New Interpreter Foundation website and bits from Louis Midgley’s mission

[Tom]

I am pleased to be the very first person to announce that the new Interpreter Foundation website is here: https://interpreterfoundation.org/. Longtime Interpreter Foundation acolytes will recall Allen Wyatt’s confession in August that the updating of the Interpreter Foundation website has been a “grueling and detailed" process. Brother Wyatt added:

It has taken longer than anyone first envisioned. And the reason for that is quite simple: there's no other website on the internet, that I'm aware of, that has the resources and the complexity we do.

I must admit my surprise that I beat the Proprietor to the punch, but I suppose he’s busy these days with more important projects, such as posting up a storm trying to rationalize his illicit love for the Beatles.

My first impression of the new website: it’s overwhelmingly green.

Among other “new” content, the updated website includes a link to a reprint of Louis Midgley’s essay in the Daniel Peterson festschrift, “David Hume: On Human and Divine Things.” In it, Dr. Midgley confesses that he spent the morning of his first full day in the New Zealand Mission browsing in a secular bookstore. I am not making this up. He also confesses that he purchased a copy of Hume’s Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary in that same bookstore. (It’s unclear why then-Elder Midgley wasn’t proselytizing that morning.) In any case, Dr. Midgley writes:

The first thing I discovered when I opened this then-sturdy little volume of 616 pages was that “Publius”—that is, James Madison—had been very deeply influenced by David Hume. I realized that Hume had set out much that Madison in particular later included in the Federalist Papers, the famous and truly remarkable letters to the editors of New York newspapers carefully explaining the contents of the proposed Constitution in the hope of New York’s ratifying it. For example, Madison’s famous Tenth Federalist lifted arguments from Hume about, for instance, the “mischiefs of faction.”

After setting forth several examples of parallels between Hume’s writings and Madison’s essays, Dr. Midgley makes an intriguing claim:

What I did not realize then—and only discovered later, years after my first mission in New Zealand—is that no one had yet discovered that James Madison borrowed language and arguments from David Hume’s Essays that ended up constituting the core of Madison’s own crucial essays in the Federalist Papers.

How Midgley determined that “no one had yet discovered that James Madison borrowed language and arguments from David Hume’s Essays” is left unexplained. Note that Dr. Midgley does not state that “no one had yet published an argument that Madison borrowed from Hume.” Rather, he insists that “no one had yet discovered” Madison’s borrowing. Even if he intended to say that no one had yet published such a claim, Dr. Midgley should have acknowledged Douglass Adair’s influential 1943 dissertation, wherein Adair drew attention to Madison’s use of Hume’s work. Dr. Midgley writes that “it was years later that Douglass Adair (1912–68), a very gifted historian at the College of William & Mary, became justly famous for essays in which he drew attention, among other things, to James Madison’s crucial dependence on David Hume’s Essays. Here Dr. Midgley cites Fame and the Founding Fathers: Essays by Douglass Adair (New York: Norton, for the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, 1974).

Dr. Midgley notes that he spent his first week in New Zealand in Wellington, where he

actually engaged in what was then the recommended way of proselytizing that, much like most other missionaries, I soon refused to use. Latter-day Saint missionaries were then urged to use what was called the “Anderson Plan.” Along with other missionaries, I found it impossible to use. This had been fashioned by Richard L. Anderson, who later became a prominent professor at Brigham Young University and also a highly valued colleague and close friend. I never spoke of his “plan” with Richard.

I suppose it’s the lazy learners and lax disciples among the full-time missionaries who stick with the church-approved missionary teaching plan.

[Dr. Shades]

After setting forth several examples of parallels between Hume’s writings and Madison’s essays, Dr. Midgley makes an intriguing claim:

What I did not realize then—and only discovered later, years after my first mission in New Zealand—is that no one had yet discovered that James Madison borrowed language and arguments from David Hume’s Essays that ended up constituting the core of Madison’s own crucial essays in the Federalist Papers.

So far, so good. . .

How Midgley determined that “no one had yet discovered that James Madison borrowed language and arguments from David Hume’s Essays” is left unexplained. Note that Dr. Midgley does not state that “no one had yet published an argument that Madison borrowed from Hume.” Rather, he insists that “no one had yet discovered” Madison’s borrowing. Even if he intended to say that no one had yet put such a claim in writing, Dr. Midgley should have acknowledged Douglass Adair’s influential 1943 dissertation, wherein Adair drew attention to Madison’s use of Hume’s work. Dr. Midgley writes that “it was years later that Douglass Adair (1912–68), a very gifted historian at the College of William & Mary, became justly famous for essays in which he drew attention, among other things, to James Madison’s crucial dependence on David Hume’s Essays.

So, 1943 was "years later" than Midgley's mission to New Zealand, when Midgley made the discovery? That doesn't match the timeline I have.

Dr. Midgley notes that he spent his first week in New Zealand in Wellington, where he

actually engaged in what was then the recommended way of proselytizing that, much like most other missionaries, I soon refused to use. Latter-day Saint missionaries were then urged to use what was called the “Anderson Plan.” Along with other missionaries, I found it impossible to use. This had been fashioned by Richard L. Anderson, who later became a prominent professor at Brigham Young University and also a highly valued colleague and close friend. I never spoke of his “plan” with Richard.

I suppose it’s the lazy learners and lax disciples among the full-time missionaries who stick with the church-approved missionary teaching plan.

Now I'm intrigued as to what this "Anderson Plan" consisted of.

[Tom]

Richard Cowan provided some information about the Anderson Plan (formally named “A Plan for Effective Missionary Work”) in a 2000 article available online here: https://scholarsarchive.BYU.edu/cgi/vie ... additional

[Gadianton]

That's fascinating Tom. So the discovery of Hume's influence on Madison rightfully belongs to Midgley as a young missionary. A young missionary who refused to do real missionary work. I take it the Anderson plan involved something other than stalking and lecturing people one has grievances with.

[I Have Questions]

That's fascinating Tom. So the discovery of Hume's influence on Madison rightfully belongs to Midgley as a young missionary. A young missionary who refused to do real missionary work. I take it the Anderson plan involved something other than stalking and lecturing people one has grievances with.

The Anderson Plan sounds a lot like the door-to-door direct selling techniques companies such as Avon originally employed. In fact, I’d wager you can correlate the Church’s missionary programme techniques to those of the direct sales industry, over time. It will lag by a decade or two because the Church is slow to change.

[Gadianton]

A Plan for Effective Missionary Work” was nicknamed the “Anderson Plan” and helped his mission be the first to baptize 1,000 converts in a year

Along with other missionaries, I found it impossible to use.

I guess it depends on your goals.

...one day while enjoying hot cocoa in our boarding and marveling at the invisible force rushing from the hot plate to energize the bottom of the kettle for hours on end, I recalled a story my father had told me long ago. As a boy, he'd flown his kite in a storm and got it crashed into a heap in Blanche Simms wheat field. Now that gave him an idea, and soon enough he had what he called his "moon post" erected outside the barn door. He used it for working late into the night. Some neighbors marveled and others brushed it off as a trick with an old lantern, but his contraption inside he never showed anybody. I never thought much of it until now, it dawns on me that Dad had once mentioned Simms himself calling for his own father at dusk one day, with a stuck tractor. Incidentally, Dad recounted the name of a relative visiting Simms from back East who accompanied him to the porch, and who had been unable pry the wheel free of the mud. Grandpa got them unstuck before supper. But the visitor -- that man's name was Edison. I guess he made off with more than a working tractor that evening.

[Physics Guy]

Since the writings of David Hume and the Federalist Papers have both been well studied since the early 1800s, it’s unlikely that no-one had ever noticed some influence. Much more likely is that no-one thought it worth comment. It would be like “discovering” that the classical mechanics of Lagrange had been influenced by Newton.

Hume was and is a major thinker. I mean, he’s mentioned right after Kant and Heidegger in the ultimate list of great philosophers.

David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

It’s no big shock that someone else used his ideas.

I’m assuming that Adair made his name by discussing Madison’s use of Hume in some detail, not just for noticing a connection.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

The Legend Of The Kiwi Coast Stalker: The Elder Midgley Method

Elder Midgely arrived in New Zealand with a suitcase full of pamphlets, binoculars, and exactly zero understanding of personal space or privacy. Midgley's enthusiasm, however, was boundless. He took “finding people to teach” a little too literally and had a habit of popping up exactly where people didn’t expect him, like behind a hedge, emerging from under a table at the local restaurant, or once (tragically) rising from behind a bathroom stall like a curious meerkat. Word soon spread, and the sight of Elder Midgley caused locals to cross the street to avoid him.

The Mission President decided to intervene and gently suggested he try “less following and more scheduled appointments,” which Elder Midgely enthusiastically misinterpreted as “schedule your accidental run-ins.” Soon he was mapping out totally casual routes that somehow intersected with everyone’s commute, grocery trip, bathroom break and dental appointments. But New Zealanders, unfailingly polite, eventually took pity on him. A kindly elderly woman finally sat him down and explained that while his heart was in the right place, his feet didn’t always need to be. Elder Midgely, touched and only slightly confused, vowed to improve. And he did, mostly by learning to climb trees and by diligently studying the art of camouflage.

[Tom]

That's fascinating Tom. So the discovery of Hume's influence on Madison rightfully belongs to Midgley as a young missionary.

To be clear, I believe the actual “discovery” occurred prior to then-Elder Midgley’s purchase and reading of Hume’s Essays in 1950.

(I am reminded of Dr. Midgley’s one-time claim that he invented the terms “cultural Mormon” and “cultural Mormonism.” He didn’t.)

[Dr. Shades]

The Anderson Plan sounds a lot like the door-to-door direct selling techniques companies such as Avon originally employed. In fact, I’d wager you can correlate the Church’s missionary programme techniques to those of the direct sales industry, over time.

I read the article, and yes, the Anderson Plan is nothing more than knocking on people's doors and asking them to listen to a discussion/lesson, just like all of us returned missionaries did, as opposed to leaving a tract at a door and walking away, hoping they'll call later, which was the old method and what Midgley apparently expected he'd be doing. (As an aside, after all these years, NOW I finally know why they call it "tracting" when there never was a tract involved.)

Along with other missionaries, I found it impossible to use.

He found it impossible to knock on doors and talk to people? Man, missionary work must've been INCREDIBLY EASY back in his day.