History of American Socialisms. John Humphrey Noyes

to be paid at the same rate of wages; on the principle that as the labor becomes merely bodily, it is a greater sacrifice to the individual laborer to give his time to it; because time is desirable for the cultivation of the intellectual, in exact proportion to ignorance. Besides, intellectual labor involves in itself higher pleasures, and is more its own reward, than bodily labor. * * *

      "After becoming members of this Community, none will be engaged merely in bodily labor. The hours of labor for the Association will be limited by a general law, and can be curtailed at the will of the individual still more; and means will be given to all for intellectual improvement and for social intercourse, calculated to refine and expand. The hours redeemed from labor by community, will not be re-applied to the acquisition of wealth, but to the production of intellectual goods. This Community aims to be rich, not in the metallic representative of wealth, but in the wealth itself, which money should represent; namely, LEISURE TO LIVE IN ALL THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL. As a Community, it will traffic with the world at large, in the products of agricultural labor; and it will sell education to as many young persons as can be domesticated in the families, and enter into the common life with their own children. In the end it hopes to be enabled to provide, not only all the necessaries, but all the elegances desirable for bodily and for spiritual health: books, apparatus, collections for science, works of art, means of beautiful amusement. These things are to be common to all; and thus that object, which alone gilds and refines the passion for individual accumulation, will no longer exist for desire, and whenever the sordid passion appears, it will be seen in its naked selfishness. In its ultimate success, the Community will realize all the ends which selfishness seeks, but involved in spiritual blessings, which only greatness of soul can aspire after.

      "And the requisitions on the individuals, it is believed, will make this the order forever. The spiritual good will always be the condition of the temporal. Every one must labor for the Community in a reasonable degree, or not taste its benefits. * * * Whoever is willing to receive from his fellow men that for which he gives no equivalent, will stay away from its precincts forever. But whoever shall surrender himself to its principles, shall find that its yoke is easy and its burden light. Everything can be said of it, in a degree, which Christ said of his kingdom, and therefore it is believed that in some measure it does embody his idea. For its gate of entrance is strait and narrow. It is literally a pearl hidden in a field. Those only who are willing to lose their life for its sake shall find it. Its voice is that which sent the young man sorrowing away: 'Go sell all thy goods and give to the poor, and then come and follow me.' 'Seek first the kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness, and all other things shall be added to you.' * * *

      "There may be some persons at a distance, who will ask, To what degree has this Community gone into operation? We can not answer this with precision, but we have a right to say that it has purchased the farm which some of its members cultivated for a year with success, by way of trying their love and skill for agricultural labor; that in the only house they are as yet rich enough to own, is collected a large family, including several boarding scholars, and that all work and study together. They seem to be glad to know of all who desire to join them in the spirit, that at any moment, when they are able to enlarge their habitations, they may call together those that belong to them."

      Thus far it is evident that Brook Farm was not a Fourier formation. Whether the beginnings of the excitement about Fourierism may not have secretly affected Dr. Channing and the Transcendentalists, we can not say. Brisbane's first publication and Dr. Channing's first suggestion of a Community (according to Emerson) took place in the same year—1840. But Brook Farm, as reported by Miss Peabody, up to January 1842 had nothing to do with Fourierism, but was an original Yankee attempt to embody Christianity as understood by Unitarians and Transcendentalists; having a constitution (written or unwritten) invented perhaps by Ripley, or suggested by the collective wisdom of the associates. Without any great scientific theory, it started as other Yankee experiments have done, with the purpose of feeling its way toward co-operation, by the light of experience and common sense; beginning cautiously, as was proper, with the general plan of joint-stock; but calling itself a Community, and evidently bewitched with the idea which is the essential charm of all Socialisms, that it is possible to combine many families into one great home. Moreover thus far there was no "advertising for a wife," no gathering by public proclamation. The two conditions of success which we named as primary in a previous chapter, viz., religious principle and previous acquaintance, were apparently secured. The nucleus was small in number, and well knit together by mutual acquaintance and spiritual sympathy. In all this, Brook Farm was the opposite of New Harmony.

      If we take Rev. William H. Channing, nephew and successor of Dr. Channing, as the exponent of Brook Farm—which we may safely do, since Emerson says he was "a frequent sojourner there, and in perfect sympathy with the experiment"—we have evidence that the Community had not fallen into the ranks of Fourierism at a considerably later period. On the 15th of September 1843, Mr. Channing commenced publishing in New York a monthly Magazine called The Present, the main object of which was nearly the same as that of The Dial, viz., the discussion of religious Socialism, as understood at Brook Farm and among the Transcendentalists; and in his third number (Nov. 15) he used language concerning Fourier, which The Phalanx, Brisbane's organ (then also just commencing), criticised as disrespectful and painfully offensive.

      From this indication, slight as it is, we may safely conclude that the amalgamation of Brook Farm and Fourierism had not taken place up to November 1843, which was more than two years after Miss Peabody's announcement of the birth of the Community. So far Brook Farm was American and religious, and stood related to the Fourier revival only as a preparation. So far it was Channing's Brook Farm. Its story after it became Fourier's Brook Farm will be reserved for the end of our history of Fourierism.

      

CHAPTER XII.

       Table of Contents

      HOPEDALE.ToC

      This Community was another anticipation of Fourierism, put forth by Massachusetts. It was similar in many respects to Brook Farm, and in its origin nearly contemporaneous. It was intensely religious in its ideal. As Brook Farm was the blossom of Unitarianism, so Hopedale was the blossom of Universalism. Rev. Adin Ballou, the founder, was a relative of the Rev. Hosea Ballou, and thus a scion of the royal family of the Universalists. Milford, the site of the Community, was the scene of Dr. Whittemore's first ministerial labors.

      Hopedale held on its way through the Fourier revival, solitary and independent, and consequently never attained so much public distinction as Brook Farm and other Associations that affiliated themselves to Fourierism; but considered by itself as a Yankee attempt to solve the socialistic problem, it deserves more attention than any of them. Our judgment of it, after some study, may be summed up thus: As it came nearest to being a religious community, so it commenced earlier, lasted longer, and was really more scientific and sensible than any of the other experiments of the Fourier epoch.

      Brook Farm was talked about in 1840, but we find no evidence of its organization till the fall of 1841. Whereas Mr. Ballou's Community dates its first compact from January 1841; though it did not commence operations at Hopedale till April 1842.

      The North American Phalanx is reputed to have outlived all the other Associations of the Fourier epoch; but we find, on close examination of dates, that Hopedale not only was born before it, but lived after it. The North American commenced in 1843, and dissolved in 1855. Hopedale commenced in 1841, and lasted certainly till 1856 or 1857. Ballou published an elaborate exposition of it in the winter of 1854–5, and at that time Hopedale was at its highest point of success and promise. We can not find the exact date of its dissolution, but it is reported to have attained its seventeenth year, which would carry it to 1858. Indeed it is said there is a shell of an organization there now, which has continued from the Community, having a President, Secretary, &c., and holding occasional meetings; but its principal function at present is the care of