The Center for American Studies at Concord
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NOTE: for information on Concord's 375th celebration, visit www.concordium.us/375.htm. The Village University Building the Future on Foundations of the Past Stuart-Sinclair Weeks, Founder, The Center for when we begin to be men and women. It is time that villages were universities..." (quote continues below.) The idea of a "village university" has grown with the community of Concord from its earliest beginnings. For the Native Indians of Musketaquid, the universe itself was a university. Through living and working closely with nature, the original peoples recognized laws that applied to their own lives, nurturing balance, continuity and forces of renewal. This transmitted wisdom assured not only the survival of the first Pilgrim settlements in America, but its expression in the Indian idea of confederation was to provide a foundation stone for our Constitution and nation. As the land around Nashawtuc Hill was cleared and currents of the rivers diverted into the millponds, the "plantation" of Concord, America's first inland community, was established in the year 1635. The universe/university focused around the life of the church, and out of its pulpit and prayers was to come forth one of the earliest books written in New England. The author was Concord's founding minister, Peter Bulkeley, Emerson's forbear. The title of the book was 'The Gospel Covenant' or the 'Covenant of Grace'. Its theme of a pact between the Creator and his people described the abiding promise that formed the fabric of Puritan society and set a further foundation stone for a young nation. With the growth of Concord, learning broadened beyond the brow of the church and purely religious matters to engage the life of a village and a set of issues and principles that had grown with the colonies. Freedom, Self-determination... in discussions around the hearth and family table, in tavern and Town House, the Puritan faith in a Higher Power was reformulated and enlarged into the rational categories of natural law and self-evident principles. The intellectual ferment that grew in the village was to prove vital for the task before the citizens of further building a new nation and world. Out of Concord's Town Meeting was to come the clarion call for a Constitutional Convention in order to establish a government of, by, for the people. Following the outbreak of the American Revolution, Harvard College, occupied by the Colonial Troops, moved its campus to Concord. Upon the agricultural basis of the community, culture began to blossom. Students boarded in the homes of Concord citizens. Classes were held in the grammar school, Town and Meeting Houses, and the village, in Thoreau's words, took a further step in becoming the university. The 19th century in Concord was kindled with a spark that traveled up the telegraph wires, which the young Harrison Dyar and his friends had strung up Monument Street. Voices were heard, exclamations of a wonder, a new era, that was not to be recognized until over two decades later, when Morse's financial backing made the telegraph a household word. The experiment had begun in Concord, in a little workshop that broadened out into the community. As the 19th century progressed, there was other news. The Lyceum Movement found an early and articulate home in Concord, with Thoreau, Emerson, and Alcott as its principle speakers. The Lyceum Movement was to become one of the tributaries for the Concord School of Philosophy, which opened its doors in 1879 with Bronson Alcott as its dean. The School of Philosophy was the fruition of the Transcendentalist impulse, which, in the words of Lewis Mumford, had established Concord as the cultural center of the world in its century. For nine summers, it offered to the hundreds of participants, scholars, scientists, university presidents from near and far, a renewed vision of the dream upon which our country was founded. Daniel Chester French began his celebrated career with the Minute Man Statue, to be concluded with the Lincoln Memorial. Musician, composer, educator, Thomas Whitney Surette gathered the refrains from the past into a rich musical expression. Throughout the end of the 19th century and into the 20th, the thread was woven further. For Lemuel Shattuck and Edward Jarvis, two of America's pioneering social scientists, the town of Concord became a laboratory in which the customs, habits and spirit of a people were studied, recorded, and given fuller artistic expression. Sculptor. Beginning in 1915 and continuing for 23 years, the Concord Summer School of Music, trained students who, in the course of their careers would transform American music, relating it to broader concerns of culture and learning. Building on those who had gone before, at the turn of the century Gardner Murphy (1895-1979) pioneered the new field of Parapsychology, drawing the attention of William James and other prominent thinkers. As the century proceeded, Concord's heritage made it a major consideration as a Colonial site for what was to become Williamsburg and as a possible home for the United Nations. With respect to the former, Concord responded that it was a living community. With respect to the latter, Concord's task was a related but different one. In the 60's, Concordians, residing in its prison and the town, worked together to establish the "Shared Leadership Program", a national model that, amidst the riots and upheavals of the decade, fulfilled the promise of the town: Concorde/Peace. In the early 70's, Concord's Trinity Episcopal Church offered sanctuary for "The Place", a national model for work with our troubled/blessed youth. From the 1970's on, the thread that has distinguished Concord from other communities has become fainter. As the pace of modern life has quickened, it has drawn many in its pursuits. As opposed to being the center for political and cultural affairs, that Concord was in earlier times, the community has increasingly become a modern suburb with an illustrious past and expectation for the future. At the founding of the Center for American Studies in 1986, former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, Bradford Morse, delivered a keynote address at the Concord School of Philosophy. In his address, Morse proposed that an institution be established in Concord, a program that would attract scholars, statesmen and citizens of the world. Together, in such a climate for freedom, they would study the ideals of liberty, democracy, and brotherhood upon which the nation, an ever new world, was founded. Building upon these foundation stones, and on the Center's programs to date, we look forward to working with fellow citizens to develop such an institution – a village university that will serve both citizens of the town, as well as participants from across America and overseas, in particular our youth. "Without a vision, the people perish." These words of the ancient prophet sum up the Center's "calling", as they sum what Concord, over the centuries, has stood for – at its best. The aim of the village university is to contribute to forging, anew, a vision for our land – to awaken the reverberations of Concord's celebrated "shot heard 'round the world". Drawing on the insights of our past, we look forward to working together with fellow citizens — Concordians near and far — to instill learning with a vision of healing and renewal that can help lead our town, nation, and modern world on into the new millennium.
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