324 pp. Lawrence Pearsall Jacks was an English educator, philosopher, and Unitarian minister who rose to prominence in the period from World War I to World War II. Jacks served as Principal of Manchester College, which was by then based in Oxford, from 1915 until his retirement in 1931. Jacks served as the editor of the Hibbert Journal from its founding in 1902 until 1948. Under his editorship the Journal became one of the leading forums in England for work in philosophy and religion, and introduced the work of Alfred Loisy to British readers. After the war, Jacks wrote prolifically and gained popularity as a lecturer in Britain and America. He frequently returned to the theme of militarism and the "mechanical" mindset, which he regarded as one of the greatest threats in modern life. In his Revolt Against Mechanism (1933), he wrote that "The mechanical mind has a passion for control—of everything except itself. Beyond the control it has won over the forces of nature it would now win control over the forces of society of stating the problem and producing the solution, with social machinery to correspond." He proposed liberal education and world vision as a hope for salvation from the mechanistic world, in books such as his Education for the Whole Man (1931) and his 1938 BBC Radio Lectures. In 1922 Jacks hosted Austrian philosopher, Dr Rudolf Steiner, to present a conference at Manchester College on values in education and to share the experiences of the model Waldorf school at Stuttgart. In his article "A Demilitarized League of Nations", ("Hibbert Journal", August 1936) Jacks argued the League of Nations should completely eschew military force. Although he continued to preach Unitarianism, he became increasingly critical of all forms of institutional religion and denominationalism, and refused to let his name be added to a list of Unitarian ministers published by the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in 1928. He accepted an invitation to preach in Liverpool Cathedral in 1933; a Convocation of the Church of England rebuked the cathedral for allowing a Unitarian to preach, igniting a controversy in the press. Jacks published prolifically over a period of fifty years, including philosophical and visionary treatises, biographies, articles, and moral parables.
Related
Related
Related
Related