USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time > Part 18
USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time, centennial ed. > Part 18
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Social Experiments at New Harmony 251
private exertions, guided by these new principles, can accomplish at New Harmony, and these new proceedings will begin in April."1
During the year 1825, students of public questions in Europe and America were agog over the new pro- ject and visionaries of every description were attracted by the experiment. Mr. Owen was an extreme liberal in his religious views and many of those who drifted into the community were free-thinkers. Before he himself reached the scene there had swarmed into New Harmony so many eccentric and curious people, so many with hobbies to carry out and others who wished to attain a life where they would not have to labor, that Mr. Owen was deprived of a choice of inhabitants, upon whom to try the new social scheme. The first address of the great heart who founded the commune seems almost pathetic in the light of its brief history. His followers and the curious people from the country round about were assembled in the vast church, now rechristened the Hall of Harmony. "I am come to this country," he said, "to introduce an entire new system of society; to change it from an ignorant and selfish system to an enlightened social system which shall gradually unite all interests into one, and remove all causes for contest between indi- viduals." 2 The change must be gradual, he explained, and after a sincere, candid, and hopeful explanation of the details of his plans, he laid the proposed con- stitution for the preliminary society before them. It was adopted four days later, and in it his purposes in founding the community were comprehensively stated.
1 Lockwood, Geo. B., The New Harmony Movement, page 70. New York, 1905.
2 Ibid., page 75.
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This document may be found in the old library of the village, or more conveniently consulted in the pages of Mr. George Lockwood's most interesting work on The New Harmony Movement. The points can only be touched upon here. The constitution is prefaced by the declaration that the society is instituted generally to promote the happiness of the world. It then sets forth that persons of all ages and descriptions may become members. Persons of color may be received as helpers, or for future colonization by themselves. No rank was to be recognized, no artificial inequality acknowledged. Precedence was to be given only to age, experience, and those chosen to office. As Mr. Owen, the founder, had purchased the property, paid for it, and furnished the capital to consummate the plans, it was modestly claimed that he should have the appointment of a committee of integrity and experience, to direct and arrange the affairs of the
society. His expectation was announced that a sufficient number of trained members would be gathered to form an association, at the end of two or three years, who could establish an independent community of equality and self-rule. The formation of other societies of like order, it was hoped, would follow. Those who wished to become members were to sign the constitution, were to occupy dwellings assigned to them, provide their own household fur- niture and utensils. The society was not to be answer- able for the debts of any of its members. They were to be temperate, regular and orderly in conduct, diligent in their employments, and were to apply themselves to acquire an occupation. They were to help protect the whole property from injury, and enter into the society with a determination to promote
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its peace, prosperity, harmony, and social equality. In return the members were to receive such advan- tages, living, comforts, and education for their children, as the present state of New Harmony afforded. In old age, in sickness, or when accident occurred, care was to be taken of all parties, medical aid afforded, and every attention shown to them that kindness could suggest. Each member should, within a fixed limit, have the free choice of food and clothing. Each family was to receive credits in proportion to the number of its useful members. Members were to have the privilege of receiving their friends to visit them, provided they be answerable for the conduct of such sojourners. The children were to be educated at the expense of the community. Parents that preferred placing their children in the boarding-school after they had attained two years of age could do so by special arrangement, week by week. Members were allowed complete liberty of conscience, and were afforded every facility for exercising those practices of religious worship which they preferred. They could quit the society on a week's notice, taking with them the productions of the establishment, to the value of what they brought. Families or members might be dismissed on the same terms, by the com- mittee. Equality of rights and duties, community of property, co-operative union in business and amusements, freedom of speech and activity, acqui- sition of knowledge, obedience to the laws of the State and nation, preservation of health, courtesy in all intercourse, kindness in all actions-were declared to be the principles of New Harmony's foundation.
Proceeding upon this foundation, Robert Owen, assisted in his plans by his talented sons, and his
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enlightened co-worker William Maclure, went hope- fully forward toward the establishment of the com- mune upon a substantial basis. Free schools for the youth, and all who wished for them, was the first care of the founders. Well regulated amusements were held to be a large part of the community's in- terest, and every Friday evening there were concerts. Tuesday evening was designated as the night for the weekly balls, for which an excellent band of music was supplied. Wednesday evening the public meetings of the society were held, for the discussion of all subjects relating to the well-being of the commune. In time these meetings must have come to be veritable fields of contest, when what has been described as the heterogeneous collection of radicals, enthusiastic devotees to peculiar principles, honest latitudinarians, and lazy theorists had assembled, and each wanted to put in practice his personal views. Thursday was officially a day of rest for the commune; some made it a day of recreation, also. Permission to speak in the village church was given to any minister who asked it, his creed not being inquired into. The New Harmony Gazette was established as the official organ of the com- mune, with the beautiful motto, "If we cannot recon- cile all opinions let us endeavor to unite all hearts."
By Christmas, eight months after the organization of the society, the Gazette announced that the pop- ulation of the community numbered one thousand persons. The next month, on January 18, 1826, Robert Owen returned from Europe and a tour of the Atlantic cities, accompanied by the famous "boat- load of knowledge." These were teachers, scientists, and eminent men who had been enlisted in the work of uplifting the world.
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Let us follow in a bare outline Mr. Lockwood's graphic summary of events and the characters that gave New Harmony its brilliant place in the dawn of the nineteenth century. 1
"Notable as New Harmony was in its own time as the scene of an ambitious effort at social regeneration, the perspective of years is necessary to an adequate portrayal of its importance in American history." There the doctrine of universal elementary education at public expense, without regard to sex or sect, as a duty of the State, was first proclaimed in the Middle West, and equal educational privileges for the sexes established. There the Pestalozzian system of teach- ing, now so generally followed everywhere, was first successfully instituted in the United States. William Maclure's manual-training and industrial and trade school, in connection with regular school instruction, was the first of its kind in America. Through the prominent scientists who pursued their researches at New Harmony, it became the greatest scientific centre on this continent. It possessed a museum which contained the remarkable collections of Thomas Say, Maclure, and Owen, and a scientific library unexcelled in the New World. In New Harmony women were first given a voice and vote in the local legislative councils; and there the doctrine of equal political rights for all, without regard to sex or color, was first proclaimed by Frances Wright. Through this brilliant woman, too, New Harmony became one of the earliest centres of the Abolition movement, and by her was founded there what is known as the first woman's literary club in the United States. The
1 Lockwood, Geo. B., The New Harmony Movement, page 3. New York, 1905.
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community dramatic club, which endured from 1828 to 1875, was one of the earliest clubs of that kind that were organized in the country, and trained many actors for the profession. The first prohibition of the liquor traffic, by administrative edict, was made in this community in 1826. By William Maclure's provision, New Harmony gave to the State and to Illinois a system of mechanics' libraries for more than a hundred and fifty communities in those States. Josiah Warren of New Harmony originated a philos- ophy of individualism, which was a rebound from their own communism, and has impressed itself in- delibly upon modern economic thought. And from the scheme of the "time store" and "labor notes," originated by that early philosopher and inventive genius, it is said Robert Owen derived the central idea of the great labor co-operative societies of Great Britain, which constituted the most successful labor movement of the last century. A leaven of liberality in religious thought was also introduced into the commonwealth which helped to dispel the narrow type of religion then so general.
Surely, if advanced thought and enlightenment could insure success, the great scheme should have at- tained it by the superior character of its leadership. By the October following the organization of the commune, the Gazette stated that every State in the Union with the exception of two and almost every country in the north of Europe had contributed to make up the population! What response was there to all of the endeavors for their welfare, by these adherents? What were the one thousand residents producing with all the grand equipment that had been provided, and how were they demeaning them-
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selves under the liberal rules passed for the control of the community? What activity had been shown in shop, factory, vineyard, and field? Alas! we read in their records that there were already those who felt that they performed more than their share of labor; that some of the great mills were idle for lack of workmen. Accessions of skilful hands in nearly all these branches of industry, as well as in some other departments, is still desirable, pleads the Gazette. Notwithstanding this poverty of laborers, and the surplus of idlers or incompetents, when Mr. Owen returned from England, with characteristic optimism, he proceeded to strike off two years from the three of the probation! He announced that he was so well pleased with the progress made that he would proceed to organize those of the society who wished it into a community of perfect equality! After a week of meetings for discussion and framing of the plans, a very comprehensive constitution and declaration of principles was framed, and adopted. This document is of too great length to reproduce here, but among other things, equal privileges and advantages, without regard to services, were assured to every member who should unite with the society. The son Robert Dale Owen afterwards wrote that it was liberty, equality, and fraternity in downright earnest, but that he made no opposition, for he had too much of his father's all-believing disposition to anticipate results which any shrewd, cool-headed business man might have predicted. How rapidly they came. One curious result of the adoption of the permanent con- stitution was the immediate defection of whole groups of persons, who formed societies of their own and were allowed to establish themselves on different parts of
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the domain. There seemed to be quantities of persons in the colony who, it has been said, discovering them- selves out of place and at a discount in the world as it is, rashly concluded that they were exactly fitted for the world as it ought to be. No more convincing commentary on Robert Owen's freedom from com- mercially interested motives could be asked for than his pleasure at the increase of these detached communities. Not only to the offshoots that located on the estate, but to the other communities modelled on the New Harmony plan, he gave a gracious wel- come and rejoiced at the spread of the ideas. No less than twenty communes sprang into existence in the country, twelve of which were in Indiana, three in New York, three in Ohio, one in Pennsylvania, and one in Tennessee. In five years they had all passed into oblivion, but Owen had given them every en- couragement. He had a passion for the regeneration of society. His propaganda in the cities of both con- tinents, and before the most illustrious people in public life, showed that it was a sublime interest in humanity, and not personal aggrandizement, that prompted his investment, and subsequent endeavors.
In establishing the educational departments of New Harmony, Robert Owen gave his co-worker William Maclure sole charge of that feature of the new reforms. Mr. Maclure had joined in the experiment, by investing a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and engaging to make the community the centre of his plans for educational work in America, according to the new Pestalozzian system of instruction. William Maclure was a Scotchman by birth, and had come to America to make a geological survey of the United States. On account of his invaluable services in this science,
-
Social Experiments at New Harmony 259
he is called the Father of American Geology. He was the principal founder of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and for twenty-three years its president. He was one of the first men to advocate industrial education, and had founded an agricultural school in Spain, on an estate of 10,000 acres, which he lost as the result of a political revolution. While visiting in Scotland, after he had retired from a suc- cessful mercantile career, William Maclure made the acquaintance of Robert Owen at New Lanark. He had gone there to study the model factory community, and especially the schools that Mr. Owen had es- tablished. The two men had many opinions and aspirations in common, and both were devoted to the cause of improving the conditions of existence for the lowly. It was natural that when Mr. Owen came to America, to establish the New Harmony commune, William Maclure should join him in the great enterprise. They brought out with them Thomas Say, the illustrious "Father of American Zoology," Dr. Gerard Troost, the geologist, and John Chapplesmith, the famous engraver. Those who were to be instructors in the great educational institu- tions planned were Professor Joseph Neef, Madam Frotageot, Phiquepal d'Arusmont, and their assistants. These teachers were trained in Pestalozzi's famous school in Switzerland. In taking so much care to estab- lish a broad educational system at New Harmony, including industrial features, the founders were ex- emplifying their creed, that the formation of char- acter was the chief end of all training, and that the school was the great means for social regeneration. The children were to be surrounded solely by cir- cumstances favorable to their development. William
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Maclurc showed by his life-work that he believed that free, equal, and universal schools were the only means of raising the masses to the estate of comfort and enlightenment; and he addressed himself to that phase alone of the community life at New Harmony. He firmly believed the sensible doctrine that every child of the productive classes should be taught a trade, in order that he might be self-supporting when through with school.
The advanced section of the schools, numbering as many as eighty pupils, and called the school of adults, was also taught chemistry by the famous Dr. Troost, drawing by the French artist Lesseur, and natural history by Thomas Say-truly as brilliant a group of instructors as could have been found in any college, on either side of the water. In all of the departments, girls were received, and taught, on an equality with the boys, for the first time in the history of the country. Although the schools were established for the commune, they attracted pupils from every section of the country, from New Orleans to New York. It is pathetic to think that only three counties distant the lad Abra- ham Lincoln, hungering for knowledge, knew of these schools but had no possible means of availing himself of the great opportunity. Later Mr. Maclure attempted to maintain a seminary for young men and women, called an orphans' manual training school, and free of any expense to them; and still another was started called The School of Industry. We are told that when, one by one, his educational experiments, in each of which he placed such high hopes, came to naught, William Maclure, still eager to do something for the cause of education, and for the productive classes, directed his philanthropy toward the formation of
Social Experiments at New Harmony 261
an educational society for adults called The Society of Manual Instruction, which was really a mechanics' institute. This school, with all of the others, after failing health obliged Mr. Maclure to go to Mexico, went out of existence. Although the commune had failed and his earlier schools had passed into oblivion with it, Mr. Maclure in his closing hours provided for the widely known plan for the Working Men's Institute and Library.
Mr. Maclure was forced to leave his new work and go to Mexico; twelve years afterward he died on his way back to the village. In his will he had pro- vided for a system of libraries for the working-people of the country. Hear from Mr. Dunn's article the foreign-sounding list of investments, that were to be devoted to the Hoosier libraries: Besides his property in New Harmony he set aside over a million reals in Spanish securities, his house in Alicante, his convent of St. Gives and accompanying estate of ten thousand acres in Valencia; his convent and estate at Grosmano; his estate of Carman de Croix; the valley of Murada; forty-one thousand francs in French securities ; notes, and mortgages on properties scattered from Big Lick plantation in Virginia to various parts of England, France, and Spain; his vast collections of minerals and prints, and near two thousand copper plates of engravings and illustrations. By the provisions made in his will, and after legal vicissitudes and organization of many temporary societies, to fulfil the requirements before obtaining an interest in the bequest, one hun- dred and sixty libraries were created in as many different counties of Indiana and Illinois!
"Unfortunately there was nothing in their formation to insure, and but little to encourage, perpetuity. The
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preliminary library required, of one hundred volumes, as a nucleus, before the county could receive a donation of books, was often valueless; and after the little libraries were established it was a sad fact that there was neither a competent custodian nor suitable quarters; what with lack of supervision and rough usage, they melted away. And there was neither taxation nor endowment to replace them." 1
The township libraries, organized by the State of Indiana in 1854, were often combined with what was left of the Maclure foundation. Memories of a dusty, musty attic, festooned with cobwebs and located over the dingy shop and office of the township trustee, caused a grateful sentiment in the heart of the writer toward that Maclure benefaction to Indiana. With her brother, in earliest childhood, the children, guided by a student father, found the forgotten heaps of books, and read with eager interest the classic juve- niles and standard works included in that old col- lection. Nibbled by mice, mutilated by careless hands, many of the volumes lost, and more of them unreturned by previous readers, the old library was but a tattered ghost of William Maclure's intention; but, with other collections established by that bequest, it had been a means of inspiration and culture to many men and women in the frontier communities, who thirsted for knowledge. It is a pleasant relief, from this account of dispersed libraries, to record the faithful preservation and extension of the Maclure Working Men's Library at New Harmony itself. That village, aided by the Rappite memorial and the sub- sequent munificent bequest of Dr. Murphy, one of its own citizens, has built a handsome building, in
1 Dunn, J. P., Report on Public Libraries. Supt.'s Report, 1904.
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which are housed the library, a museum, an art gallery, and the village auditorium. The value of the library's holdings, since the bequest of Dr. Murphy, is estimated at two hundred thousand dollars; enabling the manage- ment to continually add books to the twenty thousand volumes now on the shelves. It has, also, the very important collection of the scientific works of its founders, and the records and publications regarding the unusual history of New Harmony and similar communes are carefully preserved. The library is of great interest to the student of history, or of sociology.
The cheap lands of the New World have attracted many dreamers of the possibility of community life solving the problems of existence, but few of them have had the element of persistence. Robert Owen's great plans for others failed to solve the riddle, and within three years the commune passed into oblivion! To the labors of this distinguished group of educators, who were a full half-century in advance of their time, Mr. Lockwood pays a beautiful tribute:
" Immediate results there were none-they were proph- ets and seers upon the mountain-top. But one 'cannot see 'neath winter's field of snow the silent harvest of the future grow.' For measured by its after effect the educational ex- periment at New Harmony deserves to rank among the most important educational movements in this country. The precious seed which was sown on frontier soil, after many days ripened into a golden harvest. When Owen's social system dissipated into thin air, there went forth from brief homes on the Wabash men and women who, scattering in every direction through the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and becoming the instructors of the pioneer youth, sowed in almost every isolated hamlet the tenets of the educational creed which Pestalozzi and Neef and Maclure had espoused.
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Coupled with the actual teaching influence was the pres- ence of the eminent scientists who made New Harmony a rendezvous, and were themselves bearers of good seed and glad tidings. Their achievements and contributions drew renewed attention to the best features of the educational light that failed." 1
Various reasons have been ventured as the cause of the failure of the vast, unselfish, philanthropic scheme. After all are recounted it seems attributa- ble to selfishness and the perversity of human nature, and the previous living in competitive communities. No doubt a more gradual settlement of adherents, with Mr. Owen's presence constantly in command, would have prolonged the experiment. It was surely more benevolent than practical. Mr. McDonald, who studied the history of the undertaking, on the prem- ises, a quarter of a century afterward, said that there were some noble characters among the membership who set examples of industry and self-denial worthy of a great cause. There were others who came and lived as long as they could get supplies for nothing, but had no conception of the sentiment of the com- munity's foundations. It is touching to read how, when one theory failed, with cheerful optimism Mr. Owen would substitute another plan; not once or twice, but again and again, he would make new ar- rangements of the property, to suit new vagaries among groups of members.
"He seems to have forgotten that if one and all the thousand persons assembled there had possessed all the qualities which he wished them to possess, there would
1 Lockwood, Geo. B., The New Harmony Movement, page 289. New York, 1905.
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be no necessity for his vain exertions to found a com- munity, because there would of necessity be brotherly love, charity, industry, and plenty; and all of their actions would be governed by nature and reason."1
By many persons, the entire freedom of opinion and absence of any religious bond or authority has been assigned as the reason of the dispersion at New Har- mony. The partial severing of the family relation, by placing the children apart at school, was an ele- ment of disintegration. It is agreed that there was a deplorable lack of members who were skilful and industrious or who were willing to work. Years afterward, Robert Dale Owen gave the gist of the matter when he said that equal remuneration to the skilful and industrious and the ignorant and idle must work its own downfall. It must of necessity eliminate the valuable members who find their services reaped by the indigent, and retain only the improv- ident, unskilled, and vicious members. In confessing his defeat in the great hall at New Harmony in 1828, Robert Owen said:
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