"Articles furnished to the Associates shall be charged at cost as nearly as the same can be ascertained." "The period of education shall extend from birth to the age of twenty years, and shall be divided into three stages: Infancy to six years, Pupilage from six to sixteen years, and Probation from sixteen to twenty. The education during probation shall be in the practical duties of Associates." "No public meeting for business or amusement shall be protracted beyond the hour of ten P. M." * * * * * Many persons who have heard of the Community life at Brook Farm have idealized it into a little coterie of choice spirits who sat around the study lamp at early eve, after the light toil of the day had ceased, and discussed the intellectual problems of the German philosophers who had given much of the impulse to the Transcendental Club, and brought so many young men forward as leaders of thought; but this was only partially true. Mr. Ripley at first endeavored to instruct the assembly and impart to them some of his own intellectual enthusiasm. Evening classes were formed; readings took place from some of the prominent poets--Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare; from Carlyle and Cousin as well as Emanuel Kant; but when the industrial period began, he had more than his hands full, and he laid his books on the shelf. They were his tools--they were the ladders on which he had mounted to his high estate. Why should he worship them? They had taught him, as had the Hebrew writers, faith in the Creator; faith in His best creation, man; faith in reason, faith in right, faith, in a magnificent human destiny. Why should he spend his life in singing praises of them? To work! To begin to shape society to higher ends! That was indeed the worthiest end in life, and his worthiest homage to the writers and their books. CHAPTER III. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND DESCRIPTIONS. It was a pleasant afternoon in March, 1843, when I left Boston, in a small omnibus, that started from Brattle Street for West Roxbury Village and Brook Farm. My father's family of three had preceded me, he remaining behind to close his business; it was a question of but a few days when we should be all embarked in the new and untried life to which we were looking forward with pleasurable emotions.