Human Faculty.
The Human Motto: E Pluribus Unum / The Stepping Stones to Success
1899--1902 Monthly
Chicago, IL. Editor: Louis A. Vaught, editor and publisher.
Succeeds: Phrenological News (Chicago) Succeeded by: Human Culture
1/1, January 1899-4/12, December 1902. $1.00 a year, 8-24 pp.

Louis Allen Vaught (c. 1860-May 1903) was a belated disciple of the phrenologists and physiognomists of earlier in the nineteenth century who took to the lecture circuit in the mid-1880s to proclaim the wonders of phrenology. His system, which he called generally "character reading" was melded into the universal New Thought quest for self-help methods to ameliorate perceived deficits in human nature and to lead the student to a successful life. Character reading, Vaught taught, was a universal faculty of all animals, but in human beings the ability could be improved and refined by learning the secrets of the head -- as taught in the journal and its widely advertised companion volume, Vaught's Practical Character Reader, which taught how "to read correctly the character of men, women and children." Having learned to read the character of himself and others, the student could then move on to Vaught's Successful Self-Confidence Guide that taught the method of curing lack of self-confidence "by yourself at home" while at the same time curing lack of concentration and a failing memory. In the mid-1890s Vaught and his then wife May E. Vaught organized a Human Nature Club in Chicago and the Chicago Institute of Phrenology, and published their teachings in Phrenological News. The Institute's course cost $100.00 and began with "examinations" -- "perfectly candid and perfectly reliable": "Vocational Examination" ($2.00), "Phrenological Chart Examination" ($3.00), "Phrenological Typewritten Examination" ($6.00), and offered a "Complete Typewritten Life Guide" ($10.00). Terms for "Special Development" could be arranged. This journal and all of Vaught's books were lavishly illustrated with his own drawings of characteristic manifestation of the 42 faculties that constitute human nature. Vaught died in 1903 and his then wife Emily H. Vaught moved in with one of his students, Victor Gabriel Rocine / Lundquist, and continued the journal as Human Culture. Noted in "List of Advance Thought Publications," The New Cycle, March 1900, 159-60, and in Metaphysical Magazine, July 1901. Smithsonian Institution Library.

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