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Monsalvat School

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ125912956 ↗
Source-derived summary

Monsalvat School of Comparative Religion (sometimes spelled Montsalvat; meaning "Mount of Peace") was an American constituent school of Sarah Jane Farmer's Greenacre Conferences. The school was established in 1896 in Eliot, Maine, and sustained by voluntary contributions.

Early history

The Free Religious Association of America was founded as a non-sectarian organization devoted to the scientific study of religions. Its work, however, was limited, and the first great popular movement in the direction aimed at by its founders was seen in the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in connection with the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. All the leaders in this work retained their interest and conviction of its far-reaching importance.

Sarah J. Farmer was the founder of the Greenacre lectures. As a result of observing the inspiring effects of the 1893 Parliament of Religions and her own experience with teachers of Eastern religions, she made an offer in 1895 to Lewis G. Janes (1844-1901) to establish a school at Greenacre for the comparative study of religions. For many years, Janes had served as president of the Brooklyn Ethical Association.

Establishment

The first session of the Monsalvat School was held in the summer of 1896. A month was devoted to this work each successive season, with steadily increasing interest and attendance.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Monsalvat School” is open-knowledge reference entry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Monsalvat, School and Open-knowledge, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1896, 1893, 1895, 1844—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Monsalvat, School and Open-knowledge is the immediate research focus.
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This entry incorporates text from “Monsalvat School” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.