"The science-spirit in a democracy": Liberty hyde bailey, nature study, and the democratic impulse of progressive conservation

Natural Protest: Essays on the History of American Environmentalism

Volumn , Issue , 2008, Pages 89-116

  Armitage, Kevin C ^a  

^a MIAMI UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 79960366269     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.4324/9780203872116     Document Type: Chapter

References (108)

1. Liberty Hyde Bailey, The Outlook to Nature (New York: Macmillan, 1911), 7.
2. Bailey, The Holy Earth (New York: New York College of Agriculture and Life Sciences 1980 [1915]), 13, 31.
3. Bailey, What Is Democracy? (Ithaca, NY: Comstock, 1918), 87.
4. Bailey, The Holy Earth, 89.
5. Bailey, What Is Democracy?, 64-65.
6. Liberty Hyde Bailey, The Nature Study Idea (New York: Doubleday, Page &Company, 1903), 87.
7. Bailey, The Holy Earth, 6.
8. Bailey, The Nature Study Idea, 94.
9. Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 2. Hays went so far as to argue that the moral crusade for conservation was a mererevulsion with materialism that inhibited the real business of conservation. "It wasespecially difficult," argues Hays "to approach resource development in a rationalmanner when one's major political support now came from groups who looked upon the problem in moral rather than economic terms."
10. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency, 146. My perspective on Hays is similar to that of Charles T. Rubin.
11. See Charles T. Rubin, "Preface," in Charles T. Rubin (ed.), Conservation Reconsidered: Nature, Virtue and American Liberal Democracy (New York: Rowman& Littlefield, 2000).
12. For recent scholarship on conservation that follows Hays's angle of investigation, see the work of Benjamin Kline, who summarized progressive conservation as "the proper use of the nation's natural resources as determinedby the scientific standards of the times and regulated by objective bureaucrats." Benjamin Kline, First along the River: A Brief History of the U.S. Environmental Movement, 3rd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 53.
13. See J. Leonard Bates, "Fulfilling American Democracy: The Conservation Movement, 1907 to 1921," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 44(1) (June 1957), 57.
14. For studies that detail the local effects of conservation policy, see Karl Jacoby, Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves and the Hidden History of American Conservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001);
15. Mark David Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999);
16. Louis Warren, The Hunter's Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
17. For an argument that examines the rural origins of conservation, see Richard Judd, Common Lands, Common People: The Origins of Conservation in Northern New England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).
18. For urban conservation see David Stradling, Smoke stacks and Progressives: Environmentalists, Engineers, and Air Quality in America, 1881-1951 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).
19. For the ambiguous legacy of conservation on the resources themselves, see Nancy Langston, Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares: The Paradox of Old Growth in the Inland West (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995);
20. Joseph E. Taylor III, Making Salmon: An Environmental History of the Northwest Fisheries Crisis (Seattle: Universityof Washington Press, 1999).
21. David Stradling has compiled a fine collection ofdocuments that express some of the complexity of Progressive era conservation. See David Stradling, Conservation in the Progressive Era: Classic Texts, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004).
22. Other scholars are reexamining the democratic and civic aspects of Progressive era conservation. See, in particular, Ben A. Minteer and Robert E. Manning (eds.), Reconstructing Conservation: Finding Common Ground (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003);
23. Ben A. Minteer, The Landscape of Reform: Civic Pragmatism and Environmental Thought in America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006). Minteer devotes a chapter to Bailey, correctly placing him in a tradition of civic pragmatism that extends to Lewis Mumford, Benton MacKaye, and Aldo Leopold. My essay incorporates, supports, and extends Minteer's important work.
24. Bailey is nearly absent from the historiography of progressive conservation. One of the important initial examinations of conservation during the environmental era, Donald Worster's American Environmentalism: The Formative Period, 1860- 1915, included a section on Bailey. Yet few scholars followed Worster's lead.
25. See Donald Worster, American Environmentalism: The Formative Period, 1860-1915 (New York, NY: Wiley, 1973), 223-31.
26. William L. Bowers, The Country Life Movement in America, 1900-1920 (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974), 45.
27. For Bailey's biography, see Philip Dorf, Liberty Hyde Bailey: An Informal Biography (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1956)
28. A. D. Rodgers, Liberty Hyde Bailey: A Story of American Plant Sciences (Princeton University Press, NJ: 1949).
29. For more on passenger pigeons, see Jennifer Price, Flight Maps (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 1-55.
30. Cited by Margaret Beattie Bogue, "Liberty Hyde Bailey, Jr. and the Bailey Family Farm," Agricultural History 63(1) (Winter 1989), 39.
31. Bogue, "Liberty Hyde Bailey, Jr. and the Bailey Family Farm," 46.
32. The literature on educational progressivism is vast. Interested readers should begin with Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957 (New York: Vintage, 1964);
33. Herbert Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893-1958 (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986);
34. William J. Reese, Power and the Promise of School Reform: Grassroots Movements during the Progressive Era (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986);
35. Diane Ravitch, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
36. Two important essays are Timothy L. Smith, "Progressivism in American Education, 1880-1900," Harvard Educational Review 31(2) (Spring 1961), 168-93;
37. William J. Reese, "The Origins of Progressive Education," History of Education Quarterly 41(1) (Spring 2001), 1-24.
38. Edward H. Eppens, "Nature-Study à la Mode-A Protest," Critic 45 (August 1904), 149.
39. Bailey, The Nature Study Idea, 41.
40. Quoted by Louis Menand, "William James and the Case of the Epileptic Patient,"in Louis Menand, American Studies (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), 21.
41. Bailey, The Nature Study Idea, 41.
42. Liberty Hyde Bailey, Universal Service (Ithaca, NY: Sturgis and Walton, 1919), 18.
43. Clayton F. Parker, "Are Children Naturally Naturalists?,"The Nature-Study Review 4(1) (January 1908), 29.
44. Charles B. Scott, Nature Study and the Child (Boston: D. C Heath, 1902), 126-27.
45. The recent revival of interest in pragmatism has resulted in a number of excellent interpretations of Dewey. Highlights include Larry A. Hickman, John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990);
46. Robert Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991);
47. Alan Ryan, John Dewey and the High Tide of American Democracy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995);
48. David Fott, John Dewey: America's Philosopher of Democracy (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998);
49. Jay Martin, The Education of John Dewey (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.) Scholars are also reevaluating pragmatism for its potential contributions to environmental philosophy.
50. See Andrew Light and Eric Katz (eds.), Environmental Pragmatism (New York: Routledge, 1996).
51. Two essays that examine Dewey in particular are William Chaloupka, "John Dewey's Social Aesthetics as a Precedent for Environmental Thought," Environmental Ethics 9(3) (Fall 1987), 243-60;
52. Kevin C. Armitage, "The Continuity of Nature and Experience: John Dewey's Pragmatic Environmentalism," Capitalism Nature Socialism 14(3) (September, 2003) 49-72.
53. Dewey, How We Think (1910), MW 6:179.
54. Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916), MW 9: 229.
55. Liberty Hyde Bailey, "The Science-Spirit in a Democracy," Nature-Study Review 12(1) (January 1916), 8.
56. Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916), MW 9:237.
57. Bailey, "The Science-Spirit in a Democracy," 5, 8.
58. Bailey, Universal Service, 22-23, 26.
59. Dewey is widely misunderstood on this point. For one clarification, see James T.Kloppenberg, "Democracy and Disenchantment: From Weber and Dewey to Habermas and Rorty," in James. T. Kloppenberg, The Virtues of Liberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 82-99.
60. Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (1927), LW 2:344-45.
61. Dewey, Experience and Nature (1925), LW 1:110, 14.
62. Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920), MW 12:152.
63. For a history of the Laboratory School, see Ida B. DePencier, The History of the Laboratory Schools: The University of Chicago 1896-1965 (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1967);
64. Katherine Camp Mayhew and Anna Camp Edwards, The Dewey School (1936 New York: Atherton, 1965).
65. See also Alan Ryan, "Deweyan Pragmatismand American Education," in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Philosophers on Education: New Historical Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 1998), 394-410; as well as Cremin, The Transformation of the School. On Dewey's Laboratory School pedagogy, see Herbert Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum.
66. See also Laurel N. Tanner, Dewey's Laboratory School: Lessons for Today (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997).
67. John Dewey, "The University Elementary School, Studies and Methods," University Record, 21 May 1897.
68. Dewey, Democracy and Education, MW 9:221;
69. Schools of Tomorrow (1915), MW 8:272.
70. Dewey, Schools of Tomorrow (1915), MW 8:271.
71. Maurice A. Bigelow, Nature-Study Review 2(3) (March 1906), 91. Emphasis inoriginal.
72. Dewey, Democracy and Education, MW 9: 219.
73. Dewey, "Education from a Social Perspective"(1913), MW 7:115-16.
74. Bailey, What Is Democracy?, 41.
75. Bailey, The Holy Earth, 26.
76. Frederic C. Howe, The City: The Hope of Democracy (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906), 33.
77. Henry Wallace, "The Socialization of Farm Life," cited by William L. Bowers, The Country Life Movement in America, 1900-1920 (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974), 36. Other writers claimed urban life enervated formerly healthy ruralpeople. The urban resident must therefore sleep regularly, eat well, exercise, andget to nature as often as possible.
78. See Ada Patterson, "Country Life in the City," Pittsburgh Gazette Times, 16 April 1911, 2.
79. Ira G. Hoitt, quoted in United States Commissioner of Education Annual Report, 1887/88, 159-60.
80. Bailey, What Is Democracy?, 96.
81. Bailey, The Holy Earth, 24.
82. Bailey, The Holy Earth, 88.
83. Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in Gilded Age America (New York: Hill & Wang, 1982).
84. Bailey, The Holy Earth, 89.
85. Bailey, What Is Democracy?, 99.
86. Bailey, The Nature-Study Idea, 82, 65.
87. Anna Botsford Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study (1911, Ithaca, NY: Comstock, 1986), 22.
88. Bailey, The Outlook to Nature, 53.
89. Sidney Morse, "The Boy on the Farm: And Life as He Sees It," Craftsman 16(2)(May 1909), 199.
90. The travails of rural education were well enough known to inspire a play by M. R. Orne, The Country School: An Entertainment in Two Scenes (Boston: Walter H. Baker, 1890).
91. See David B. Tyack, "The Tribe and the Common School: Community Control in Rural Education," American Quarterly 24(1) (March 1972), 3-19.
92. The subject of rural schools and the life of rural children is generally understudied. Some primary sources that investigated the situation of rural schools include Ellwood P. Cubberley, Rural Life and Education: A Study of the Rural-School Problem as a Phase of the Rural Life Problem (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914);
93. Clifton Johnson, The Country School in New England (New York:D. Appleton, 1895);
94. Marion G. Kirkpatrick, The Rural School from Within (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1917).
95. One recent volume that has begun to redress this historiographic gap is Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Childhood on the Farm: Work, Play, and Coming of Age in the Midwest (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005).
96. The Cornell Countryman 11 (December 1913), 88. Roosevelt's letter praising Baileycan be found online at: http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/bailey/commission/commission_8.html#.
97. Cited by Cremin, The Transformation of the School, 83.
98. Report of the Commission on Country Life (New York: Van Rees Press, 1911), 123.
99. Bailey, The Holy Earth, 57, 56. Defense of evolution was typical of nature study ad-vocates. Despite their fervent belief in the moral power of contact with the naturalworld, I have found not a single nature study author who repudiated Darwinianevolution, and many who staunchly supported it.
100. Bailey, What Is Democracy?, 86.
101. Bailey, The Holy Earth, 53, 56, 60, 11.
102. Bailey, The Outlook to Nature, 175.
103. Bailey, The Holy Earth, 13, 11, 6, 23, 16.
104. Bailey, "The Science-Spirit in a Democracy," 10.
105. Bailey, The Holy Earth, 78.
106. Bailey, What Is Democracy? 36.
107. For deep ecology, see Arne Naess, Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, trans. and ed. by David Rothenberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980);
108. Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology-Living as if Nature Mattered (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 1985); Sessions, Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century (Boston: Shambhala, 1995).