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History of the Twilight
Club
Laara Lindo
In the later decades of the 19th Century, the British philosopher, Herbert
Spencer, took an honest look at world trends and predicted that
civilization was on a downward trend, for culture, beauty and ethical
practices were neglected in society. He believed that politicians were
not likely or able to change the trends. If there was to be a change,
how would it come about? He believed the poets, visionary thinkers and
artists of the world would have the solution. In Britain he inspired
men such as Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Darwin
to consider the problem. In America, his friends Ralph Waldo Emerson,
James Howard Bridge, Richard Watson Gilder, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Walt
Whitman, Edwin Markham, Henry Holt, John Burroughs, Mark Twain and
Andrew Carnegie took up the question. These men, searching for a way in
which to change the negative direction of society to positive action,
formed a gathering, calling themselves the Twilight Club, because they
met at twilight—not simply the twilight of the day, but, as they saw
the situation, they were meeting at the evening twilight of the 19th
Century and the morning twilight of the 20th Century—at the twilight of
civilization, unless the downward trend could be stopped.
Their conviction was that world peace, harmony and unity would only
come about through the brotherhood of man. They were convinced that a
person’s moral creed could not remain as words and platitudes, but must
be translated into action. Building on this idea, they formed The
Poets’ Code of Ethics, intended as a worldwide moral code that
related strictly to how people acted towards each other, the ethical
nature of the code being based on the concept of service to others and
to the world.
The
First Era
1870's - 1895
The Founders
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Herbert
Spencer
“The leading traits of a code [of ethics], under which complete
living through voluntary cooperation is secured, may be simply
stated. The fundamental requirement is that the life-sustaining
actions of each shall severally bring him the amounts and kinds of
advantage naturally achieved by them ... the highest life being
reached only when besides helping to complete one another’s lives by
specified reciprocities of aid, men otherwise help to complete one
another’s lives.”
—from The Data of Ethics
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an
inlet to the same and to all of the same. Who hath access to this
universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is
the only and sovereign agent.”
—History
“Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed;
for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the
means, the fruit in the seed.”
—from Compensation
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Walt
Whitman
“I dreamed in a dream I saw a city invincible
to the whole rest of the earth,
I dream’d that was the new city of friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality
of robust love, it led the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions
of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.”
—from Leaves of Grass
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Edwin Markham
“Our hope is in heroic men,
Star-led to build the world again.
To this event the ages ran:
Make way for Brotherhood-
make way for Man.”
—from Brotherhood
“In vain we build the city
if we do not first build the man.”
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Andrew
Carnegie
“Since the civilized world is now united by electric bonds into
one body in constant and instant communication, it is largely interdependent
and rapidly becoming more so. No nation can go to war now against
another nation without going to war against all humanity. The world
has become a family.”
—1907 Andrew Carnegie was then President of the
New York Peace Society
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Mark Twain
“Mark Twain’s religion was a faith too wide for doctrines-a
benevolence too limitless for creeds. From the beginning he strove
against oppression, sham, and evil in every form. He despised
meanness; he resented ... everything that savored of persecution or a
curtailment of human liberties.”
—from Mark Twain, A Biography by Albert Bigelow Paine
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Other prominent members of the original Twilight Club were:
James Howard Bridge, who later became Herbert Spencer’s American
secretary, and who worked with Walter Russell for a number of years in
this movement
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Judge in the Supreme Court of the United
States, author of The Common Law, friend of Emerson, Lowell and
William James.
John Burroughs, naturalist, who wrote The Gospel of Nature.
Richard Watson Gilder, at that time President and Editor of the Century
magazine.
Henry Holt, the publisher
The Second Era
1895-1921
The Ethical Movement Continues Action
Walter Russell was twenty-four years of
age in 1895, when he joined the Twilight Club. Between that time and
1921, leading workers in this ethical movement were:
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Walter Russell
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James Howard
Bridge
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Edwin Markham
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Helen Knox
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Charles De Kay
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Alexis Carrel
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Dan Beard
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John Dewey
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Andrew Carnegie
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Robert
Collier
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Richard La Gallienne
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Cornelius
Vanderbilt
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Sophie Irene Loeb
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Mrs. Harry P.
Whitney
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August Heckscher
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Irving
Bacheller
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Rudyard Kipling
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Ralph Waldo
Trine
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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Hamlin
Garland
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Theodore Roosevelt
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Lee De Forest
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Calvin Coolidge
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John
Habberton
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George Gould
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Irvin Cobb
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Louis Tiffany
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Walter
Damrosch
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Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler
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Jesse Laskey
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Ernest Thompson Seton
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Michael Pupin
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Adolph Ochs
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William
Childs
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During the second era, the Twilight
Club members met at various houses in New York, most frequently at the
home of Richard Watson Gilder. Various members and invited guests
presided as speakers at these meetings, Andrew Carnegie, Edwin Markham,
Walter Russell and Theodore Roosevelt being among these.
Andrew Carnegie strongly advocated the necessity of spreading the seeds
of culture, morality and ethics. He promised to endow millions for
educational purposes—particularly through building libraries. He also
organized the Authors’ Club, providing a house on 34th Street in New
York, entirely free of charge providing that each member of the club
agreed to write something every year that had a direct bearing on and
reference to the moral code of ethics.
The Twilight Club movement inspired many written works related to the
code. Others besides writers became equally engaged in action. Out of
this visionary effort came the Scout movement, started by Lord
Baden-Powell in England and Dan Beard in America. The Chicago group was
inspired to form a branch of the Twilight Club, which included an
Authors’ Club. As their meetings were ‘rotated’ from house to house,
they eventually named their group the Rotary Club, now the Rotary Club
International, with millions of members all over the world devoted to
service. Other service clubs followed, such as the Kiwanis and the
Lions.
Others inspired by the Twilight Club vision, such as Edwin Markham and
Sophie Irene Loeb, worked to bring about change in social conditions,
such as the elimination of sweatshops, compulsory education and child
labor laws. Eugene Grace, president of the Bethlehem Steel Company, and
Adolph Ochs, owner of the New York Times, worked to establish
advertising censorship. Thomas J. Watson and Walter Russell campaigned
for the elimination of the caveat emptor practice of business, which
eventually led to the establishment of the Better Business Bureaus.
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"Build
thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
That thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Til then at length are free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea."
-from The Chambered Nautilus,
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior
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Third
Era: 1921-1927
Society of Arts and Science
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Organized
by Walter Russell, Edwin Markham, & Thomas J. Watson
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After the war years, Thomas J. Watson, head of International
Business Machines, became inspired by the ideals of the ethical
movement organized by Herbert Spencer, wanting the business world to
practice these principles. He offered to pay all expenses necessary for
the club activities. He, Walter Russell and Edwin Markham decided to
stress culture as well as ethics, since culture stems from the arts,
for World War One had caused a drop in cultural growth and patronage of
the arts. They decided to call this extension of the Twilight Club, The
Society of Arts and Science. Taking leadership, Thomas J. Watson and
Walter Russell—who lectured for twelve years to IBM employees on better
business practices—worked with others, such as Francis Sisson, from the
banking, business and legal world, to uplift the standards of industry,
law and justice.
Fourth
Era: 1927-1935
Society of Arts and Science
Walter Russell took over the presidency of The Society of Arts and
Science for seven years. During this period, the Bronx River Parkway
was built, beautifying New York, and becoming a model for the rest of
the country. Also during this era, the Society of Arts and Science gave
medals in recognition of genius in the arts and sciences. As well, the
efforts against caveat emptor and the promotion of Thomas J. Watson’s
“Think” campaign continued.
The Fifth Era: 1935-1939 and the War Years
Society of Arts and Science
During the years 1935 to 1939, Walter Russell and Thomas J. Watson
continued the work, but during the war years, there was almost complete
cessation of the work, though every year Thomas J. Watson held a large
meeting at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, attended by about five
thousand people, at which Walter Russell would give the banquet
address.
1935, Alexis Carrel publishes Man, the Unknown
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French-American surgeon Alexis Carrell was the winner of the 1912 Nobel
Prize in medicine, for his pioneer transplant work at the University of
Chicago and with the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.
Man, the Unknown was reprinted in America fifty times after the
first publication, and was translated into eighteen languages.
“The science of man will be the task for the future. Man must now
turn his attention to himself. The development of the science of man,
even more than that of the other sciences, depends on immense
intellectual effort. We must realize clearly that the science of man is
the most difficult of all sciences. Science, which has transformed the
material world, gives man the power of transforming himself. To
progress again, man must remake himself.”
Sixth Era: 1946-1960
The University of Science and Philosophy
for the Study of
The Science of Man
"In vain do we build
the city if we do not first build the man."
—Edwin Markham
In 1948, Walter and Lao Russell established the Walter Russell
Foundation at Swannanoa, on Afton Mountain in Waynesboro, Virginia.
Here they wrote their Home Study Course in Universal Law, Natural
Science and Living Philosophy, and added to the list of books
Walter Russell had already completed writing: The Universal One,
The Message of the Divine Iliad, and The Secret of Light.
In 1957, they obtained the charter which changed their name to The
University of Science and Philosophy, a home study university registered
in the state of Virginia, a nonprofit institution devoted exclusively
to the cultural, moral and intellectual advancement of the human race
through the study of the Science of Man.
Seventh Era: 1960-1963
Extension to the World
The Home Study Course in
Universal Law, Natural Science and Living Philosophy and the books
by Walter and Lao Russell have gone out around the world. The concept
that “genius is inherent within everyone” is transforming the lives of
many people who have been inspired by this philosophy of balanced
action. Walter Russell died on his 92nd birthday, May 19, 1963.
Eigth Era: 1963-1988
Lao Russell Continues the University's Work
From the time of her husband’s death, Lao Russell continued the work
of the University of the Science of Man, writing further books—Love
and Why You Cannot Die!—lecturing across America, and
corresponding with students and friends around the world. She continued
the Man-Woman Equality League she had started earlier, and founded the
International Age of Character Clubs.
“Every person in this world has a deep purpose,” expounded Lao
Russell. “Happiness consists of finding one’s own purpose and
working to fulfill it.” By so doing, every person will contribute
to the One-World Purpose of unity and harmony, which, she was
convinced, can come about through right action based on that scientific
knowledge which builds men and women of character, power, imagination
and vision.
Ninth Era: 1988-1996
The University Under the Board of Directors
With Lao’s death, May 5th, 1988, the University entered its next
era, under the leadership of Lao Russell’s Board of Directors,
introduced with the University’s World Balance Conference of 1989. In
that decade, the Home Study Course and books continued to inspire
students around the world; Chief Melford Okilo wrote his books on the
principles of Balance and continued extension of the work in Africa, as
well as delivering a Letter to World Leaders at the United Nations;
research into the applicability of Walter Russell’s scientific concepts
was carried out by President Timothy Binder; publication of further of
the Russells’ writings was continued by Emilia Lee Lombardi; and
students gathered regularly at Swannanoa for seminars and the annual
Homecoming.
“Mediocrity is self-inflicted; genius is self-bestowed.”
—Walter Russell
Tenth Era:1997-Present
The University of Science and Philosophy
Global Expansion
USP's Web Site informs over 20,000 people a month about the Russell
work, many of whom stop to read Walter Russell’s famous biography, The
Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe, and become inspired to
contact the University.
In 1999 we take the historic step of connecting powerfully with our own
history—the original Twilight Club. This new ethical movement, as much
needed today in the twilight of the coming century, as it was at the
turn of this century, is a vision for the new millennium.
We welcome you to join with us, whether with individual or group
action, to participate in this inspired and inspiring vision for the
future and to work with us in building the coming Kosmic Age.
Poet's Code of Ethics
1.To attain the brotherhood-of-man idea by giving righteous action
and good-will service to every man instead of taking from him that
which he has.
2.To discover that all men are extensions of each other, that man is
made for man, and that the hurt of one man is the hurt of all men.
3.To develop character, intelligence and good citizenship by teaching
every man from early youth how to be a good neighbor and a loyal
citizen.
4.To discover one's inner Self by awakening within him that spark of
divine genius which lies dormant in every man.
5. To teach man to think rather than to remember and repeat.
6. To realize that work done for the material world should be for man's
enoblement, and not for grinding his soul out in the gears of
industrial machines.
7. To know that man is Mind, not body; that he is immortal Spirit, not
mortal flesh, that he is good, not bad.
8. To judge the righteousness and religion of any man by what he does
to his fellow man and not by his belief's, doctrines, creeds, or
dogmas.
Lao and Walter Russell added number 9 and 10, in essence:
9. To give a scientific course for the study of the application of the
Spencer Code of Human Relations.
10. To combine science and philosophy in a unified teaching.
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