SOURCE: "Jane Addams on Human Nature," in Ideas in Cultural Perspective, edited by Philip P. Wiener and Aaron Noland, Rutgers University Press, 1962, pp. 468-81.

In the following essay, which was originally presented as the first William I. Hull Lecture at Swarthmore College on 16 October 1960, Curti discusses Addams's views on the self and the place of the individual in society.

It is somewhat curious that in tributes to Jane Addams (1860-1935) occasioned by her centennial year, no serious consideration has been given to her place in American intellectual history. One finds merited praise of her personality and of her contributions to the woman's movement, to social welfare, and to international peace. Her understanding and appreciation of the immigrants in our midst and what she did to help them become Americans without losing a feeling for their Old World heritage have been rightly recalled. But the ideas she held, their...