Some New Documents on Royce's Early Experiences of Communities

Notes and Discussions SOME NEW DOCUMENTS ON ROYCE'S EARLY EXPERIENCES OF COMMUNITIES This paper aims to offer new evidence of the kinds of community-experience which Josiah Royce, America's philosopher of Community (1855-1916), had during his youth. This evidence consists largely in previously unpublished materials. Shortly before his death, Royce publicly testified to the centrality of the Idea of Community in his philosophical development and connected this with some youthful experiences in which he had felt Community. His 1915 statement was: I strongly feel that my deepest motives and problems have centered about the Idea of the Community,although this idea has only comegradually to my clear consciousness.This was what I was intensely feeling,in the days when my sisters and I lookedacross the Sacramento Valley, and wondered about the great world beyond our mountains. This was what I failed to understand when my mates taught me those instructive lessonsin San Francisco? Significantly, Royce here contrasted his youthful "intense feelings" of this Idea of Community with his only gradually maturing "clear consciousness" of it. Of themselves, these references to sight-seeing days with his sisters and to school experiences in San Francisco are too sketchy to be readily meaningful to today's readers. Fortunately, Royce's mother left some evidence that fills in some of the needed background. Moreover, Royce's oldest sister Mary penned several sketches which provide significant detail for deciphering these references. They also help to a realistic grasp of Royce's meaning in his 1915 tribute to his family: "My earliest teachers in philosophy were my mother, whose private school, held for some years in our own house, I attended, and my sisters, who were all older than myself, and one of whom taught me to read." 2 What kind of "community" did the young Josiah enter when he attended his mother's private school? An 1855 local newspaper provides direction towards answering that question. If one recalls what a bustling community of gold-miners was this Grass Valley, California, of 1855, he can appreciate the import of an advertisement that appeared in the Grass Valley Telegraph of Tuesday, February 20, 1855, in a continuing weekly notice from the mother of the philosopher of Community: SCHOOL FOR YOUNG LADIES. MRS. B. E. ROYCE Will Commence a School For Young Ladies and Misses,in the Village of GRASS VALLEY, in the Room now occupiedby Mrs. Goldsmith,lowerend of Mill Street. 1,,Autobiographical Sketch," in The Hope o] the Great Community (New York: Macmillan, 1916),:pp.129-130. "Ib:d., p. 123. [3811 382 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY On Monday, October 2rid. Mrs. Royce graduated at the PHIPPS UNION SEMINARY in the State of New York, and, having taught Young Ladies for some years in the East, she hopes her combined experience as TEACHER AND PARENT may enable her to render her School worthy the support of those who desire a thorough moral and intellectual discipline for their daughters. Terms per Month. PRIMARY DEPARTMENT. Spelling, Reading, Writing, Elements of Arithmetic, and first Lessons in Geography and Natural Philosophy ................................................................. $4,00 JUNIOR CLASS The preceding, with the addition of advance Arithmetic, Geography, Grammar, History of the United States, Beginner's Botany, and Watts on the Mind .................... $6,00 MIDDLE CLASS Grammar, Geography and Arithmetic continued, with the addition of the History of England, Mrs. Lincoln's Larger Botany, Comstock's Natural Philosophy, Geography of the Heavens, Newman's Rhetoric and Abercrombie's Intellectual Philosophy ............ $8,00 SENIOR CLASS Algebra, Geometry, Logic, Elements of Taste and Criticism, Moral Science, Political Economy, General History and Composition ........................................ $40,00 Rudiments of French ...... Extra .................................................. $3,00 Drawing ...... Extra ................................................................. 3,00 ELOCUTION--or the proper use and development of the organs of voice by the practice of the elementary sounds of the English Language, together with the Elements of Vocal Music will be taught to the whole School, without extra charge. Payments must be made MONTHLY. No deduction will be allowed for absence except in cases of prolonged illness. No boys above the age of Ten years of age will be admitted.* This endeavor by Mrs. Sarah Eleanor Royce to promote this kind of education for "young ladies" within a gold...