The 1974 Annual Meeting
was again held at the Church of the Holy Trinity. Ewert Cousins
was reelected President, Pieter de John and Jean Houston became
Vice-Presidents, Theodosius Dobzhansky was the Honorary Vice-President,
Winifred McCulloch was elected Secretary, and Pemala Alderson
became Treasurer. The Board of Directors had now grown to include
Thomas Berry, Anne Martin Brennan, Beatrice Bruteau, Elizabeth
Fish, Robert Francoeur, Richard Givens, Donald Gray, Alice Knight,
R. Wayne Kraft, Margaret Bach Lynch, Robert McGuire, S.J., Gertrud
Mellon, and Roger Wescott. Elizabeth Fish, a member from the
first 1968 meeting, was our liaison with St. James' Church. Roger
Wescott, Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Drew University,
was also a linguist, futurologist, and poet.
The Secretary reported
that there were 482 members. She reported also that there were
now 550 books in the library and that most of the French books
and paperbacks had been handsomely bound by one of our members,
Liliane Zemla. (She and her husband, Joseph, were familiar figures
at the evening seminars where they were in charge of the admissions
desk.) The library was enriched by another member whom we never
saw at the Center for he was a house-bound invalid. Edward Quinn
was an inspired teacher of Teilhard's thought to a small circle
of his friends, and on his death, at his request, his friends,
instead of sending him flowers, made a small gift to the Association's
library. We used this special bequest to purchase volumes of
the Oeuvres and letters published in France.
The most important matter
of business was the report of the Committee on the change of
the name. There were two proposals: The Teilhard Center for an
Evolving World and The American Teilhard Association for the
Future of Man. After much discussion the latter was chosen. It
overcame the difficulties of the old name which gave the impression
of an Association dedicated merely to the study of the life and
thought of an individual and indicated an active goal to be worked
for in society. Foundations are not likely to give financial
support for the perpetuation of one man's ideas, and as we intended
to seek some funding for our work we hoped that our new name
more accurately expressed the purpose of the Association. Later,
during the luncheon, a round of applause greeted announcement
of our choice.
Thomas Berry was the
afternoon speaker that year: his subject, "The Dynamics
of the Future."
Mr. Edward Mcguire, Jr.,
the lawyer who had helped so generously in the incorporation
of the Association back in 1967, was approached once more. When
the Secretary asked him to give an estimate of his fee he replied
laconically, "You can't afford me" and then proceeded
to generously donate his services as a tribute to Minna. We here
record our deep appreciation of the time he devoted to our cause
that long, hot summer. Upon a vote of 51 members of the two Boards,
with 4 against the motion, our new name became effective in September
of 1974.
Alice Knight's book,
Teilhard de Chardin: a Primer, had been published late
in the spring, eliciting most favorable reviews, and that autumn
she led a well-attended discussion group in which she introduced
Teilhard's enormous vision from the "big bang" to Omega,
all enlivened by her artist's gift for improvising illustrations.
Thomas Berry, with his concern for the spiritual traditions of
mankind, offered the first of his seminars on "Spirituality
of the American Indian," and Fr. McGuire continued his Friday
evening sessions using Teilhardian themes in a charismatic program
to help individuals in search of spiritual growth.
Some thought was now
given to the fact that 1975 would be the Twentieth Anniversary
of Teilhard's death. Fr. Almagno had made over to the Association
all rights to his definitive bibliography - it already contained
some 3,000 items and was about 250 pages in length - and we hoped
to publish it. It would find its place in university libraries
throughout the English speaking world and also those in French,
German, Spanish and Italian speaking countries. The Secretary's
visit to a Trust Officer at the Chase Bank headquarters (surprisingly
he had attended Fordham and already knew about Teilhard and did
attend one of our Executive Committee meetings) was fruitless
because their funds had to be committed to more socially active
programs. And her visit to The National Foundation for the Humanities
in Washington, D.C. elicited the information that money was not
available for publication but only for research (which had already
been done). Likewise, attempts by Gertrud Mellon and Ewert Cousin
to interest the Rockefeller Committee for Critical Choices were
equally unsuccessful.
Whatever we were to accomplish
would have to be done with the same inadequate funding on which
we had existed for the past eight years.
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