Once more, only a nominal Fortean.
Porter Edward Sargent was once very well known, though no longer. Born 6 June 1872 in Brooklyn, New York—two years before Fort, who was born upstate, in Albany—Sargent’s family moved to southern California when he was young. He moved back east for college, attending Harvard, where he took classes in the sciences, including from William James, and would have been at one center of the changing practices of American higher education. In 1904, he ran a school for boys; then, in 1915, he started his own publishing company focused on putting out a guidebook to private schools.
Porter Edward Sargent was once very well known, though no longer. Born 6 June 1872 in Brooklyn, New York—two years before Fort, who was born upstate, in Albany—Sargent’s family moved to southern California when he was young. He moved back east for college, attending Harvard, where he took classes in the sciences, including from William James, and would have been at one center of the changing practices of American higher education. In 1904, he ran a school for boys; then, in 1915, he started his own publishing company focused on putting out a guidebook to private schools.
Because Sargent was not pleased with the American way of education, and would spend the rest of his career as a “gadfly”—just as Fort would become a gadfly of (primarily American) science. The book went through many editions, attacking American schools as hidebound and bureaucratic. And as the editions piled up, his introductions became increasingly acute diagnoses of the sad state of the educational system. Other volumes followed—including one of poetry—that took on the ramifying problems of schooling: in "War and Education" he argued that the current system of wars—bad—grew out of the current system of education—also bad. He followed this book up with "Between the Two Wars: The Failure of Education," which expanded on the topic. An earlier book, 1941’s “Getting Us Into War,” analyzed the propaganda used to justify war and, in the process, attacked history and historians as poor products of the educational system.
Sargent died 27 March 1951, aged 78, almost two decades after Charles Fort, and right in the midst of the Fortean Society’s run.
It is not hard to see why Tiffany Thayer would have been interested in Sargent—someone attacking a mainstream institution always set Thayer’s antennae a-quivering. There would have been some blocks between them, though—Sargent was of the opinion that education should be more dynamic, which for him seems to have meant rooted in scientific practice. (I am not an expert on Sargent and may have this not exactly right, but I think the point stands enough.) But any heretic was a good heretic: he embraced Buckminster Fuller, despite his soft spot for science, too.
From this vantage, though, it is hard to know exactly what Sargent thought of Thayer’s organization or Thayer thought of Sargent—beyond signing him up for the Society, that is. (Again: it doesn’t mean much: he signed up a lot of people with whom he did not agree, as long as they were outsiders taking shots at insiders.) The connection between Sargent and the Society is only documented in a single paragraph from Doubt, and I have no evidence that Sargent ever wrote about Fort himself. (It could be buried in one off hi introductions, but not worth it for me to dig out right now.) That paragraph was not written until after Sagent was dead, and took the form of an encomium, so is obviously limited.
Thayer wrote, in Doubt 33 (October 1951), under title “Fortean Loss,” “Most of his adult life Porter Sargent was a nettle in the side of educational complacency, especially among private schools of the higher learning. He was a sharp critic, with the courage to speak out, and for many years an active Fortean. He died April 3, 21 FS (March 27, 1951 old style). His work will be carried on by his surviving son, F. Porter Sargent. Another son, Upham, disappeared while on a canoe trip in the Hudson’s Bay Indian country [sic].”
The obituary reads as though Thayer may have known Sargent, but Thayer usually adopted the knowing tone, so too much stress should not be put upon it. Thayer is also usually accurate in his recountings, if only technically so, thus it is likely that Sargent had some dealings with the Fortean Society over the course of several years, but exactly which years and how intensive the relationship is unknown, but, presumably, in the distant past—meaning either the late 1930s, just as the Society was re-starting, or the early to mid-1940s, when Sargent started attacking the connection between war and schools, which would have brought him to the attention of the pacifist Thayer—and the connection would have been less than intensive—a few exchanged letters, perhaps exchanged publications, maybe Sargent even sending in a relevant clipping or two not he sad practices of American schools.
All of this is speculation—informed speculation, but speculation nonetheless. There doesn’t exist enough evidence to say anything solid, and so Sargent gets placed into that class of Forteans who were famous names, connected to the Society, but without much—or any—impact on Forteanism.
Sargent died 27 March 1951, aged 78, almost two decades after Charles Fort, and right in the midst of the Fortean Society’s run.
It is not hard to see why Tiffany Thayer would have been interested in Sargent—someone attacking a mainstream institution always set Thayer’s antennae a-quivering. There would have been some blocks between them, though—Sargent was of the opinion that education should be more dynamic, which for him seems to have meant rooted in scientific practice. (I am not an expert on Sargent and may have this not exactly right, but I think the point stands enough.) But any heretic was a good heretic: he embraced Buckminster Fuller, despite his soft spot for science, too.
From this vantage, though, it is hard to know exactly what Sargent thought of Thayer’s organization or Thayer thought of Sargent—beyond signing him up for the Society, that is. (Again: it doesn’t mean much: he signed up a lot of people with whom he did not agree, as long as they were outsiders taking shots at insiders.) The connection between Sargent and the Society is only documented in a single paragraph from Doubt, and I have no evidence that Sargent ever wrote about Fort himself. (It could be buried in one off hi introductions, but not worth it for me to dig out right now.) That paragraph was not written until after Sagent was dead, and took the form of an encomium, so is obviously limited.
Thayer wrote, in Doubt 33 (October 1951), under title “Fortean Loss,” “Most of his adult life Porter Sargent was a nettle in the side of educational complacency, especially among private schools of the higher learning. He was a sharp critic, with the courage to speak out, and for many years an active Fortean. He died April 3, 21 FS (March 27, 1951 old style). His work will be carried on by his surviving son, F. Porter Sargent. Another son, Upham, disappeared while on a canoe trip in the Hudson’s Bay Indian country [sic].”
The obituary reads as though Thayer may have known Sargent, but Thayer usually adopted the knowing tone, so too much stress should not be put upon it. Thayer is also usually accurate in his recountings, if only technically so, thus it is likely that Sargent had some dealings with the Fortean Society over the course of several years, but exactly which years and how intensive the relationship is unknown, but, presumably, in the distant past—meaning either the late 1930s, just as the Society was re-starting, or the early to mid-1940s, when Sargent started attacking the connection between war and schools, which would have brought him to the attention of the pacifist Thayer—and the connection would have been less than intensive—a few exchanged letters, perhaps exchanged publications, maybe Sargent even sending in a relevant clipping or two not he sad practices of American schools.
All of this is speculation—informed speculation, but speculation nonetheless. There doesn’t exist enough evidence to say anything solid, and so Sargent gets placed into that class of Forteans who were famous names, connected to the Society, but without much—or any—impact on Forteanism.
