Adler, Felix (1851-1933), was a German-American educator, reformer, and publicist. He founded the New York Society for Ethical Culture in 1876 to promote ethics and morality, independent of sectarian or religious connection. Adler organized the first child-study group in the United States and established the first free kindergarten in New York City in 1878. The kindergarten was called the Workingman’s School and later evolved into the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. Adler was active in tenement housing reform and U.S. foreign policy.
Adler was born in Alzey, near Worms, Germany, on Aug. 13, 1851. He came to the United States in 1857. Adler studied at Columbia College (later Columbia University) in New York City. He graduated from Columbia in 1870 and studied philosophy at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. After his return to the United States in 1873, Adler taught Hebrew and Oriental literature at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, from 1874 to 1876. In 1902, he returned to Columbia, where he was a professor of political and social ethics until his death. Adler died in New York City on April 24, 1933.
