Randolph Bourne on education Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Horsman, Susan Alice, 1937- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 05/10/2021 18:30:39 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/317858 RANDOLPH BOURNE ON EDUCATION by Susam Horsmam A Thesis Submitted t© the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the.Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE. UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 6 5 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library0 Brief quotations from this, thesis are al­ lowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended.quotation from or re­ production of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below? . J. WILSON " Jj'ate Professor of History PREFACE It is net difficult to select an episode in history that is merely ninteresting1’0 Many of us are sufficiently gossips and meddlers to discover that probing past events and lives is, in many respects, a pleasant diversion» Ran­ dolph Bourne’s career bore many aspects of martyrdom as well as a touch of Bohemianism, and the study of his life easily becomes seductive and the fine, lucid style of his essays and criticism infectious„ It would be difficult not to sympathize with and admire Bourne, and equally as difficult not to become impatient, in time, with his naivety and petulance» Perhaps Bourne did have the ’’prophetic” destiny he claimed for him­ self, the enigmatic quality of ’’charisma”o One escape from mere sympathy is to attempt to set Bourne firmly in his historical context, and the most obvious setting is alongside John Dewey, his professor at Columbia, his philosophical mentor, and, at last, his rival for the po­ sition of intellectual leadership in the editorial offices of Hew York’s literary publications0 A comparison of Bourne’s and Dewey’s ideas is historically significant, also, because of the frequency of their selections of the same topics for discussion— socialism, democracy, liberalism, military con­ scription, America’s foreign policy and public education0 Their debates provide perspective oa the problems and proposals that characteristically are compiled to describe the elusive movement called wPr©gressivism1?o Terms, such as localism, middle class, progress and, especially, liberalism, become both more specific and complex with the realization that the ^Progressive^ generation had arrived at no consensus of definitions. Still they considered such concepts, vague as they were, the basic elements of a formula that would as­ sure a democratic future for America. Bourne and Dewey— and, most likely, Herbert Croly, Charles Beard, Walter Lipp- man, ?an Wyek Brooks and Lewis Mumford— agreed on one essen­ tial point, that America had not yet achieved democracy. They thought of themselves as advance agents of an evolving reality. To make the world safe for democracy was not, in the thinking of these men, to conserve tradition but to insist on the future. But Bourne fell out of step with Dewey, and with other Progressives, when he tried to envision and describe the promised house of many mansions. The Progressive movement was concerned with Americars democratic mission as a practical so­ cial problem. Bourne’s Utopianism was of another spirit than the instrumentally-oriented program of his contemporaries for political, economic and social revision. Bourne could net sustain his optimism about America’s promise because he lacked the circumspect attitude which was an integral part of the V qualified optimigm that made ^Progressivism” a hybrid phil©- sephy of practical ideals0 I would like to thank the Columbia University Libraries for making readily available the Bourne Manuscript Collection, as well as their other facilities and source ma­ terial; the University of Arizona Interlibrary Loan depart­ ment; Professor Russell C 0 Ewing, head of the History Depart­ ment, and Professor Herman E„ Bateman, for their active interest in my academic efforts, and Professor Ro J= Wilson, for his guidance and encouragemento TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ©o©ooooo©©©ooo oo©oeooo VDLIL I, FROM PROPHECY TO RESIGNATION o. 1 H o MAN OF A NEW FAITH = e 0 « © » <, . © « - „ © = « 35 III© WITHOUT HONOR © = © © © © © © © © © © = © © © © 6 4 I? © CONCLUSION oooooooo ©000000 oooe 92 BIBLIOGRAPHY ©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©o©©© 97 vi ABSTRACT Randolph Bourne$ a literary and social critic in New York from 1911 until 1918s when he died, achieved most of his notoriety as the result of a series of essays opposing the war and the Progressives<= Early in his career Bourne had been interested in radical political theory as the solution t,o the materialism of middle class America, but he became disillu­ sioned at the outbreak of war in Europe, when the people in whom he had hoped proved to be an inarticulate mass subject to the manipulation of the ruling classes* As a contributor to The Seven Arts and The Dial magazines, he allied himself, rather, with a new literary philosophy which proposed that the artist assume the responsi­ bility of inspiring the gregarious masses to a sense of dedi­ cated individualism, a necessary prerequisite for the evolu­ tion of America to democracy* Bourne? s pacifist essays blamed the Progressive leadership for abandoning their responsibility and allowing America to drift into the arena of imperialist polities * Bourne himself, however, abandoned his dreams for a revolutionized social order* His final thoughts were that progress toward a rejuvenated America could be measured only in terms of personal integrity* Ic FROM PROPHECY TO RESIGNATION Even before Randolph Bourne died, his reputation had some of the qualities of a mytho His body was maimed, and to himself and to his friends the physical distortion seemed literally to embody the distortion of the times» Arthur Maemahon, a classmate of Bourne8s at Columbia Uni­ versity, once told how peasant women in Italy would cross themselves in awe when Bourne visited their village streets, and crowds of children trail in wonder after the young stranger from America0 Bourne appeared as fia bird-like ap­ parition® to Van Wyck Brooks when he first met Bourne, wrapped in a German student’s cloak«• James Oppenheim, edi­ tor of The Seven Arts, recalled recoiling in horror when Bourne first introduced himself, seeking a position on the magazine’s editorial board= I shall never forget how I first had to overcome my repugnance when X saw that child’s body, the humped back, the longish, almost medieval face, with a sewed up mouth, and an ear gone awry* But he wore a cape, carried himself with an air, arid then you listened to marvellous speech, often brilliant, holding you, spell-bound, and looked into blue eyes as young as a Spring dawn, ‘ Maemahon, who was also Bourne’s European traveling companion, thought that Bourne’s deformed ear was almost more repulsive than his hunched back. Bourne had a well-formed forehead, mose and eyes- and a powerfuls large jaw* But, according to Macmahon, a receeding chin bothered Bourne more than anything about his appearance*^ Bourners hunched back was a defect almost from birth, but aside from the fact that he was born whole, no one, ap­ parently, knew for certain the exact circumstances of his dis­ figurement* Some believed that, as an infant, he fell from a high window; others, that the spinal deformity resulted from tuberculosis which he contracted at the age of four* 2 Just as Bourne never discussed his physical disability, he rarely talked about his father, Charles Bourne, who left his family when Bourne was almost too young to remember him* Charles Bourne, whose ancestors were traditionally ministers, apparently was engaged in business enterprises that failed* Macmahon, reminiscing, ^assumed® that there was a divorce and surmised that "from some ?indeterminate date* the small Bourne family was virtually subsidized*" Randolph Bourne and his sister, Natalie, just two years younger than he, used to Columbia University Libraries, Randolph Bourne Manuscript Collection, Arthur Macmahon to Louis Filler, un­ dated; All letters cited hereafter are part of this collec­ tion; Manuscripts from the collection will be designated, "Bourne MSS;" James Oppenheim, "The Story of the Seven Arts," The American .Mercury* 20 (June, 1930), 163;and Van Wyck Brooks, ed*, The History of a Literary Radical and Other Papers (New York: S* A* Russell, ^Agnes Delima to Dorothy Teall, undated; B* S< Bates, "Randolph Bourne," The Dictionary of American Biographs * eds=, Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, (new York: Charles Seribner*s Sons, 1937) H , 4$6* visit with their father after the separation, until Charles Bourne withdrew from their lives and became a part of Bourne?s somewhat obscure originso3 His mother, Sara, ”a well-bred person, kindly, genu­ ine, quite naive,1* and "vaguely ineffectual," brought her two sons and two daughters home with her to Bloomfield, Hew Jer­ sey, when Bourne, the eldest, was eight years old. Her fami­ ly was an old and respected pillar of the quiet town, some thirty miles distant from Hew York.