000834 Modern SchoolofStelton "'5 TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVER"SARY 19'tO . " , », FRANC IS CO FERRER 18 59 - 1 9 ° 9 EDUCATOR· REBEL· MARTYR PUB LISHED BY MODERN SCHOOL OF STELTON. N. J. • MAY NINETEEN ·FORTY nO~!DA ATL'A !e U IVER 1 LIBRARY SOCIALIST - LA BO . r.nll Fr.T10N MODERN SCHOOL OF STELTON 25th ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE Arthur S. Samuels Exe cutive Committee SPONSORS: Chairman Anna Block Henry Alsberg Morris Feinstone Marc Mratchny Joseph J . Cohen Sally Axelrod Elizabeth and Alexis Ferm Rose Pesotta Claire Comorau Co-Chairman Ro ger Bal dwin Henry Fruchter I. Radinowsky Baskin Emma Cohen Louis Raymond Simon Farber J. Harry Kell y Thomas Bell Abe Goldman M. Ricco Treasurer -Samuel Freedman Dr. S. Berlin Mary Hansen Henry Schni ttkind Abe Bluestein Hutchins Hapgood Anna Schwartz Masha Hochman Abe Grosner Max Bluestein Hippolyte Havel John Scott Nicholas Kirtzman S. Klonin Sheindel Bluestein Julius Hochman Paul and Polly Scott Secretaries Yossel Bluestein D. Isakowitz Bernard Shane Minna Lowensohn Bertha Chasick Joseph Ishill B. Share Harry and Sonia Clemens M. Jagendorf Nat Marer Samuel Shore Fannia M. Cohn Philip Kapp Anna Sosnofsky Editorial Commit tee Elsie Kelly Marer Anthony Crivello Stewart Kerr Sol Vinick Leonard D. Abbo tt Dora Pearl J im and Nellie Dick Lillian Kisluik Harry Weinberger Joseph J . Cohen Kate and John Edelman Louis Le vy Abe Winokur I. Pilat Abe Grosner Marc Epstein Eugene Lyons Carl Zigrosser H arry Kell y Sam Rothman Israel Feinberg Ray Porter Miller CONCERT AND REUNION Ball Room, Hotel Diplomat 108 West 43rd Street, N. Y. C. FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1940, 8:30 P. M. * * * ARTHUR SAMUELS GREETINGS: ALEXIS FERM, MANUEL KOMROFF, RUDOLF ROCKER AND OTHERS ' LEONARD D. ABBOTT, CHAIRMAN * * * RAY PORTER MILLER, SOPRANO GDAL SALESKY, CELLIST CLARA FREEDMAN AND EDITH FRIEDMAN AT THE PIANO DANCING AFTER II:30 CGo months almost to the day after the conference in the Rand School. called to discuss and to organize a fitting celebration, we are here with this modest offer­ ing to the friends and sympathizers of the Modern School and of the monumental contribution which Ferrer made to progressive, libertarian education. Possibly our efforts, as embodied in this publication, are not altogether commen­ surate with the aim we had set for ourselves, nor adequate for such a memorable occasion; but friends will understand-others we will serenely disregard. Many of us to whom the Ferrer Modern School served as a harbinger of a new day were reluctant, in spite of this epoch of blackouts and carnage, to let the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the School in the Ferrer Colony go by unmarked. And although fully aware of the meager means at our disposal and the limited forces in our midst we determined to make an earnest endeavor. , Whatever this is then, in the final result, let it serve as one more token of the indelible impress which Ferrer's life, work and martyrdom made on countless adherents the world over, and which inspired us here to follow, even if but few -if any-ever succeeded in emulating that fountain of energy and idealism which was Ferrer. If this publication, conceived and born in haste, will serve to reawaken a dor~ant interest in libertarian education in some, to kindle a spark in others, we shall be gratified in the thought that this attempt was worth making. Editorial Committee ABE GROSNER, Secretary , VERY SAD INDEED IS THE NEWS OF EMMA GOLDMAN'S DEATH, PARTICULARLY AT THIS TIME OF OUR PREPARATIONS FOR FESTIVITIES AND JUST AS WE ARE ABOUT TO GO TO PRESS . UNFORTUNATELY, FOR TECHNICAL REASONS, IT IS IM­ POSSIBLE TO DEVOTE PROPER SPACE TO AN ADEQUATE EVALUATION OF THE GREAT PERSONALITY WHO, IN ADDITION TO HER MANY OTHER ACTIVITIES, WAS ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE MODERN SCHOOL. MAY HER SPIRIT AND IN- FLUENCE LIVE LONG IN OUR MEMORIESl WEARE GRATEFUV to all our sympathizers and friends who with their contributions have made this publication possible. May we at the same time urge those who for some reason have not given their contribution, to do so now and thus help us republish this material in a more handy format, in the very near future? The names of such additional contributors, as well as those contained herein, will appear in the forthcoming edition. Address communications to Abe Grosner, Secretary, 45 West 17th Street, New York City, N. Y., and make checks payable to Harry Kelly, Treasurer. ~4'8 MARSTIN PRESS, INC., NEW YORK CITY FERRER'S HEAD SIRE, THE CROWN PRINCE WILL SOON BECOME A DEVOTED SON OF THE CHURCH; WE MUST TRAIN HIM BEFOREHAND TO PLAY AROUND WITH THE BEST HEADS OF OUR COUNTRY. (Sim.plicissimus, November IgOg) The Slain Prophet By LEONARD D. ABBOTT R AN CISCO FERRER was the morning star of an Mlle. Meunier was a Roman Catholic and unsympa­ F aborted, Spanish revolution. Everything that has thetic with radical ideas when she engaged Ferrer as a happened in Spain during the last three decades-the teacher. But she was a person of independent ideas; long travail toward a juster social order; the expulsion she had been strongly influenced by the Dreyfus case; of King Alphonso XIII; the establishment of the Span­ and on the day when she finished Emile Zola's novel, ish Republic; the counter-Revolution of Francisco "Truth," she espoused the cause of Dreyfus. Later, as Franco-can be related to the fateful October day in a result of her conversations with Ferrer and of her 1909 on which Ferrer was slain. reading of books, such as Volney's "Ruins of Empires," He was born on a farm at the village of AlelIa, near which Ferrer gave to her, she began to share his en­ Barcelona, in 1859. His parents were vine-dressers. Like thusiasms. Ferrer was ever a crusader in behalf of ideas their neighbors they were orthodox Roman Catholics that appealed to him. "I cannot conceive of life without and believed what their priest (who was probably the propaganda," he said. During this period he met Ana­ only man in Alella able to read) told them. One of the tole France, the greatest French writer of his time, and. things that he may have told them was that popu­ Elisee Reclus, geographer and encyclopedist, and cor­ lar education is an evil and that radicals are emissaries responded with Peter Kropotkin and Ernst HaeckeI. of Satan. The boy Francisco at the age of thirteen was The instrument by which he hoped to achieve the without education-a fact which made him sympathetic emancipation of Spain was now education, instead of with others similarly deprived. violent revolution. He had arrived at .the conclusion He developed into a youth of independent and vigor­ that the employment of violence is useless; that, despite ous character. The Roman Catholic training imposed its apparent swiftness, it is the slowest method in the upon him he rejected. The spirit of religious and end. He said: political revolt was in his blood. "Time respects only those institutions which time For a short period he held a position as railroad in­ itself has played its part in building up: That which spector, but his heart was not in his work. He regarded violence wins for us today, another act of violence his occupation simply as a method of providing sub­ may wrest from us tomorrow. Those stages of progress sistence while he prepared himself to labor for the real­ are alone durable which have rooted themselves in the ization of an ideal that was dominating his every wak- . mind and conscience of mankind before receiving the ing moment. This ideal was the emancipation of Spain final sanction of legislators. The only means of realiz­ from the Roman Catholic and monarchist blight. ing what is good is to teach it by education and propa­ In 1879 he proclaimed himself a republican. When gate it by example." Sixty-eight per cent of the Spanish Santa-Coloma de Farnes and General Villa Campa people were unable to read. Most of the Roman Catho­ made insurrectionary attempts to overthrow the Span­ lic schools were grossly inadequate both in equipment ish monarchy and to inaugurate a republic, he allied and in the quality of their teachers. What was needed, himself with them. After the failure of these attempts Ferrer contended, was a new system of education in­ he fled to Paris. There he became secretary to the Span­ spired by faith in the human future rather than in ish republican leader, Ruiz Zorilla. antique religious dogmas. Mlle. Meunier grew into At this time, under the stress of economic necessity, fuller and fuller symypathy with his ideals, and when he discovered his vocation: he decided to be a teacher. she died left him a large bequest. His kind heart made him an excellent mentor, a suc­ Ferrer went back to Barcelona and founded the cessful educator, an apostle of modern scientific in­ Escuela Modenna. In this pioneer educational work he struction. He soon was a familiar figure in centers of manifested real genius. The first of his schools was adult education in Paris. In the rooms of the Masonic opened in 1901. It soon absorbed a number of other order, the Grand Orient in the Rue Cadet, he taught schools established in Catalonia and elsewhere; by every night through 1897. He also gave private lessons 1904 forty schools had copied its textbooks. The num­ in Spanish. ber of schools finally reached 120. The curriculum of One of Ferrer's pupils was Mlle. Ernestine Meunier, these schools included the following program of sub­ a Frenchwoman who with her mother had inherited jects and illustrated studies: three million francs from her father.