Reviewing what I have seen and written, these questions occur:
I. On what terms, if at all, could a carefully selected and homogeneous company of men and women hope to establish themselves as a commune?
II. Would they improve their lives and condition?
III. Have the existing societies brought communal life to its highest point; or is a higher and more intellectual life compatible with that degree of pecuniary success and harmonious living which is absolutely indispensable?
I. I doubt if men and women in good circumstances, or given to an intellectual life, can hope to succeed in such an experiment. In the beginning, the members of a commune must expect to work hard; and, to be successful, they ought always to retain the frugal habits, the early hours, and the patient industry and contentment with manual labor which belong to what we call the working class. Men cannot play at communism. It is not amateur work. It requires patience, submission; self-sacrifice, often in little matters where self-sacrifice
"Do you have no scandal?" I asked at Aurora, and they said, "Oh yes—women will talk; but we have learned not to mind it." "Are you not troubled sometimes with disagreeable members?" I asked at Oneida; and they answered, "Yes; but what we cannot criticize out of them we bear with. That is part of our life." "Bear ye one another's burdens" might well be written over the gates of every commune. Some things the communist must surrender; and the most precious of these is solitude. The man to whom at intervals the faces and voices of his kind become hateful, whose bitterest need it is to be sometimes alone—this man need not try communism. For in a well-ordered commune there is hardly the possibility of privacy. You are part of a great family, all whose interests and all whose life must necessarily be in common. At Oneida, when a man leaves the house he sticks a peg in a board, to tell all his little world where he is to be found. In a Shaker family, the elder is expected to know where every man is at all hours of the day. Moses, wandering over the desert with his great commune, occasionally went up into a mountain; but he never returned to the dead level of his Israelites without finding his heart fill with rage and despair. Nor is this surprising; for in the commune there must be absolute equality; there can be no special privileges; and when the great Leader, resting his spirit on the mountain, and enjoying the luxury of solitude Fortunately—else there would be no communes—to the greater part of mankind the faces and voices of their kind are necessary. A company of fifty, or even of twenty-five families, well known to each other, belonging to the same Christian Church, or at least united upon some one form of religious faith, composed of farmers or mechanics, or both, and strongly desirous to better their circumstances, and to live a life of greater independence and of greater social advantages than is attainable to the majority of farmers and mechanics, could, I believe, if they were so fortunate as to possess a leader of sufficient wisdom and unselfishness, in whom all would implicitly trust, make an attempt at communistic living with strong hopes of success; and they would undoubtedly, if they maintained their experiment only ten years, materially improve their condition; and, what to me seems more important, the life would affect their characters and those of their children in many ways beneficially. I think it would be a mistake in such a company of people to live in a "unitary home." They should be numerous enough to form a village; they should begin with means sufficient to own a considerable tract of land, sufficient to supply themselves with food, and to keep as much stock as they required for their own use. They should so locate their village as to make it central to their agricultural land. They should determine, as the Rappists did, upon a uniform and simple dress and house, and upon absolute equality of living. They should place all the power in the hands of their leader, and solemnly promise him unhesitating trust and obedience; specifying In a commune, which is only a large family, I think it a great point gained for success to give the women equal rights in every respect with the men. They should take part in the business discussions, and their consent should be as essential as that of the men in all the affairs of the society. This gives them, I have noticed, contentment of mind, as well as enlarged views and pleasure in self-denial. Moreover, women have a conservative spirit, which is of great value in a communistic society, as in a family; and their influence is always toward a higher life. Servants are inadmissible in a commune; but it may and ought to possess conveniences which make servants, with plain living, needless. For instance, a common laundry, a common butcher's shop, a general barn and dairy, are contrivances which almost every commune possesses, but which hardly any village in the country has. A clean, hard road within the communal village limits, and dry side-walks, would be attainable with ease. A church and a school-house ought to be A commune is but a larger family, and its members ought to meet each other as frequently as possible. The only advantage of a unitary home lies in this, that the members may easily assemble in a common room every evening for an hour, not with any set or foreordained purpose, but for that interchange of thought and experience which makes up, or should, a large and important part of family life. Hence every commune ought to have a pleasantly arranged and conveniently accessible meeting-room, to which books and newspapers, music, and cheap, harmless amusements should draw the people-women and children as well as men—two or three times a week. Nor is such meeting a hardship in a commune, where plain living, early hours, and good order and system make the work light, and leave both time and strength for amusement. Tobacco, spirituous liquors, and cards ought to be prohibited in every commune, as wasteful of money, strength, and time. The training of children in strict obedience and in good habits would be insisted on by a wise leader as absolutely