Florence Nightingale

 Born to a wealthy English family in the early 19^th century, Florence Nightingale became internationally known as the founder of modern nursing.  As a girl she felt the suffering she saw in her European travels and returned to England with a determination to enter nursing despite her parents’ disapproval.  At the outbreak of the Crimean War and doing brilliant work in England, Florence Nightingale went on to supervise nursing in the army hospitals in the East.  In less than six months, she reduced the hospital death rate from 42 per cent to 2.2 per cent.  Her spectacular success in the battle for human life brought her international acclaim.  During the war, each night as she made her rounds, wounded British soldiers knew she was coming by her glowing lantern in the darkness.  Florence Nightingale became know as the “The Lady of the Lamp.”  Trained in five languages besides English, she overcame obstacles to establish nursing as a profession for women.  In 1907, she became the first woman to receive England’s Order of Merit.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A 19^th century Unitarian minister steeped in biblical criticism and questioning traditional Christian doctrines, Ralph Waldo Emerson left the pulpit to become the leading spokesman of New England Transcendentalism.  Faith, for Emerson, is not based on external or historical props, but on an intuitive revelation of universal Truth – an intimate experience of God.  He opened himself to such experiences.  Unsettled by the Newtonian “mechanical” view of the world, Emerson found in nature a profound witness to a creative and sustaining Intelligence.  In a culture steeped in rationalism, he reclaimed the long forgotten idealistic philosophy of Plato’s legacy.  People do not have to be limited to a rational world known through their senses; they can be freed by contact with something much deeper, if they would trust this inner Force.  Emerson’s Transcendentalism combined classical humanism with a variety of Asian religions to support a belief in an “Oversoul.”  He believed in people’s capacity to make conscious contact with the Oversoul.  He wove his philosophy and experiences of the Divine into his essays, poems and lectures to become a major figure in American literature.

Thomas Paine

 Moved by the blood spilled at the Battle of Lexington and Concord, on April 19, 1775, Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense, which he published the following year.  At that time, the colonies were desperately split on the question of independence.  In Common Sense, he argued for republicanism as the only reasonable means of government.  This meant a total separation of America from Britain.  Its simplicity of argument and direct appeal inspired the colonists and motivated the American Revolution.  It is perhaps fair to say that this “best seller,” which Washington made required reading for his troops, inspired the Declaration of Independence itself.  Poverty stricken, he chose to forgo profits from his writings to make them affordable for wide distribution.  Small wiry Tom Paine became known as the “Firebrand of the American Revolution.”  Throughout his life, in such works as The Age of Reason and The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine continued to wield his pen on behalf of humanity and reason.  His subject matter included denouncing the slave trade and providing inspiration for the French Revolution.  Thomas Paine embodies the power of journalism to inspire social change.

Bishop Berkeley

 In the 18^th century, under monarchy rule and during the materialism of the Age of Enlightenment, George Berkeley renewed “idealism” as a paradigm for the modern world.  In the legacy of Plato, this Anglican bishop set forth the assumption that the material world does not exist apart from the mind.  Ideas and perceptions are ultimately not the product of human intellect but are activities in the thought of God.  This notion remains a formidable challenge to underlying assumptions of “materialism” in our modern world, today.  Materialism, atheism, skepticism, Berkeley maintained, result from the belief that sensations are independent of the things perceived.  Not so.  To move beyond our sense of separation from the world around us, Berkeley invites us to recognize our ONEness with Being, namely, the spiritual unity between perception and what is perceived.  Everything is “Real” in our collective, omnipresent and omniscient Mind-Field.  This Irish bishop of personal charm and great wit came to America in 1728 to gain support for a college in Bermuda.  Although his project was never realized, his influence on higher education along with his poem, “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way,” inspired the founders of Berkeley, California to honor him by adopting his name.