My Friends at Brook Farm

by John Van der Zee Sears

The power of paying attention, of concentrating the whole force of the mind on one object, is a native gift. Those who are endowed with this gift are the men and women destined for high careers. They command confidence. They are leaders in great undertakings. Success attends them, humanly speaking, with certainty. There is, also, the faculty of taking notice, of becoming consciously aware of the impressions received by the senses. This faculty man shares with the animals below him in the scale of being, and, in both man and brute, it is susceptible to cultivation. Training the faculty of observation develops the habit of paying attention, and this habit, though less efficient than the inborn gift, may be so confirmed as to become second nature.

Whatever the community accomplished or failed to accomplish, the Brook Farm School rendered important service in educational progress by demonstrating the practicability of cultivating the habit of attention. The teachers in all classes and in all lessons throughout the school made ceaseless efforts to win and hold attention. This was not incidental or accidental, but was an integrate part of the educational plan, intelligently designed and deliberately pursued, with intent to train the pupils in the practice of concentrating their minds on the one thing before them until it became a fixed habit.

Years after the Brook Farm School had closed its doors, I was called to enter another school—the awful school of war. The first word I had to learn in that school was the command, “Attention!”

Attention means life or death to the soldier; victory or defeat to the army. In civil life it aids incalculably in promoting prosperity, the ability to give instant attention to matters coming up for consideration being one of the first qualifications of the successful business man. And if he has not such ability originally it may be imparted to him as a habit, by early training. Miss Morton did not begin too early; and the teachers who followed her did not persist too earnestly in the endeavor to impress this habit deeply on the minds of their pupils.

When my own children were beginning to be interested in juvenile literature, they found great pleasure in reading again and again “The William Henry Letters” and other stories by Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz. On making inquiry I was much gratified to learn that Mrs. Diaz was our Abby Morton of the Brook Farm Kindergarten. It was no wonder she could write letters and stories appealing to children. Her understanding and her sympathies brought her in close touch with them. She knew their minds and their hearts, their likes and their dislikes and what she wrote of them and for them they accepted, knowing that every word was true to nature. It is observable too, that in her writings she still holds to the purpose of illustrating to her young readers the necessity of early acquiring the habit of paying attention.

Brook Farm was practically an industrial school, though not so named. It was the first I ever heard of where instruction in the useful arts was regularly given as a part of the educational course. The fine arts were not very extensively taught at the time, and all we had was literature, drawing, music, and dancing. These four studies were very well supplied with good teachers, everything the school promised to do being well done, but they were not given nearly so much time as the industrial arts. Every pupil old enough to work was expected to give two hours every Monday and Tuesday, and every Thursday and Friday to work under an instructor in the shops on the farm, in the garden or the household. The pupils could select their own work and could make a change of occupation with consent of the instructor. No one was obliged to take the Industrial course, but very few declined, even the aristocratic Spaniards taking hold of work like good fellows as they were. Idling was not in fashion.

I worked, for a while, four hours every day in the week. Cedar was found competent to act as first assistant to the president—in the cow-stable. Care of the cow being regarded as a disagreeable duty, Dr. Ripley took it upon himself, just as Mrs. Ripley took the scrubbing of the kitchen floor. Mrs. Ripley had other little matters to look after, general oversight of the girls, teaching Greek, entertaining distinguished guests, writing clever musical plays for the Festal Series, etc., but she kept the floor clean all the same.

In my honorable office I succeeded Nathaniel Hawthorne. The president and Cedar arose at 5 A. M., fed and milked 18 or 20 cows, and cleared up the stable. We bathed, dressed and breakfasted at 8 A. M. At 9 A. M. Dr. Ripley was in his office and I in the school room. In the evening two hours more were given to the cows. I liked the work, liked the cows, and especially liked to be with Dr. Ripley. His flattering report that Cedar could milk like a streak secured for me the maximum wage, ten cents an hour, so that, at twelve years of age or thereabouts I was earning nearly enough to pay the cost of board and lodging.

The milkers were necessarily late at breakfast and supper and these meals we took with the waiters, the pleasantest company in the dining room. Dr. and Mrs. Ripley were charming table companions and the bright girls were merry as happy children. Perhaps Cedar did not fill Hawthorne’s place quite so well at table as in the stable, but there were no intimations given to that effect. Making the most of the present moment was in order. Looking backward was not.