History of American Socialisms

by John Humphrey Noyes

THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION OF BROOK FARM.

[From The Dial, Jan. 1842.]

"In the last number of The Dial, were some remarks, under the perhaps ambitious title of, 'A Glimpse of Christ's Idea of Society;' in a note to which it was intimated, that in this number would be given an account of an attempt to realize in some degree this great Ideal, by a little company in the midst of us, as yet without name or visible existence. The attempt is made on a very small scale. A few individuals, who, unknown to each other, under different disciplines of life, reacting from different social evils, but aiming at the same object,—of being wholly true to their natures as men and women—have been made acquainted with one another, and have determined to become the Faculty of the Embryo University.

"In order to live a religious and moral life worthy the name, they feel it is necessary to come out in some degree from the world, and to form themselves into a community of property, so far as to exclude competition and the ordinary rules of trade; while they reserve sufficient private property, or the means of obtaining it, for all purposes of independence, and isolation at will. They have bought a farm, in order to make agriculture the basis of their life, it being the most direct and simple in relation to nature. A true life, although it aims beyond the highest star, is redolent of the healthy earth. The perfume of clover lingers about it. The lowing of cattle is the natural bass to the melody of human voices. [Here we have the old farming hobby of the socialists.] * * *

"The plan of the Community, as an economy, is in brief this: for all who have property to take stock, and receive a fixed interest thereon: then to keep house or board in commons, as they shall severally desire, at the cost of provisions purchased at wholesale, or raised on the farm; and for all to labor in community, and be paid at a certain rate an hour, choosing their own number of hours, and their own kind of work. With the results of this labor and their interest, they are to pay their board, and also purchase whatever else they require at cost, at the warehouses of the Community, which are to be filled by the Community as such. To perfect this economy, in the course of time they must have all trades and all modes of business carried on among themselves, from the lowest mechanical trade, which contributes to the health and comfort of life, to the finest art, which adorns it with food or drapery for the mind.

"All labor, whether bodily or intellectual, is 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.