Founding
of the American Teilhard de Chardin Association, Incorporated
1967
Fr. Robert Francoeur
was a leading force in this new phase of Teilhardian activity.
Many of the people who had been part of the Teilhard Research
Institute either as members of the planning board or as
participants in the programs became involved in the new
venture: Beatrice Bruteau, Pierre Dansereau, Ewert Cousins, Louis
Marks, Thomas Berry, and Henry Elkin. There were also the members
of the small American Teilhard de Chardin Association: Ruth Nanda
Anshen, William Birmingham, James Budnick, Sig. and Sigra. Carducci-Artenisio,
The Rev. Pieter de Jong, Dr. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Jean Houston,
Robert Johann, S. J., Dr. and Mrs. Edgar Taschdjian, Dr. Alexander
Wolsky, and Dr. John Walsh. (Claire had been Teilhard's secretary
in Peking, and she and Edgar Taschdjian had been married there
by Fr. Teilhard.)
Another member of this
group should be singled out here, because she was to play an
important role in the formation of the national Association and
was to become its secretary. This was Minna Cassard who had attended
the public lectures of the 1964 Fordham conference. Though not
a member of the community of scholars, Minna, a devoted High
Church Episcopalian, had been reading Teilhard since 1959, devouring
the French editions as they appeared, as she later described
it, sitting at the kitchen table with a cold, wet towel pressed
to her forehead, a French dictionary and a glossary of scientific
terms at her side. Aware of subtle and not so subtle mistranslations
into English, she was always to claim that Teilhard could not
be truly understood unless read in French. Minna was thorough.
Though not a scholar, and with a distaste for lectures and intellectualizing,
she had an ardent concern that Teilhard's thought be understood
in all its rigorous development and spiritual implications and
not used solely to elucidate other intellectual or theological
positions. She was always to urge members, in the words of one
of the Prayer Book collects, to "read, mark, learn and inwardly
digest" the work of Teilhard. Over and above this concern
she was eminently practical and disciplined, and she was to give
the Association a working structure without which it could not
have survived. She also had a sense of style and of worldly values
that attracted people outside the academic community.
On February 24, 1965
a group of about twenty persons came together at the Faculty
House of Columbia University for the first of a series of informal
discussions under the leadership of Dr. John V. Walsh, Fr. Robert
Francoeur, and Dr. Pierre Dansereau.
Fr. Francoeur was now
teaching in the Biology Department of Fairleigh Dickinson University
in Madison, New Jersey, beginning his work in experimental embryology,
a field in which he was to become an authority. He was authorized
to use his office as headquarters of the Association. Mrs. Peter
Sammartino, wife of the President, was interested in Teilhard
and agreed to serve as Chairman of a Benefactions Committee.
University officials sought government and foundation grants
for Teilhard research and planned to ask the National Endowment
for the Humanities to finance summer courses on evolution to
introduce high school science teachers to the thought of Teilhard.
None of these plans, alas, found fruition, although various lectures
were given under the Association's name.
There was a growing consensus
that the Association should be incorporated as a nonprofit organization
because it could not survive without some structure and a tax-exempt
status, especially if it were to become national in scope. Minna
Cassard consulted a corporation lawyer, Edward Maguire, Jr.,
who was a member of her church. She and Beatrice met with him
in November of 1966 and, though still without funds, plans were
laid to launch the association, without benefit of any umbrella
protection from an established institution. It was a venture
of faith. Mr. Maguire of the law firm of Jackson, Nash, Brophy,
Barringer & Brooks contributed his services. A draft of Articles
of Incorporation was drawn up in December of 1966, and finally
on April 4, 1967 the Articles of Incorporation of the American
Teilhard de Chardin Association were formally accepted by New
York State. Tax-exempt status was granted soon afterwards. The
territory of operation was to be principally the United States.
Its stated purpose was
To promote, stimulate
interest in and assist further development and study of the writings
and philosophy of the Jesuit paleontologist and scholar, Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin; to encourage and sponsor critical research
in and exposition of Teilhard's theories; to serve as a center
of information and to make available consultation and advice
on such studies; to organize and superintend meetings of those
interested in the development and growth of such studies; to
promote fellowship and cooperation among those interested in
the life, work and thought of Teilhard.
The signers of the certificate
were Beatrice Bruteau, Minna Cassard, Ewert Cousins, Pierre Dansereau,
Henry Elkin,Robert Francoeur, and Louis Marks.
The Bylaws stipulated
that the Association was to be open to memberships of various
categories and that an annual meeting was to be held during the
months of April or May, at which time the voting members of the
Corporation (made up of the Board of Directors and the Advisory
Board) should meet to elect Board members, officers, and committee
members for the following year, and to fix annual dues for all
members. Mlle. Mortier granted affiliation with the Fondation
Teilhard de Chardinin Paris.
The first organizational
meeting of the Board of Directors (the signers of the certificate
plus Theodosius Dobzhansky, Michael Murray and Alexander Wolsky)
was held on May 8, 1967.Robert Francoeur was elected President,
Pierre Dansereau and Beatrice Bruteau, Vice-Presidents, and Minna
Cassard, Secretary and Treasurer. Elected to the Board of Directors
were Ewert Cousins, Theodosius Dobzhansky (Professor of Genetics
at Rockefeller University), Henry Elkin (Jungian analyst), Louis
Marks (Professor of Biology at Fordham University), Michael Murray
(Episcopal Minister) and Alexander Wolsky (Professor of Biology
at Marymount College). The members of the original American Teilhard
de Chardin Association were named charter members and elected
to the Advisory Board together with some thirty other persons.
(Dr. Loren Eiseley regretfully resigned soon afterwards because
of pressure of his own work.) Annual dues were set at $10.00
for regular members (rising through the categories of contributing
and sustaining members) and $3.00 for students.
The Board, undaunted
by the prospect of high rents, felt that the Association should
have its center in New York City, and a happy solution came about
through Minna Cassard. For several years she had been a volunteer
worker in a small Anglican theological library, The Library of
St. Bede's, founded and administered for some thirty years by
a group of non-professional women of the Episcopal Church. It
had been housed in a main-floor apartment in a safe, desirable,
rent-controlled building on the east side of New York, but it
had so outgrown its space and the abilities of its amateur staff
that it was moved to the University of the South in Sewanee,
Tennessee.
Minna made inquiries.
Room Main B of that apartment was available, and a three-year
lease was signed to take effect on July 1st. The address was
157 East 72nd Street, about three blocks away from the apartment
in which Teilhard had died and in the general neighborhood in
which he had spent his last years. The room was small and looked
onto an areaway, but there was switchboard service and 24-hour
doormen. St. Bede's Library donated some of its unwanted furniture
and library supplies, and gifts from publishers provided the
nucleus of a Teilhard library.
Minna arranged that she
should be at the Association headquarters on Tuesday and Thursday
afternoons (other times by appointment) functioning, as she wrote
later, as secretary, treasurer, librarian, interior decorator,
cleaning woman, and errand boy. She brought with her from St.
Bede's a devoted and admiring friend, Mrs. Alice Leighton, whose
excellent typing skills built up the membership records. Two
months' rent was generously contributed by a Board member, and
the Association set down its roots at last.
previous | next
