor the voice of society, but the voice of the interested spectators of action" (p. 197).
77. Dewey responded first with a critical review (see John Dewey, "Practical Democracy," New Republic 45 [December 2, 1925]: 52-54)
78. and then with a series of lectures at Kenyon College, Ohio, in 1926. These lectures were later edited and published as The Public and Its Problems.
79. Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, 140, 148-149 (emphasis in original). 56.
80. Ibid., 184.
81. Ibid., 218.
82. Evidently, The Public and Its Problems was not the definitive answer, because Dewey was unable to solve the problem of how local communities, which he wished to revitalize, could be brought to engage in the type of global communication necessary to advance scientific knowledge. That is, he failed to resolve the issue of why local communities should want to harmonize with other communities. Dewey developed a strategy for harmonizing the particular with the universal in his 1934 book, A Common Faith. What is crucial in the present context is not so much the fact that in this work Dewey, as Rockefeller stresses, once again uses the term "God" in a positive sense after not having done so many years (see Rockefeller, John Dewey, 234), but rather the fact that human and religious experience are made synonymous - that is, plurality is attributed to an assumed unity. Compare with Daniel Tröhler, "The Global Community, Religion, and Education: The Modernity of Dewey's Social Philosophy," Studies in Philosophy and Education 19, no. 1-2 (2000): 159-186.
83. John Dewey, "My Pedagogic Creed" (1897), in John Dewey: The Early Works, 1895-1898, vol. 5, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972), 95.
84. See also Dewey's final address before the Students' Christian Association of the University of Michigan on May 27, 1894: "The responsibility now upon us is to form our faith in the light of the most searching methods and known facts; it is to form that faith so that it shall be an efficient and present help to us in action, in the co-operative union with all men who are sincerely striving to help on the Kingdom of God on earth" (John Dewey, "Reconstruction" [1894] in John Dewey: The Early Works, vol. 4, ed. Boydston, 105).