Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" Part 3

A wonderful soul has journeyed Out from the Now into Then, Her voice echoes back to us, waiting, The sound of the great Amen.

Resolutions and Tributes From Clubs

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fac-simile of resolutions adopted by the Woman's Press Club of New York, January 11, 1902.]

Resolutions of the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs

In Memoriam

_Mrs. Jane Cunningham Croly_

We have tenderly laid away to rest our beloved honorary president, Jane Cunningham Croly, to sleep the blessed sleep that knows no waking in this toilsome, troublous world.

Her gentle soul is at peace, her personal work is accomplished, her useful life is ended. She has been taken from further pain and further labor, to that existence where all is perfect peace, perfect rest, perfect rhythm.

We wish to place upon our records, therefore, our appreciation of the fact, that this New York State Federation of Women's Clubs has suffered such a loss as can come but once to any, a loss like that of a loving mother to an affectionate child.

We shall miss her at our meetings, at our larger gatherings, and at our conventions.

We shall hold her, and the desires of her heart in relation to us, in loving and constant memory.

And we purpose to take up her work, where she laid it down, and carry it on with the same unselfish aims, high ideals, and unremitting patience with which she labored, until we shall reach the goal upon which her fa.r.s.eeing eyes were fastened, and her great heart was set.

f.a.n.n.y HALLOCK CARPENTER.

February 13, 1902.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Resolutions adopted by The Society of American Women in London, March 24th, 1902.]

The Croly Memorial Fund of the Pioneer Club of London

_First Annual Report_

In July, 1900, a fund was raised by the exertions of Mrs. E.S.

Willard, to present a life members.h.i.+p of the Pioneer Club to Mrs. Jane Cunningham Croly, known to all who are interested in woman's work as "Jenny June."

Mrs. Croly had a special claim to this distinction, for she was the originator of women's clubs. The first woman's club was founded by her in New York, March, 1868, under the name of "Sorosis." The example was quickly followed elsewhere, and when, in 1889, Sorosis, to celebrate its majority, called a convention of women's clubs, ninety-seven were known to exist in the United States. This convention led to a Federation with biennial meetings. In 1896, the Federation included one thousand four hundred and twenty-five dubs. The Pioneer is the only English woman's club which belongs to the Federation.

Mrs. Croly's activities were not confined to clubs, although up to the time of her death the movement owed much to her wisdom and energy. She was a journalist, a writer, an admirable critic, and all her life a devoted worker for every movement that could raise the position of women.

She was a dear and valued friend of Mrs. Marsingberd, the president and founder of this club. It was a recognition of their unity of spirit and purpose that made the response of this club so ready that the only life-members.h.i.+p as yet presented, was offered to Mrs. Croly.

She was deeply gratified, but unfortunately did not live long enough to enjoy a privilege which she highly esteemed. Her useful, loving, laborious life ended in December, 1901. But she had been among us from time to time. Her interest in us never flagged, and we prize some tokens of her regard. Nor shall we soon forget the stirring words she addressed to us on two occasions, pointing out the opportunities which our a.s.sociation gave for useful work and sympathy.

When the life-members.h.i.+p fee had been paid, some money still remained, and when the question arose as to what should be done with it, Lady Hamilton made the valuable suggestion that it should be used as the foundation of a fund to be called "The Mrs. Croly Memorial Fund," to be applied in sisterly loving kindness to such cases as might arise within the club, where urgent material help was needed. This suggestion was heartily welcomed by a small provisional meeting called by Mrs. E.S. Willard, October 15, 1902, when preliminary steps were taken. At a second meeting, November 25, a definite const.i.tution was formed for the administration of the fund.

It is hoped that the members of the Pioneer Club will do all they can to support this fund, for it is an effort to give some tangible expression to the principles which governed the lives of both Mrs.

Croly and our own president. They always unselfishly tried to give loving help to sister women.

January 27, 1903.

The Positivist Episode

_By Thaddeus B. Wakeman_

"The Positivist Episode was a positive factor in my life."--MRS. CROLY.

Those were bright, sunny, happy, idyllic, and fruitful days of the Positivist Episode, when the first of the two following letters which my wife and I now contribute to the "Memories of Mrs. Croly," were written. That episode, of which these letters represent the beginning, and the end throws an explaining light not only over the life of her whom this memorial is to honor, but over that of her husband, who pa.s.sed to the higher life in 1889; and largely also over the lives of others more or less a.s.sociated with, or affected by, the introduction of the study and culture of Positivism into America, of which they may be regarded as the chief promoters.

Yes, as friends of Mrs. Croly and of those dear to her, we may well recall, as she often did, this Positivist Episode as among the pleasantest of her--and may we not also add of ours?--earthly days.

The first letter shows the movement well under way, when meetings had begun to be held, and visits to be made to the homes of those deeply interested. Never shall we forget the first of those visits made by Mrs. Croly to our then "almost out of town" home in 116th street, where our house, pleasantly overlooking the East River, was clothed with trees and vines. The Catawbas on a large trellis, trained in stories with upright canes, excited her admiration, and she a.s.sured us that she had "never seen nor eaten anybody's grapes with such delight." Naturally, a basket or two of grapes soon followed to her home away down and over to the other side of town at number 19 Bank street. Thus the "vines" and "fruit" referred to in her letter are explained; and with them was thus a.s.sociated in holy sympathy her love with ours of "the kindly fruits of the earth." Mr. Croly also referred to gifts of this kind in the New York _World_--thirty varieties of grapes raised under and in proof of the "law of correlation, expounded by the raiser as the law which held us of the world together."

But when our turn came as Positivist students to visit at their home, we found the cosey parlors well filled with the higher samples and fruits of human culture and intellect. Mrs. Croly's social position, sustained by the ability of Mr. Croly and his prominence as managing editor of the New York _World_, and afterwards of the _Graphic_, enabled her to call together the leaders, and many interested in the then (and now?) two leading schools of scientific and constructive thought; the Positivist school of Augusta Comte, represented by Henry Edgar and partly also by Mr. Croly and others; and also in contrast therewith, the Synthetic Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, represented by Edward L. Youmans, John Fiske and others. Nor were there wanting those who, like the present writer, would combine those two schools, and more, into the scientific and republican growth of our newer world and life in America.

The initiative of these meetings was a course of lectures procured by Mr. Croly, to be delivered by Mr. Edgar at De Garmo Hall early in 1868. Out of the interest thus excited, Mr. and Mrs. Croly called around them the elements above referred to, including, among miscellaneous attendants, perhaps a hundred earnest students of Positivism and of the higher religious and scientific philosophies.

The meetings were not always held at the homes mentioned, but at the home of Mr. Courtlandt Palmer and of other partic.i.p.ants. All the parties named, and many others, took part in the discussions of this unorganized circle, until its name and influence reached and interested generally the thinkers of the city. This interest, as the years rolled on, resulted in or influenced the forming of many societies, among which were a Positivist Society, the Society of Humanity, the New York and Manhattan Liberal Clubs, the Philosophic Society of Brooklyn, the Nineteenth Century Club, the Goethe Society, and indirectly a Dante Society and several others. All of the clubs and societies of women with which Mrs. Croly and her work have been a.s.sociated may be thus included. Certain it is that this "positive factor" in her life was the source from which the new, altruistic inspiration originally came which made her finally recognized as the "Mother of Women's Clubs" and of their beneficent influences--the new life, light, and hope of women, of which they are the beginning.

Nor less should be said for the literature that has sprung from the same source. It began with the "Positivist's Calendar," by Mr. Edgar, and Professor Youmans's admirable collection of articles, and the introduction, on "Correlation" of the physical and other forces, published by Appleton, and never to be outgrown. Then Professor Fiske published in the New York _World_ his able series of lectures on the "Positive Philosophy," which some think he weakened by turning into the "Cosmic Philosophy." Then (for further details are not in place here) Mr. and Mrs. Croly and Mr. Bell and most of us went into literature in some way, to an extent that made quite a library, now mostly lost or forgotten. Would that I could "lend continuance to the time" of those disputants, and show why and how they drifted apart instead of together! For the shadow of oblivion seems to be creeping over all; and against that I, as the last survivor, seem to be their only and yet their helpless protector. Yet we can now see, as they mostly did not, that their divergence was really a "differentiation process,"

leading each to a higher integration of truth.

Thus, what I cannot do for each, the volunteer seeding of time is doing silently for all, though they noticed not the good seed they scattered. For instance, Mr. Croly wished these words to be placed over his grave: "I meant well, tried a little, failed much." He saw not that the sound seed of which he was a real and great sower, were his well-meant and effective efforts to bring Positivism, as the sum and synthesis of science and humanity, before all thoughtful American people, as the real religion and basis of their modern life. That view of life was then new, but now it is replacing or changing all dogmatic or supernatural religions. In a word, modern scientific thought is becoming practical, constructive, and positive in religion; directed more and more toward advantages in the human future on this earth. The real basis of sentiment is the new science of Sociology and the new sense of altruism--first named by Auguste Comte and first brought to the American people in and by this "Positivist Episode."

It is by the up-coming of such seed as was then sown, that the old issues and their old world have been replaced by the new; which we should gratefully inherit from those sowers. It is said that they seemed to look upon much of their life as failure because they did not see the harvest in their day as the direct result of their hands. How strange that the faith of evolution did not give them the "after sight" which is the crown and reward of those who "mean well," and who "work and hope!"

To Mrs. Croly did come not only the well-wis.h.i.+ng and the patient labor, but also a foretaste of her reward. Her days were extended until her purposes fulfilled met the grat.i.tude of her successors. Even "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," referred to in her last letter to us, were warded off by the human providence which, in her own words, "realizes the eternal goodness of the perfection of the order which governs the universe."

Thus her friends.h.i.+ps with the many she loved and served have closed with unalloyed satisfaction--to me and mine a sincere friend for more than thirty years! And no words come that I might wish unsaid unless these: "Be careful now, for I have told more than one that you are my G.o.d-father!"

From Mrs. Croly to Mr. Wakeman