Robert Todd Lincoln --The vitals

[L Verge]

(01-11-2018 06:08 PM)Anita Wrote:  

(01-10-2018 08:24 PM)ScholarInTraining Wrote:  

(01-10-2018 06:01 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Thanks for your reply, Kerry. Yes, that is what I read, so I am curious as for the evidence Scholar in training thinks challenging to the biographers opinion.

As for the ultimatum - yes, most likely not totally seriously meant, however, I'd find it a striking statement, also the one you are thinking of (‘If you do, you should learn more than I ever did, but you will never have so good a time.’). Somehow there seemed some resentment unless both never said.

Hey, sorry for not answering, but you obviously never have "time to argue" with anyone who has good things to say about Robert Lincoln! So - I'll respect your wishes by directing you instead to Amazon and Google Books, where you may preview Emerson and Goff's books and search, as you will, for the topic you choose.

Chock-full of references, also. So future sarcastic comments can be redirected towards those, yes?

Scholar in Training, in post #121 you state " And to answer your question, he didn't seem to be an atheist at all. He believed in God - evidenced by quotes and letters and stuff - so I don't get why biographers got to calling him "nonreligious" among other things.

Kerry states in post #136 "Emerson cites correspondence between Lincoln scholars which resulted in agreement that Robert never joined a church and rarely mentioned religious faith or prayer."

Eva replies to Kerry in post 138 "Thanks for your reply, Kerry. Yes, that is what I read, so I am curious as for the evidence Scholar in training thinks challenging to the biographers opinion."

So Scholar in Training, why don't you just answer Eva's request for the quotes and letters to support your statement? Like Roger, I am also confused. Roger states in post #142 "Maybe I am missing something, but as far as I can tell, all Eva is asking is that examples from Robert's quotes and letters be posted to support this; I do not think she is being sarcastic - she is simply asking to see specific evidence of Robert's views on God."

This is a forum, a community engaged in learning. We want to know about the quotes and letters you refer to so we can better understand the subject we're discussing. We are always open and eager to find new sources.

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Laurie,

Speaking of Harvard and your post, I thought this interesting. From the "Crimson" http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1888/1...er-to-the/

Harvard's Reputation
NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED January 26, 1888

In answer to the question "Why has Harvard so poor a reputation in the country at large," President Eliot said that, in his opinion, it was largely owing to religious grounds. Forty years ago Harvard was a sectarian college belonging to the Unitarians, who were then greatly disliked by other denominations. Although Harvard is no longer sectarian, religious hatred still makes men ready to believe anything bad which may be said of it, while they refuse to credit any representations to the contrary. Then, too, we have more rich men's son's here than any other college possesses, and rich men's sons are, as a rule, wild and extravagant, and by their actions tend to bring the whole college into disrepute. The chief reason, however, for our "bad eminence" is the readiness which the newspapers show to discredit all colleges, and Harvard, as the largest, gets the greatest share. There is a natural hostility between college-bred men and those who are "self-made," to which class belong the majority of journalists, and this enmity expends itself in spreading false rumors and injurious statements. The only thing that we can do is to live down this bad reputation by conducting ourselves properly as students and as graduates, and by spreading a know ledge of the true state of things whenever there is a chance. This way is already being taken, and we may be confident that we shall yet succeed completely.

Thanks for posting this, Anita. I found it interesting that some of the sentences may be just as applicable to our society today as in the 1800s. BTW: In one of the pieces that I read on the Congregational Church, I remember there being mention of a (brief?) union between Unitarians and Congregationalists. I wonder which faith was the "true founder" of Harvard?

So far as I could tell, the Congregationalists did/do believe in the Trinity. I'm going to have to brush up on the Unitarians because I thought that they believed only in God. I have often wondered if Lincoln followed some of our early Founding Fathers who professed to be Deist - believing that a supreme God created everything and left it to man to screw it all up (oops, pardon, to have free will).