| Show DANA ON BROOK FARM Mr Charles A Dana among newspaper news-paper readers of today is known principally prin-cipally as a hardheaded editor who has few equals and no superiors in the art of saying bitter and biting things He is an old man now and is allowed the indulgence that is the prerogative of age Once he was idealistic He belonged to the famous Brook Farm community the most Utopian thing ever attempted in the United States He has been telling I I about the famous farm in a lecture on I I The Socialistic Movement from 1835 to 1850 After telling about the abolition movement and the civil war Mr Dana went on to describe the Brook Farm movement He said Lots of such movements started about this time Some of them were very foolish Some were not A philosophical philo-sophical school arose in Boston under Mr Emerson George Ripley and George Bancroft the famous historian which held to the idea that the democracy democ-racy which existed in the constitution I of the United States and triumphed under Thomas Jefferson was not democracy dem-ocracy It would have to be made social so-cial not political Entire equality was the watchword of the new school They believed that the time had come when it was right to bring about a great reform This idea opened the socialistic so-cialistic movement of 1835 It did not arise in the poor uneducated classes but among the greatest clergymen statesmen and writers of America Their reform ideas were jeered at in the press and it was prophesied that it would end disastrously About this time a New Yorker Arthur Brisbane wrote a number of articles on the doctrine doc-trine of Fourier the noted French reformer re-former and the communistic principles contained In those won many adherents adher-ents Mr Ripley of Boston bought apiece a-piece of land in West Roxbury near Boston and started along the line laid out by Fourier the Brook Farm Agricultural Agri-cultural and Educational institute Here such men as Nathaniel Hawthorne Haw-thorne Emerson Ripley and Chan ning began a communistic existence They combined their labor with learning learn-ing going into the fields and mowing and plowing in the day time and hold ing intellectual discussions at night But the movement did not flourish Followers did not flock to the Brook Farm standard and although life on the farm was delightful the plan was doomed to fail At last the members of the Brook Farm association separated separ-ated and Mr Ripley paid up what debts had been incurred Therefore we may say as a socialistic reform the Brook Farm was not a success but asa as-a movement full of pleasure to its supporters I sup-porters and incurring no debt or burden bur-den to them it was truly a grand one I The farm consisted of some two hundred acres and during the period pe-riod of its greatest prosperity the communuity never numbered more than a hundred and fiftey souls though some of them were very precious This company of idealists sought to realize in actual life the longing long-ing of the soul for the ideal and the perfect which exist only in the soul One may dream and in imagination realize the ideal what is the ideal after af-ter all but imagination while driving a plow team but while he may do this all the chances are that the furrow will be neither deep nor straight The same thing may be lone while dne d kt milks a cow but it is probable that the cow will not be well stripped The company at Brook Farm was even more impracticable in its aims than Thoreau at Walden Pond was He only attempted to work out an individual individ-ual scheme those who wene at Brook Farm attempted to work out a scheme for the whole human race After seven years they gave it up by that act confessing con-fessing their failure Whatever the failure of the experiment at Brook Farm it furnished the theme for one of Hawthornes most delightful works The Blithedale Romance The guaranteed guar-anteed 5 per cent never came to the subscribers but their work was not in vain though It was a failure I |
