Felix Adler (professor)

Felix Adler, circa 1913

Felix Adler (August 13, 1851–April 24, 1933) was a Jewish religious humanist thinker, educator, and social reformer who founded the Ethical Culture movement.

Adler developed his thoughts based upon Kantian ethics and American transcendentalism developed by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Adler found ethics as the common ground for and at the root of diverse religious, spiritual doctrines, and humanist thoughts. While Adler understood the values of religious teachings, he found adherence to dogmas and sectarianism non-essential to the teachings of founders and leaders of religions such as Jesus, Jewish prophets, Buddha, and others. Adler, thus, developed a non-theistic religious humanism, and initiated a number of social reforms. He was particularly concerned with education and social conditions of the poor and underrepresented class of people. He established the Ethical Culture Society which initiated Visiting Nurse Service, the first free kindergarten for workers, and a number of other projects and programs. Adler also served on the Civil Liberties Bureau, which later became the American Civil Liberties Bureau and then the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Chronology

He was born in Alzey, Germany, the son of a rabbi, Samuel Adler. The family immigrated to the United States from Germany when Felix was six years of age on the occasion of his father's receiving an appointment as head rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in New York.

Felix Adler graduated from Columbia University in 1870 and moved to Germany where he received a doctorate from Heidelberg University. Starting in 1874 he spent two years at Cornell University in the Department of History as Professor of Oriental Languages and Hebrew before his "dangerous attitude" caused him to leave.

He returned to New York and preached some sermons at the Temple Emanu-El in New York City where his father was still the head rabbi. He was noted for omitting reference to God in any of his Sermons, an unorthodox approach which made him suspect by many in the New York Jewish community and ended any thought of him succeeding his father.

Then, at the age of twenty-four, Adler founded the New York Society for Ethical Culture in 1876. His sermon on May 15, 1876 is considered to be the date on which the religion he called Ethical Culture was established. His lectures before this society on Sundays in New York were well known and attended, and were routinely reported on in the New York Times. Adler's belief in deed rather than creed led his society to foster two innovative projects: Visiting Nursing and Free Kindergarten. In 1877 the New York Society of Ethical Culture sponsored Visiting Nursing, where nurses, and doctors if necessary, visited the homebound sick in poor districts. This service was eventually incorporated into the New York City health system. A year later, in 1878, a Free Kindergarten was established as a tuition-free school for working people's children. It evolved over time into the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.

In 1902 Adler was given the chair of political and social ethics at Columbia University, which he held until his death in 1933.

Well known as a lecturer and writer, Adler served as rector for the Ethical Culture School until his death in 1933. Throughout his life he always looked beyond the immediate concerns of family, labor, and race to the long-term challenge of reconstructing institutions like schools and government to promote greater justice in human relations. Within Adler's ethical philosophy, cooperation rather than competition remained the higher social value.

Adler became the founding chairman of the National Child Labor Committee in 1904. Lewis Hine became the committee's photographer in 1908.

In 1917 Adler served on the Civil Liberties Bureau, which later became the American Civil Liberties Bureau and then the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

In 1928 Adler became president of the Eastern division of the American Philosophical Association.

Adler served on the first Executive Board of the National Urban League.

Tenement house reform

As a member of the New York State Tenement House Commission, Adler was concerned not only with overcrowding but also by the increase in contagious disease caused by overcrowding. Though not a proponent of free public housing, Adler spoke out about tenant reform and the rents which he considered exorbitant. Jacob Riis wrote that Adler had "clear incisive questions that went through all subterfuges to the root of things."

In 1885 Adler and others created the Tenement House Building Company in order to build "model" tenements that rented for $8–$14/month. By 1887 six model buildings had actually been erected on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for the sum of $155,000. Even though critics favored restrictive legislation for improving tenement living, the model tenement was a progressive step forward.

American foreign policy

By the late 1890s, with the increase in international conflicts, Adler switched his concern from domestic issues to the question of American foreign policy. While some contemporaries viewed the 1898 Spanish American War as an act to liberate the Cubans from Spanish rule, others perceived the U.S. victories in the Caribbean and the Philippines as the beginning of an expansionist empire. Adler at first supported the war but later expressed anxiety about American sovereignty over the Philippines and Puerto Rico, concluding that an imperialistic rather than a democratic goal was guiding U.S. foreign policy. Ethical Culture affirms "the supreme worth of the person" and Adler superimposed this tenet on international relations, believing that no single group could lay claim to superior institutions and lifestyle.

Unlike many of his contemporaries during World War I, Adler didn't feel that the defeat of Germany alone would make the world safe for democracy. Peace could only be achieved, he thought, if the representative democratic governments remained non-imperialistic and if the arms race was curbed. As a result, Adler opposed the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations. As an alternative, Adler proposed a "Parliament of Parliaments" elected by the legislative bodies of the different nations and filled with different classes of people, rather than special interests, so that common and not national differences would prevail.

Philosophy

While the Ethical Culture movement which Adler founded was open to people of diverse beliefs, Adler himself developed and promoted his own vision of an essentially Kantian moral philosophy which prized public work and the use of reason to develop ultimate ethical standards.

Although Adler recognized values of religious and spiritual teachings, he considered adherence to religious dogmas and sectarian perspectives harmful to and non-essential to the essence of religiosity, which Jesus, Jewish prophets, Buddha, and other religious leaders commonly exhibited in their teachings. Adler, thus, found ethical principles the foundation of and the universal element in religious thoughts. Adler, thus, developed non-theistic religious humanism as the universal foundation for social reforms and peace movements.

Adler published such works as Creed and Deed (1878), Moral Instruction of Children (1892), Life and Destiny (1905), The Religion of Duty (1906), Essentials of Spirituality (1908), An Ethical Philosophy of Life (1918), The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal (1925), and Our Part in this World. He made use of the ideas from the religion to which he was born, and the philosophies of Kant and Ralph Waldo Emerson, mixed with certain socialistic ideas of his time. He believed that the concept of a personal god was unnecessary and that the human personality is the central force of religion, that different people's interpretations of religions were to be respected as religious things in themselves.

See also

• Ethical culture
• American Civil Liberties Union

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• "Felix Adler" - http://www.transcendentalists.com/felix_adler.htm
• "Who Was Felix Adler?" by Sue Berkon, Ethical Culture Fieldston School—http://www.ecfs.org/125/felixadler.asp
• "Felix Adler," Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture - http://www.bsec.org/reference/ethicalculture/history/felix.html
• "Ethical Culture Focuses on Creating a Humane World" by Lauren Sloan, Austin Area Interreligious Ministries—http://www.aaimaustin.org/clergy/EthicalCulture.htm
• "Ethics To Live By: Ideas and Their Action Consequences" - by John Hoad - http://hoad.ethicalmanifold.net/archives/000041.html
• Humanist History: An Overview - cites Adler as "The First Humanist in America" and provides additional details.
• Answers.com on Society for Ethical Culture
• Kraut, Benny. From Reform Judaism to Ethical Culture: The Religious Evolution of Felix Adler. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1979.
• Bridges, Horace J., ed. Aspects of Ethical Religion: Essays in Honor of Felix Adler on the Fiftieth Anniversary of his founding of the Ethical Movement, 1926.
• This article incorporates text from 1914 The New Student's Reference Work, a document now in the public domain.

Organizations

• The American Ethical Union at www.aeu.org is the website of the American Ethical Union, umbrella organization for the various Ethical Societies in the United States.
• Ethical Culture Fieldston School at www.ecfs.org is the website of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School that contains much information, some of which is incorporated into this article.
• Home: New York Society for Ethical Culture at www.nysec.org is the website of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, the original Ethical Society founded by Adler.
• Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago at www.ethicalhuman.org is the website of the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago, established 1882 and the second Ethical Society founded by Adler.

Adler's Words

Quotes

• Felix Adler - Wikiquote at en.wikiquote.org
• Felix Adler Quotes at www.brainyquote.com
• Felix Adler quotes at en.thinkexist.com

Addresses

• Founding Address, Felix Adler, May 15, 1876, New York Society for Ethical Culture
• The Ethical Significance of Easter, 1915.
• Some Characteristics of the American Ethical Movement, An address delivered in South Place Chapel, London, June 7, 1925
• On the Occasion of the Fifty-Fifth Anniversary of the founding of the Ethical Movement, May 10, 1931.

Reports in New York Times

The New York Times archives contain many reports on addresses given by Felix Adler, as well as numerous letters and articles by or about Adler.

Books

• Adler, Felix. Creed and Deed: A Series of Discourses, 243 pages, 1880.
• Adler, Felix. Life and Destiny, 141 pages, 1903.
• Adler, Felix. The Religion of Duty, 201 pages, 1905.

• Chapter Ten: The Essential Difference Between Ethical Societies and The Churches

• Adler, Felix. Marriage and Divorce, 58 pages, 1905.
• Adler, Felix. The Moral Instruction of Children, 278 pages, 1908.
• Adler, Felix. The Essentials of Spirituality, 92 pages, 1908.
• Adler, Felix. An Ethical Philosophy of Life: Presented in Its Main Outlines, 380 pages, 1918.

• Chapter III: Emerson - Adler on Emerson and Emerson's influence on his own development
• Chapter V: The Ideal of the Whole and the Ethical Manifold
• Chapter VII: The Supreme Ethical Rule: Act So As To Elicit the Best In Others and Thereby In Thy Self
• Chapter IX: Religious Fellowship as the Culminating Social Institution

• Adler, Felix. Incompatibility In Marriage, 105 pages, 1920.
• Adler, Felix. The punishment of children, 38 pages, 1922.
• Adler, Felix. The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal: Hibbert Lectures Delivered in Manchester College, Oxford, May 1923, 218 pages.
• Adler, Felix, and others. Fiftieth Anniversary of the Ethical Movement (1876-1926), 1926.
• Adler, Felix (Friess, Horace, ed.). Our Part in This World, 1946.
• Remsen, Daniel S., Post-mortem use of wealth, including a consideration of ante-mortem gifts, 1911.

• Section II. Chapter I. Adler, Felix. "Principles Which Should Govern the Making of Bequests for Philanthropic Purposes," p. 89-93.

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