91 rounded the child.* "Had you," he would say, on my right hand been brought up under the influence of such circumstances as are to be found at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, you would all have been Indians, save as to the color of your skins. Had you on my left hand been exposed from infancy to the circumstances which prevail in China, you would all have been Chinese, except in form and figure." Any social system, then, which ignored the power of circumstances was wrong. That system which was based on " the science of circumstances" was right. As to religion, it should be a rational one, founded on matter of fact and the evidences of the senses -in short, the revealed word of God. Any events recorded in books professing to be of divine origin which were in opposition to this principle were false. The Scriptures were not divine nor written by men under divine influence, nor did they more than any other writings contain the revealed word or will of God. All religions, the Christian included, were founded in error, and, so far from being fitted to promote happiness and virtue among mankind, they had the opposite tendency. If the human race, then, was to be made virtuous and happy, the old system must be done away with, for its institutions and its prejudices could not exist together with the principles of the new.† It was for this reason, therefore, that he urged the formation of communities in which should be associated persons in sympathy with his views. The number in any community should never be less than five hundred nor more than two thousand, and they should begin by purchasing a tract of twenty thousand acres of good land. In the centre should be four buildings, each a thousand feet long, so placed as to form the four sides of a hollow square. From the middle of each side a building should project into the square, and in it should be the dining-hall, the kitchen, the laundry, the storerooms-in short, all the domestic appliances needed for the comfort and convenience of those living in the dormitory to which it was attached. The school-rooms, lecture-rooms, lab * National Advocate (N. Y. C.), November, 1825. American Daily Advertiser, November 22, 1825. + American Daily Advertiser, November 30, 1825. oratories, the chapels, concert-halls, and ball-rooms should be in the centres and corners of the buildings. On the first and second stories should be dormitories, and on the third floor the quarters of unmarried persons and children over two years of age, for at that time of life they were to be taken from their parents, lest they should acquire the foolish ideas and habits of the old society.* Around the village thus arranged should lie the farms. Every member should have equal rights and privileges according to age, and be fully supplied with the comforts and necessaries of life. Nobody should own any land, or houses, or cattle, for all property was to be held in There should be no churches, no sects or creeds, no religious worship, but moral lectures, and such a system of public education as would foster in the young a love of justice, morality, and truth. For the very young there should be dancing, singing, and military drill. For those older in years, such studies as music and history, drawing and astronomy, geography, botany, and agriculture. The school-room should be not a barn, but a picture gallery and a museum. Learning should cease to be a task and become a source of wonder and delight. common. From Washington, Owen went on to New Harmony, to which he had invited "the industrious and well-disposed of all nations" to come, and in April, 1825, met a motley gathering of men and women in New Harmony Hall, as he called the old Rappite Church. To these he unfolded his plan for the regeneration of society through co-operation. He told them that it was idle to expect that men trained as they had been should be able to pass at one bound from an irrational to a rational system of society. A half-way house, a period of probation, was necessary to fit them for the practice of co-operation; that he had determined, therefore, to form them into the Preliminary Society of New Harmony, give them a constitution which should continue for three years, and leave the management of affairs in the hands of a preliminary committee. Το all this the people gladly agreed, for they were really the guests * A drawing of such a village was published in London in 1826 under the title, "A Bird's-eye View of one of the New Communities at Harmony, in the State of Indiana, North America." 1825, NEW HARMONY. 93 of Owen.* The land they tilled, the seed they planted, the houses in which they lived, the medicines they consumed, the goods they obtained at the store, all belonged to Owen. At his expense one hundred and thirty children were boarded, clothed, and taught, and a band maintained in order that the people might dance every Tuesday and listen to a concert every Friday evening. After starting the New Harmony Preliminary Society on its way, Owen went back to New Lanark, and left the people to their own devices. In November of 1825 he returned, and, after lecturing in New York and Philadelphia, and gathering in each a small band of recruits, he started westward. Ice detained the party for a month on the Ohio, but in January, 1826, it reached New Harmony in safety. A traveller who saw the village at this time describes it as a scene of idleness and revelry. There were, he declares, a thousand persons of every age, sex, and condition gathered in the town, with no visible means of support save the generosity of the visionary Mr. Owen. In the school, which was held in the old brick church of the Rappites, were three hundred and thirty children, who were under no control whatever, for the plan of education was that of Pestalozzi, in which the sole punishment for bad behavior was a short confinement. The teachers, he was amazed to find, had thrown aside the Christian faith, and taught doctrines not unlike those held by the German Illuminati at the opening of the French Revolution. In and about the village no man seemed to be busy. The houses were falling into a state of dilapidation, the gardens were full of weeds, the fences were down, and the curious labyrinth constructed by Rapp had been destroyed by cattle. † The picture, it is true, may have been overdrawn, yet reorganization was necessary, and the Preliminary Society was promptly abolished. Another society was then formed and called the New Harmony Community of Equality, and a * General Rules and Regulations proposed by Mr. Owen for the Independent Community, subject to such alterations as circumstances may require. Ohio Monitor, May 7, 1825. Missouri Republican, American Daily Advertiser, December 1, 1825. new constitution was made. The principles now laid down for the guidance of the Community of Equality were, for those days, socialistic in the extreme. There was to be the utmost freedom of speech, absolute equality of rights and equality of duties, common ownership of property, co-operation to the fullest extent, and a rigid practice of economy. That these ends might be secured, the pursuits of daily life were classified, and six departments created and named-agriculture, manufacture, and mechanics; literature, science, and education; domestic economy; general economy; commerce.* Under the watchful eye and fostering care of Owen the community now for the first time showed signs of prosperity. Idleness and waste gave place to industry and thrift such as had not been seen since the Rappites left New Harmony. Every man, every woman was busy in some chosen occupation. The streets were no longer full of groups of idle talkers. The meetings at Harmony Hall were held for business, and not for the vain display of oratory. To the community, moreover, had come men of marked ability. There were now gathered Charles Alexander Le Seur, a naturalist of note, an authority on turtles and fishes, and one of the company on the Péron during her voyage around the world; George Francis Vigo, the painter; Gerard Troost, the Dutch geologist; Thomas Say, the conchologist, who had been with Long across the plains; Robert Dale Owen; and William Maclure, of Philadelphia, a man of means, a geologist of distinction, and a firm believer in co-operation and the Pestalozzian system of education. He was often heard to assert that the community system must prevail; that the cities of the East had seen their best days; that houses and lots in them would no longer rise in value; that they would soon be literally deserted; and that, as he expressed it, men then living would see the day when foxes would stare from the windows of the crumbling buildings of Philadelphia. His mission was to conduct a school of industry in which "the arts that conquer the forces of Nature" should be taught. The new constitution and the establishment of the six * United States Gazette, March 21, 1826. 1826. NEW HARMONY. 95 departments had been cheerfully accepted by the people. But the next reforms to be introduced bred trouble. First came a decree prescribing uniformity of dress. For men, the outer garments were to be a collarless jacket, drawn on over the head, pantaloons buttoned to the jacket, and a belt around the waist. The women were to wear pantalets, and a sleeveless frock that came down to the knees. Against this many of them openly rebelled, refused to wear the costume, and would have nothing to do with those who did. Still, the great projector did not lose heart. Such things were but the fruit of the irrational system in which the human race had been trained since the first man set foot on earth. They were painful and hard to endure, yet they must be borne with the patience of a reformer. As such Owen took up his burden, and on the fourth of July, 1826, went one step further, and made a Declaration of Mental Independence which shocked and horrified far more people than it ever converted. Man, he said, up to that hour, all the world over, had been a slave to a trinity of the most monstrous evils that could possibly be combined to inflict mental and physical evils on the whole race. One was private or individual ownership of property; another was absurd and irrational systems of religion; the third was the marriage tie, which, he declared, ought to be made without any ceremony and terminated at the pleasure of those concerned. This was too much. His theories about property and co-operation, the arrangements of buildings, and the education of children were matters of opinion. In a land of toleration. he might hold any religious belief or none. But the moment he touched the marriage rite he touched public morality, and his views were denounced from one end of the country to the other. Newspaper after newspaper attacked him. People whose friends, sisters, daughters had gone to New Harmony were shocked and alarmed. One anxious mother, whose three daughters were members of the Community, wrote to Maclure in great stress of mind to know what this declaration meant. He assured her that he had been six months in New Harmony, yet had seen no immorality, no vice; that he knew of no place where the married were so faithful and the young so chaste," and for the best of reasons, for the bribe to abuse |