ETHICAL MOVEMENT AND ETH ICAL SOCIETIES IN AMERICA AND ABROAD. The first Ethical Society was established and the Ethical Movement inaugu rated in 1876 in New York by Felix Adler, then a lecturer at Cornell University. In re sponse to a call, several hundred persons met in May at Standard Hall and at the conclusion of Professor Adler's address, outlining the purpose and spirit of the proposed organization, the Society for Ethical Culture of New York was constituted. In this address he appealed to his auditors to unfurl a new flag of peace and con ciliation over the bloody battlegrounds where religions had fought in the past; he laid stress upon the urgent need of a higher and sterner morality to cope with the moral perils of the hour, especially noting the growing laxity that accompanied the decline of discredited forms of religious belief ; and he placed peculiar emphasis upon the duty of caring for the moral education of the young. The society thus initiated grew rapidly, and soon gave practical effect to his program. Within a few years it had established a free kindergarten for the children of the poor, the first of its kind in New York; and this de veloped into a workingman's school, based upon the Froebelian pedagogy, which was the first school to introduce manual training and system atic ethical instruction into the curriculum. It also inaugurated a system of trained nurses for the poor, which has since become an adjunct of dispensary out-door relief in the city. Nor were the larger social and political applications of morality to contemporary life neglected: its leader devoting special attention in his platform utterances to the labor problem and specific social reforms, as being at bottom great moral issues. His vigorous exposure of the evils of the tenement houses bore fruit in the creation of the Tenement House Commission of 1884, of which he was appointed a member. He also was among the first advocates of small parks in the congested districts, of public playgrounds and public baths; and, above all, of greater jus tice and humanity in the relations between labor and capital, employer and employed. The Labor
party here found a new type of advocate; and reformers and politicians a platform from which the issues, of the hour were brought to the touchstone of ethical first principles.
Meanwhile, the society filled more and more the place of a church in the lives of its hitherto unchurched members. It did not neglect the problems of the personal life, but aimed to illuminate and inspire its members in their dealings with the problems of the home and the vocation, family relations, marriage, the training of the young, etc. Its position as a distinctive religious organization became better understood and its religious appeal more for cibly felt, while its practical educational and philanthropic activities continued to multiply. Its schools, testifying to its conviction that moral improvement must begin with the care and education of the young, expanded until kindergarten normal and high school depart ments were added. These expansions necessi tated greatly enlarged quarters; the society therefore erected at Central Park West and 63d Street a thoroughly modernized school build ing, tiext to which an appropriately dignified meeting place and society-house were later on added. This thoroughly equipped schoolhouse has enabled the society to fulfil its cherished aim of having a model and experimental school, standing for the highest ideals of non-sectarian education and the most efficient pedagogical method of realizing them. Many significant developments have taken place including unique Arts High School. What distinguishes these from many other similar schools is their demo cratic organization and spirit; like the public schools, they educate children both of the well-to-do and of the poor, a generous pro portion of free pupils being admitted under a system of free scholarships endowed by the society.