Part 24 (1/2)
Since visiting you my fears have given place to an ardent desire to become one of your Community, not to come as an alien and a stranger but as a sister in full communion, with a heart full of love and affection and with a strong desire to act my part fully and to do all required of me.
You will find I have great skill and ingenuity in work, understanding almost all kinds, and have, I am told, a good faculty to plan and perform it, so I hope that I shall be of real use to you. You will not think I am trying to flatter you or myself. Husband's idea is this: he says when people trade they place their commodities in the best light and speak of their desirable qualities, and this is so much like trading ourselves off that we have a right to give some idea of ourselves as an offset for what we expect to receive.
Mr. Brewster has sound, unbroken health, untiring strength and great skill and ability to work. He often says he would not go where he could not work--but he would like more time to read than he gets here. He has great power and skill in doing heavy work and great patience and industry in doing small and light work; talents not often combined in one individual. He is just as handy and skilful in planting and weeding and planning a flower garden, or in potting plants and tending them, as in doing the heaviest work. He loves birds and flowers, but _bees_ are his _hobby_; he loves them as a mother loves her children. If he comes among you, you must let him have a hive of bees or I fear he would tire of a.s.sociation. Ah! a new thought just strikes me. Bees are _a.s.sociationists_ and that accounts for his great love of them.
I cannot believe that you will ever regret the possession of such a working man. Furthermore, you will rarely find two united with more willing hearts and hands and more cheerful tempers. We have never been, so far, either of us unhappy in any situation. Our family is not large; it consists of three daughters, one of eleven, one eight and the last three years of age, twenty-fifth of May last--they all have one birthday. We shall probably bring with us, if you make no objection, a girl who is bound to us, and there remains three years of unexpired service--a very stout, strong girl, who loves coa.r.s.e work and who is Mr. Brewster's mesmeric subject.
Mr. Brewster is a lineal descendant of old Elder Brewster, of the fifth generation on the paternal side and a lateral descendant on the maternal side. He thinks that accounts for his being so ardent an a.s.sociationist, as Elder Brewster started his colony on that plan and failed--and perhaps this E. Brewster will do the same thing. But seriously, because the first failed it is no reason that the second should, for the world was not as well prepared for unitary life then as now. Mr. Brewster thinks he would rather help you provide for winter than to be doing the same here.
May the blessing of Heaven attend you all at Brook Farm.
E. B. B. BREWSTER.
APPENDIX.
PART III.
AN OUTSIDE VIEW OF BROOK FARM.
_From the Dial of January, 1844._
Wherever we recognize the principle of progress our sympathies and affections are engaged. However small may be the innovation, however limited the effort towards the attainment of pure good, that effort is worthy of our best encouragement and succor. The inst.i.tution at Brook Farm, West Roxbury, though sufficiently extensive in respect to number of persons, perhaps is not to be considered an experiment of large intent. Its aims are moderate; too humble, indeed, to satisfy the extreme demands of the age; yet for that reason, probably, the effort is more valuable, as likely to exhibit a larger share of actual success.
Though familiarly designated a ”Community,” it is only so in the process of eating in commons; a practice at least as antiquated as the collegiate halls of old England, where it still continues without producing, as far as we can learn, any of the Spartan virtues. A residence at Brook Farm does not involve either a community of money, of opinions or of sympathy. The motives which bring individuals there, may be as various as their numbers. In fact, the present residents are divisible into three distinct cla.s.ses; and if the majority in numbers were considered, it is possible that a vote in favor of self-sacrifice for the common good would not be very strongly carried.
The leading portion of the adult inmates, they whose presence imparts the greatest peculiarity and the fraternal tone to the household, believe that an improved state of existence would be developed in a.s.sociation, and are therefore anxious to promote it. Another cla.s.s consists of those who join with the view of bettering their condition, by being exempt from some portion of worldly strife. The third portion comprises those who have their own development or education for their princ.i.p.al object.
Practically, too, the inst.i.tution manifests a threefold improvement over the world at large, corresponding to these three motives. In consequence of the first, the companions.h.i.+p, the personal intercourse, the social bearing, are of a marked and very superior character. There may possibly to some minds, long accustomed to other modes, appear a want of homeness and of the private fireside; but all observers must acknowledge a brotherly and softening condition, highly conducive to the permanent and pleasant growth of all the better human qualities. If the life is not of a deeply religious cast, it is at least not inferior to that which is exemplified elsewhere, and there is the advantage of an entire absence of a.s.sumption and pretence. The moral atmosphere, so far, is pure; and there is found a strong desire to walk ever on the mountain tops of life; though taste, rather than piety, is the aspect presented to the eye.
In the second cla.s.s of motives we have enumerated there is a strong tendency to an important improvement in meeting the terrestrial necessities of humanity. The banishment of servitude, the renouncement of hireling labor and the elevation of all unavoidable work to its true station, are problems whose solution seems to be charged upon a.s.sociation; for the dissociate systems have in vain sought remedies for this unfavorable portion of human condition. It is impossible to introduce into separate families even one half of the economies which the present state of science furnishes to man. In that particular, it is probable that even the feudal system is superior to the civic; for its combinations permit many domestic arrangements of an economic character, which are impracticable in small households. In order to economize labor, and dignify the laborer, it is absolutely necessary that men should cease to work in the present isolated, compet.i.tive mode, and adopt that of cooperative union or a.s.sociation. It is as false and as ruinous to call any man ”master,” in secular business, as it is in theological opinion. Those persons, therefore, who congregate for the purpose, as it is called, of bettering their outward relations, on principles so high and universal as we have endeavored to describe, are not engaged in a petty design, bounded by their own selfish or temporary improvement. Everyone who is here found giving up the usual chances of individual aggrandizement, may not be thus influenced; but whether it be so or not, the outward demonstration will probably be equally certain.
In education Brook Farm appears to present greater mental freedom than most other inst.i.tutions. The tuition being more heart-rendered, is in its effects more heart-stirring. The younger pupils, as well as the more advanced students, are held mostly, if not wholly, by the power of love. In this particular, Brook Farm is a much improved model for the oft-praised schools of New England. It is time that the imitative and book-learned systems of the latter should be superseded or liberalized, by some plan better calculated to excite originality of thought and the native energies of the mind. The deeper, kindly sympathies of the heart, too, should not be forgotten; but the germination of these must be despaired of under a rigid hireling system. Hence Brook Farm, with its spontaneous teachers, presents the unusual and cheering condition of a really ”free school.”
By watchful and diligent economy, there can be no doubt that a community would attain greater pecuniary success than is within the hope of honest individuals working separately. But Brook Farm is not a community, and in the variety of motives with which persons a.s.sociate there, a double diligence and a watchfulness perhaps, too costly will be needful to preserve financial prosperity. While, however, this security is an essential element in success, riches would, on the other hand, be as fatal as poverty, to the true progress of such an inst.i.tution. Even in the case of those foundations which have a.s.sumed a religious character, all history proves the fatality of wealth. The just and happy mean between riches and poverty is, indeed, more likely to be attained when, as in this instance, all thought of acquiring great wealth in a brief time is necessarily abandoned, as a condition of members.h.i.+p. On the other hand, the presence of many persons, who congregate merely for the attainment of some individual end, must weigh heavily and unfairly upon those whose hearts are really expanded to universal results.
As a whole, even the initiative powers of Brook Farm have, as is found almost everywhere, the design of a life much too objective, too much derived from objects in the exterior world. The subjective life, that in which the soul finds the living source and the true communion within itself, is not sufficiently prevalent to impart to the establishment the permanent and sedate character it should enjoy. Undeniably, many devoted individuals are there; several who have, as generously as wisely, relinquished what are considered great social and pecuniary advantages, and, by throwing their skill and energies into a course of the most ordinary labors, at once prove their disinterestedness, and lay the foundation for industrial n.o.bility.
An a.s.semblage of persons, not brought together by the principles of community, will necessarily be subject to many of the inconveniences of ordinary life, as well as to burdens peculiar to such a condition. Now Brook Farm is at present such an inst.i.tution. It is not a community; it is not truly an a.s.sociation; it is merely an aggregation of persons, and lacks that oneness of spirit, which is probably needful to make it of deep and lasting value to mankind. It seems, after three years'
continuance, uncertain whether it is to be resolved more into an educational or an industrial inst.i.tution, or into one combined of both.
Placed so near a large city, and in a populous neighborhood, the original liability for land, etc., was so large as still to leave a considerable burden of debt. This state of things seems fairly to ent.i.tle the establishment to re-draw from the old world in fees for education, or in the sale of produce, sufficient to pay the annual interest of such liabilities. Hence the necessity for a more intimate intercourse with the trading world, and a deeper involvement in money affairs than would have attended a more retired effort of the like kind. To enter into the corrupting modes of the world, with the view of diminis.h.i.+ng or destroying them, is a delusive hope. It will, notwithstanding, be a labor of no little worth, to induce improvements in the two grand departments of industry and education. We say _improvement_ as distinct from _progress_; for with any a.s.sociation short of community, we do not see how it is possible for an inst.i.tution to stand so high above the present world as to conduct its affairs on principles entirely different from those which now influence men in general.
There are other considerations also suggested by a glance at Brook Farm, which are worthy the attention of the many minds now attracted by the deeply interesting subject of human a.s.sociation. We are gratified by observing several external improvements during the past year; such as a larger and more convenient dining room, a labor saving cooking apparatus, a purer diet, a more orderly and quiet attendance at the refections, superior arrangements for industry, and generally an increased seriousness in respect to the value of the example which those who are there a.s.sembled may const.i.tute to their fellow beings.
Of about seventy persons now a.s.sembled there, about thirty are children, sent thither for education; some adult persons also place themselves there chiefly for mental a.s.sistance; and in the society there are only four married couples. With such materials it is almost certain that the sensitive and vital points of communication cannot well be tested. A joint-stock company, working with some of its own members and with others as agents, cannot bring to issue the great question whether the existence of the individual family is compatible with the universal family, which the term ”Community” signifies. This is now the grand problem. By mothers it has ever been felt to be so.
The maternal instinct, as. .h.i.therto educated, has declared itself so strongly in favor of the separate fireside, that the a.s.sociation, which appears so beautiful to the young and unattached soul, has yet accomplished little progress in the affections of that important section of the human race--the mothers. With fathers, the feeling in favor of the separate family is certainly less strong; but there is an undefinable tie, a sort of magnetic _rapport_, an invisible, inseverable umbilical cord between the mother and child, which in most cases circ.u.mscribes her desires and ambition to her own immediate family.
All the accepted adages and wise saws of society, all the precepts of morality, all the sanctions of theology, have for ages been employed to confirm this feeling. This is the chief corner stone of present society; and to this maternal instinct have, till very lately, our most heartfelt appeals been made for the progress of the human race, by means of a deeper and more vital education. Pestalozzi and his most enlightened disciples are distinguished by this sentiment. And are we all at once to abandon, to deny, to destroy this supposed stronghold of virtue? Is it questioned whether the family arrangement of mankind is to be preserved? Is it discovered that the sanctuary, till now deemed the holiest on earth, is to be invaded by intermeddling scepticism, and its altars sacrilegiously destroyed by the rude hands of innovating progress?