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Title: Social Experiment
Author: Josiah Warren
Date: 1831
Language: en
Topics: letter
Source: Retrieved on August 15, 2018 from https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/equitable-commerce/josiah-warren-social-experiment-1831/
Notes: Josiah Warren, “Social Experiment,” The Free Enquirer 2 no. 18 (February 26, 1931): 137–138.

Josiah Warren

Social Experiment

I have never inserted a Communication in this paper, which I believe

will be perused with more interest by many of its readers, than the

following. As the facts came under our friend’s observation, not mine, I

shall add no opinion or deductions of my own, for each reader can make

these for himself. I content myself with saying; that our friends may

implicitly depend on the accuracy of Josiah Warren’s information; for he

is a strictly attentive observer and an honest man. I need not tell him,

that his letters will always be welcome.

R. D. O.

Spring Hill, Dec. 19, 1830.

My Dear Friend,

In accordance with our understanding when we parted, I sit down to give

you, for the information of our friends at a distance, some of the

practical results of our proceedings at this place; but I would have it

distinctly premised, that this is not done with a view to obtrude men

upon the notice of the public, but perceiving that “the character is

formed for us and not by ourselves” all aspirations after public

applause, and all dread of censure are annihilated and leave us with no

motive to attract or avoid the notice of others, but the promotion of

their happiness or our own : and if in the course of this correspondence

I speak often of myself, I offer my apology in the fact that we have a

distinct understanding that whatever we do, is done entirely in the

individual character, each taking on himself all the responsibility of

his own actions. There is no combination whatever among us; the personal

liberty of each is considered sacred, and I shall therefore not use the

term we, nor speak of others except in cases where the free choice of

each individual concerned has been consulted.

The school at this place originated in the following circumstances.

About five years since Mrs. Charity Rotch, of the society of Friends,

bequeathed at her decease the interest of twenty two thousand dollars to

be appropriated to the establishment of a school for the benefit of poor

children.

In Jan. 1828, Hezekiah Camp of New York, William G. Macy of Nantucket,

James Bayliss of New York and Edward Dunn of Philadelphia, some of whom

had experienced the failure of three communities to which they had

belonged, on the dissolution of the Kendal Community, not discouraged by

failures which they received were caused by the want of knowledge,

applied to and contracted with the Trustees of said fund to take under

their care 25 children; to feed and clothe them, to teach them the

common rudiments of education, and to give to the females a knowledge of

housewifery generally, and to the boys a knowledge of practical

agriculture. They were to spend three hours per day in school in warm

weather, and four in the cold season; they might be required to work

eight hours per day, the proceeds of which the company were to receive,

together with the school fund amounting to one thousand dollars per

year.

The company began their operations with a capital of $1000, with which

they stocked the farm, purchased farming utensils, furniture, bedding

&c.

I have been particular in stating these details, because it is a common

impression that these arrangements require a large capital; and while

this impression remains, the independence of the mass will depend on

capitalists whose interest (as most of them view it) is to keep the mass

in servitude.

At the expiration of the first year, on balancing accounts the company

perceived that these children who were between 10 and 16 years of age,

aided by these four adults, had supported themselves within 200 dollars,

leaving a surplus of 800 dollars of the fund so generously intended for

their benefit. Let it be observed that this was done by agriculture

alone, a business which is by far mere depressed than trades or

manufactures; this shows that when legislators in this republic begin to

learn the rights of citizens and secure to each the possession of the

soil, that even children destitute of almost every thing else may render

themselves independent by their labor; but while the soil of the country

is chiefly monopolised and controlled by those who make no use of it,

poor children destitute of friends and of influence will continue to be

the victims of this legal barbarism.

It was in the fifth month of the second year that I visited this

establishment, and beheld a demonstration of the influence of

surrounding circumstances upon the characters of children, which,

although I had reflected and observed much upon the subject, both

surprised and delighted me. I saw children who a little more than a year

before were destitute orphans and who, had they been differently

circumstanced might have been forced from every endearing object and

shut up in a house of Correction, a Bridewell, a house of Refuge or some

other monument of human ignorance, now living as happy as they could

well be; directed by intelligent friends who acted as benevolent guides,

rather than as mercenary masters, and who consulted the present and

future happiness of these children equally with their own.

I saw young females who, had they been in the cities, would have been

compelled to waste away the bloom of life in unremitting toil at their

needles for 12 1-2 cents per day or perhaps to be the miserable

dependents on the “societies for the encouragement of domestics” and to

drag out a monotonous life of enervating servitude in the kitchens of

the rich for a scanty pittance just sufficient to keep up the working

power,—I saw them here comparatively independent and daily acquiring an

education which would place them beyond the vain ambition of expensive

show, which would enable them to supply their own wants and conduct

their own affairs, and consequently place them beyond the humiliation

and distress endured by Poor but respectable females in our cities. As a

proof of this, it has been a matter of complaint in the neighborhood,

that “since this school commenced no girls could be obtained to do

kitchen work.”

There I saw nothing of the studied effeminacy, the vacillating whims or

the tyrannical spirit of the oppressor, nor the cowering look, the

hesitating speech, or the trembling deportment of the oppressed; but

here were only “equals among equal” each exhibiting a fine, cheerful,

unclouded countenance, which at once bespoke habitual health and peace

of mind. Their deportment towards each other was kind and affable, but

not slavishly servile: modest, but not timid; ready, but not obtrusive,

and altogether delightfully pleasing.

Although about 17, months ago they were (with few exceptions) destitute

of artificial learning, I now saw them go through their exercises in

reading, writing, arithmetic and grammar with accuracy and ease; their

language in common conversation was more critically correct than that of

adults in general, and their common remarks bespoke the habitual

exercise of their reason. The utmost confidence and good, feeling

between pupils and teachers was strikingly evident, although the latter

assured me that they had labored as intensely to annihilate the feeling

of fear in their pupils as the teachers of the old school generally do

to excite it. The boys had acquired a practical knowledge of agriculture

generally, and the girls of housewifery and domestic economy, and each

went to his ploughing, planting, or reaping, and to her cooking,

spinning, &c. with a cheerful promptness and efficient energy which

demonstrated what may be done when the heart and the hand work together.

These results (to my mind) speak sufficiently for the great truths

developed by Robert Owen, and for the intelligence, perseverance and

benevolence of the individuals who have, in honest adherence to those

truths, thus devoted themselves to this experiment for human good. If

the description above appear to some exaggerated, I may add that though

these are impressions received upon first acquaintance they have all

been confirmed by four months subsequent connexion and daily and hourly

intercourse with the parties.

The equal exchange of labor is gradually taking root and extending

itself among the friends of reform in the neighborhood; it has been

reduced to practice in several of its ramifications which, in compliance

with the request of our good friend Frances Wright in No. 52d of the

Free Enquirer, I will now give you. Although the details which I am

about to furnish may appear simple, and perhaps insignificant to some,

they will not be unimportant to those who perceive that the whole work

of reform must consist of simple, practical details, and that it is for

want of these that it has been so long delayed and so often defeated.

It had been perceived that the new arrangements would require us to turn

our attention to business with which we had never been acquainted, and

an enquiry into the nature of apprenticeship resulted in the conviction

that the common practice of serving seven years to learn a simple art or

trade is a relic of ancient barbarism, and is a part of the same system

of slavery to which belongs the present practice of monopolising land.

Perceiving that ‘all knowledge results from the experience of the

senses’ we have a direct road to all knowledge by “bringing the senses

to bear directly upon the objects we desire to learn: this has in many

cases reduced the customary apprenticeships to a few weeks or days. I

know that this position will be controverted by established custom and

established interests; and as I know of nothing but facts which can

sufficiently counteract the sophistry of words, I will give such facts

as have already occurred, and leave all else to the future.

Upon the principle of labor for labor there is no motive to withhold

knowledge from others, but it is honestly given by the possessor, to any

who desire it, he being paid for the time employed in conveying it; and

under these circumstances several adults here have, within three months,

learned to make good shoes who before had never thought of it.

A boy between 11 and 12 years of age was placed in the shoe-shop and his

first effort was to make a pair of shoes which have now been in constant

wear about six weeks, but no defect has yet appeared. Another boy about

14 years of age also began the same business with the same success; they

are now both constantly employed in that business, and the shoes of all

the company are supplied from these sources by those who have served no

other apprenticeship than such as above described. If any other proof be

wanting that the customary apprenticeships of seven years is unnecessary

in this business (where the interest of the instructor will permit him

to be honest) abundance may be furnished.

I attach much importance to the fact that the customary apprenticeships

are unnecessary, because the poor will see, that, when this custom is

done away, it removes one of the greatest obstacles to the supply of

their wants; and, because when those cease to support the rich, the idle

and the useless, these latter will also be obliged to supply their own

wants; and reform would present a discouraging prospect for them if they

could not at once turn their attention to useful pursuits without going

through seven years’ apprenticeships; indeed this would be impossible,

and the desire of self preservation would, and I believe does, compel

them to oppose reform from personal fear. I do not speak without

exceptions; we see some bright examples like meteors in the gloom of

night, but all around is such appalling darkness that when they shine

they dazzle; and immolate themselves in the effort. Let these then,

know, that, if necessary, they can turn their attention to the supply of

their own wants and can accomplish it. More proofs will be given in

future.

Instruction in Music has been given to the pupils upon the Equal

Exchange principle, and, the labor of the teacher being divided among

them, they will pay him about three hours labor each per quarter. This

instruction from the same teacher, in the common way would cost them ten

dollars each, which being quite unable to pay they would have been

deprived of this highly desirable accomplishment.

Boarding is, under present circumstances, estimated at 20 hours per

week, but is subject to some variation, according to the arrangements

for cooking, the number accommodated, the kind of provisions in each

boarding house, &c.

If we hire a saddle horse, we pay the owner an hour for every two hours

we use him, his labor being estimated at half that of a man.

Wood upon this principle costs us 4 hours per cord for cutting, adding

the labor of the man and team in hauling, this price remaining always

the same. Upon this principle, we cannot feel the fraudulent

fluctuations to which this article is subject, upon common principles.

Every article which is purchased with money is, upon this principle,

sold again at prime cost, adding only the labor according to the time

employed in buying and selling it. This strikes at the root of all

speculation.

We have a ball every two weeks, and the music being paid for upon this

principle, costs the company collectively about 3 hours labor; but upon

the common principles it would cost three dollars, which would amount to

a general prohibition of this healthy, graceful and social amusement.

The average amount of labor bestowed by adults on any article

constitutes its price whether produced by them or by children.

The labor of females and children being rewarded on this principle

places them upon a footing of independence equal to that of men (where

their power to produce is equal.)

Each individual carries his own labor notes as his money, signed by

himself, which are pledges for certain amounts of his labor when called

for; these he issues when occasions require. Thus every one becomes his

own Banker, promises only his own labor, a capital always more at his

own control than any other can be: and as there are no laws to recognise

these debts of labor, we at once step aside from all laws for the

collection of debts, as well as from that monstrous compound of fraud

and cupidity, Banking.

Want of room compels me to conclude for the present, but you may expect