TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

Humanists: Ethical Culture's Maturity

It is axiomatic for Ethical Culture that a good deed is better than a bad creed. This week, when the New York Society for Ethical Culture—mother chapter of the nationwide American Ethical Union—celebrates its 90th anniversary, it can take credit for enough good deeds to honor spiritual institutions ten times as big. Over the years, members have been responsible for creating the N.A.A.C.P., the American Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Aid Society, the Visiting Nurse Service, and the nation's first settlement house.

Ethical Culturists wince at being labeled atheists, but their basic...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.