Quaker Thought and Life Today
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Quaker Thought and Life Today VOLUME 11 N 0 V E M B E R 1 5 , 1 9 6 5 NUMBER 22 ~L the living we do with our children is religious teaching. Our first concern is to live in the assurance that our children, with ourselves, are children of God. Trust, rather than fear, will light their way into knowledge and love of God. As individ uals and families and as a Meeting, by counsel and ex ample, we must show our chil dren that our search for Truth involves every aspect of life. - DISCIPLINE OF pACIFIC YEARLY MEETING THIRTY CENTS Cabin built by students at john Woolman School in California $5.00 A YEAR (See page 561) 550 FRIENDS JOURNAL November 15, 1965 FRIENDS JOURNAL QUAKER UNITED NATIONS PROGRAM "No More War, Never Again War!" H EN the Pope visited the United Nations, the Quaker W U.N. Program was granted a seat in the General Assem bly Hall's visitors' gallery. On our right sat a member of the British Foreign office, very nervous because he had in his pocket the Foreign Minister's red ticket to the Secretary-General's reception for the Pope; without a proper ticket, no one could Publlshed semimonthly, on the first and fifteenth of each month, at 152-A North 15th Street, Philadelphia, Pa. attend the reception. How was that ticket to get from the 19102, by Friends Publlshlng Corporation (LO 3-7669). pocket of an aide in the visitors' gallery to the British Foreign Editor and Mruiager FRANCES WILLIAMS BROWIN Minister on the floor of the hall? (This may explain why the Assistant Editor British government never appeared on TV greeting the Pope ETHAN A. NEVIN Contributing Editors at the reception. Of such incidents history is made.) WILLIAM HUBBEN RICHARD R. WOOD As we awaited the Pope's arrival, the hall buzzed with quiet Editorial Assistant Office Manager excitement. Only Albania's seats were empty. (We were told EMILY L. CONLON M.L.HORLANDER Advertising Subscriptions afterward that the Albanian delegation couldn't bear to miss MYRTLE M. WALLEN FREDERICK B. WALKER the excitement and was. to be seen standing in the crowd at the BOARD OF MANAGERS rear of the halL) 1963-1966 As the Pope spoke the delegates listened politely at first, Howard H. Brinton Ada C. Rose Benjamin R. Burdsall Philip Stoughton but as it became evident that he was in dead earnest, that he Walter Kahoe Gordon D. Whitcraft Carl F. Wise meant every word he had come so far to say, we could feel 1964-1967 interest and attention mount. When he said, "If you wish to Helen Buckler James R. Frorer be brothers, drop your weapons," we could feel the delegates Mary Roberts Calhoun Francis Hortenstlne Eleanor Stabler Clarke Emily Cooper Johnson move forward in their chairs. He was pleading for immediate Elizabeth Wells disarmament! But then we felt them sag back when he added, 1965-1968 Winifred C. Beer Miriam E. Jones "As long as man remains that weak, changeable, and even Carol P. Brainerd Emerson Lamb Arthur M. Dewees Daniel D. Test, Jr. wicked being that he often shows himself to be, defensive arms Mildred Binns Young will, unfortunately, be necessary." JOURNAL ASSOCIATES are those who add not less than five dollars to their subscriptions annually to In view of the great interest in whether Red China should help meet the over-all cost of publication. Contribu be admitted to the U.N., we were not surprised that there was tions are tax-exempt. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: United States, possessions: a reaction when he said: "Seek a means of bringing into your $5.00 a year, $2.75 for six months. Foreign countries, ... brotherhood those who do not yet share in it." And we Including Canada and Mexico: $6.00 a year. Single copies: thirty cents, unless otherwise noted. Sample felt the sensation pass when, in the very next sentence, he copies sent on request. Second class postage paid at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. seemed to support the U.S. position by stressing the word "merit": "Act so that those still 9utside will desire and merit the confidence of all." Contents As we listened, it occurred to us that the Pope was talking as if he were speaking in a truly centered meeting for worship, "No More War, Never Again War!"-Quaker U.N. Program . 550 bringing a message from God Himself. Editorial Comments .................. ... ......... ........ 551 Home to Count His Money-Richard H. Farquhar ........ 552 To us, the high point of the speech was his plea for the Autumn Blend- Alice Perkins ....... ...................... 552 Gnited Nations to become "a world authority, able to act For Norman Morrison-Ethan A. Nevin .................... 552 effectively." Most other commentators seem to have overlooked The Two Commandments and Tomorrow- Chard Powers Smith 553 this emphasis that we observed throughout: "The edifice which Grace Street Is a State of Mind-Peg Spangenthal . 555 you have constructed must never fall; it must be ... made A Quaker in a Kibbutz- Marjorie Wolfe ................... 556 Prayer- Arminal Elizabeth Hay ......... .......... ......... 557 equal to the needs which world history will present." Did he Weep Not for Abraham-Joyce Povolny ..................... 558 mean that national sovereignties should give way to interna God, Man, and Contemporary Society- Robert Schultz and tional authority? "The United Nations ... is the world's Dean Freiday . 559 greatest hope. Let unanimous trust in this institution Letter from Bangalore--Lawrence McK. Miller, Jr . ..... ...... 560 Conservative Friends Meet-William P. Taber, ]r. ...... .. 561 grow, let its authority increase!" Woolman School's Student-built Housing .............. .... 561 But the words that struck us even more than the passionate Friends and Their Friends . 562 "No more war, never again war!" were contained in this ad Book Reviews . 565 monition, the words of a worthy successor to John XXIII: Letters to the Editor ...... .......... ....... ............. 566 Announcements . 568 "Men cannot be brothers if they are not humble . It is Coming Events . • . 568 pride that disrupts brotherhood." FRIENDS JOURNAL Successor to THE FRIEND (1827-1955) and FRIENDS INTELLIGENCER (1844-1955) ESTABLISHED 1955 PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER 15, 1965 VOL. 11-No. 22 Editorial Comments "Our Culture Made Visible" Barnesville, Ohio: "Many would maintain that the prin RITING a "Letter from America" in the British cipal function of a Friends' school is to train young peo W Quaker Monthly, Francis D. Hole of Madison, ple in the art of community living." Wisconsin, says that Friends' schools "are ourselves, our. Just what kind of instruction that training should Quakerism, and some of our secular culture made visible. consist of is a question on which Quaker (as well as secu Not all that we see of this mixture is to our liking or lar) opinion has changed tremendously through the years. bears the light of conscience.... Very much that we In the school overseers' minutes for 1769 quoted by Jean see in them is wholesome and inspiring. They give us Straub a strong protest was made against having pupils a special opportunity for growth in truth. Th,ey make an read any books dealing with ancient Greek or Roman inestimable contribution to Quakerism and to society mythology. "Is it not monstrous?" a school usher com at large." plained. "That Christian Children intended to believe Probably few would find fault with this statement, and relish the Truths of the Gospel should have their although there are some, both Quaker and otherwise, earliest and most retentive years imbued with the shock who maintain that in today's equalitarian world there ing Legends and abominable Romances of the worst of is no place for schools catering to a privileged minority. Heathens should be obliged to be Pimps to the detest How different the attitude of eighteenth-century Ameri able Lusts of Jupiter & Mars attend the thefts & Vilainy can Friends was on this subject is indicated by extracts of Mercury or follow Aneas on his Murdering Progress. from minutes of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting quoted . .. Perhaps you may say they will get acquainted with by Jean Straub in "Quaker School Life in Philadelphia the Latin Poets, those eldest Sons of Satan those High before 1800," a fascinating account published in the Priests of the Kingdom of Darkness. Will the Lacivious autumn issue of The Pennsylvania Magazine of History Ovid teach them Chastity the Epicurean Horace Sobriety and Biography. These minutes regularly spoke of "the the impudent Juvenal Modesty or the atheistick Lucre contaminating influence of evil communications and ex tion Devotion?" amples," and parents were admonished to keep their chil In the interest of harmonious accord perhaps it is just dren away from "connexion with such whose Example as well that those seventeenth-century overseers could not and Conduct are injurious to their moral & religious edu have had a preview of curriculums of some of today's cation." The Monthly Meeting's overseers agreed that Friends' schools which include in their assigned or sug perhaps the safest solution to problems of this sort was gested reading matter certain books so filled with nihil to refuse to receive "into their schools any but Children istic philosophy and once-banned four-letter words as to of our own religious Society or those who make Profes cause some adults to shake their heads with a bewildered sion with us and attend our religious Meetings." "What-are-we-coming-to?" air. It will be recalled that In fact, one of the rules laid down for "Scholars" at Francis Hole says, in the Quaker Monthly letter quoted a Friends' school in Philadelphia in 1748 was "That none above, that "Not all that we see of this mixture is to our shall at any time play or keep Company with the rude liking"; it may be that the no-holds-barred permissive Boys of the Town but shall converse, as much as they ness of much contemporary Quaker education is a reac can, with their schoolfellows." tion from earlier centuries' overprotectiveness against The change two centuries have brought in this atti some of the ruder and more revolting facts of life out tude of guarded exclusiveness is attested by the efforts side of their own carefully guarded communities.