{"product_id":"2940149267507","title":"The Secret Society System","description":"The Secret Society System by Edwin Edgerton Aiken (1859 – 1951), was published in New Haven in 1882. (126 pages)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Publisher has copy-edited this book to improve the formatting, style and accuracy of the text to make it readable. This did not involve changing the substance of the text. Some books, due to age and other factors may contain imperfections. Since there are many books such as this one that are important and beneficial to literary interests, we have made it digitally available and have brought it back into print for the preservation of printed works of the past.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eContents:\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction. \u003cbr\u003eChapter I. Social Relations. \u003cbr\u003eChapter II. Social Relations, Continued. \u003cbr\u003eChapter III. Intellectual Influence. \u003cbr\u003eChapter IV. Political Relations.\u003cbr\u003eChapter V. Political Influence. \u003cbr\u003eChapter VI. Moral Value. \u003cbr\u003eChapter VII. Relation to the Church. \u003cbr\u003eChapter VIII. Opinions.\u003cbr\u003eConclusion. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction.\u003cbr\u003e...When one has enjoyed the advantages of the college course, it is no gracious task to make any public criticism involving the institution to which he owes so much, and which he has honored and loved; but there are principles of fidelity which transcend all personal considerations, and the statement of the truth is sometimes the highest service. Great and noble as our foster-mother is, it is in behalf of a larger and a nobler life within her walls, and in all other communities as well, that these words are written.\u003cbr\u003e...Still less gracious is it to utter criticism upon institutions whose honors and privileges one has shared, and whose trusts have been confided to his keeping; and perhaps, in view of the peculiar nature of the institutions in question, it will be simple justice for me to say, at the outset, that the organization, with whose membership I was honored in Senior year, was almost ideally perfect, of its kind. I do not see how any organization of that sort could have been much better.\u003cbr\u003e...But institutions exist for men, not men for institutions; and though loyalty to an institution is an important principle, yet loyalty to the truth is one far more sacred. Every man — particularly every young man — must be granted the right to change his party with his convictions. The opposite principle stifles all freedom and honesty, and it may be added that secret societies have a tendency to this which is not in their favor. The first principle was recognized in the many changes of party at the time of our late war. There were new circumstances, but new facts and principles should be as potent as new circumstances; perhaps more so. Luther doubtingly entered a monastery, and lived a monk for some years; but he was not thereby kept from speaking the truths of the Reformation. In English history, Charles James Fox was driven by his convictions \"to detach himself from his early surroundings;\" and \"he dissolved his partnership with Sandwich and Wedderburn, and united himself to Burke and Chatham.\" So acted Mr. Gladstone, and English Protestants were surprised \"when one who took so high a view of the duties and privileges of the Established Church, became, a generation later, an advocate for the disestablishment of the Irish branch of that church.\" In 1845, to form an impartial opinion, said Mr. Gladstone, \"I have separated myself from men with whom, and under whom, I have long acted in public life, and of whom I am bound to say *** that I continue to regard them with unaltered sentiments both of public regard and private attachment.\"\u003cbr\u003e...It is involved in this principle that the right of free discussion and action is in no way forfeited. It is limited by the obligation not to use against a party what has been confided to one as a member of it, and that obligation I shall always recognize.\u003cbr\u003e...A discussion of this topic violates what has come to be one of the first rules of college etiquette; but for this — not a light matter — there is ample warrant. Whether political or not, these institutions in college are practically public, not private; their influence, whether so intended by them or not, is a great, in some instances perhaps the great factor in college life; and every year they look for support from the incoming or lower classes. I hold that bodies of men have no right to establish institutions whose influence is as public and far-reaching as that of those in question, and demand that nothing shall be publicly said about them. The right of free discussion of public matters is one of the guarantees of our liberty, for which our fathers fought; \"one of the most precious and necessary rights of the individual, and one of the indispensable elements of all advancing humanity; * * * an element of all civil liberty,\" says Francis Lieber, the able and patriotic author of the work on civil liberty used as a text-book by the Yale seniors; and in the name of freedom I claim and exercise this full right.","brand":"Digital Text Publishing Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072877674736,"sku":"2940149267507","price":4.29,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940149267507_p0.jpg?v=1763714149","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940149267507","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}