Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great ReformersHubbard, Elbert
History
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers
Hubbard, Elbert
Reformers
Robert Owen caught it from Josiah Wedgwood, and set out to make his
cotton-mill a school as well as a factory. Among the good men he
discovered and hired to teach his people was John Tyndall, one of the
world's great scientists. Owen seized upon Fourier's plan of the
"phalanstery"--five hundred or a thousand people living in one great
palace, built in the form of a hollow square. Each family was to have
separate apartments, but there would be common dining-rooms and one
great laundry; certain people would be set apart to care for the
children; there would be art-galleries, libraries, swimming-pools; and
all these working people would have the benefits and advantages that
now accrue only to the fortunate few. It was a scheme of co-operation,
but Owen's people refused to co-operate--the world was not ready for
it. Then Owen tried the plan in America, and founded the town of New
Harmony, Indiana, which had the second public library in America,
Benjamin Franklin having founded the first in Philadelphia.
Robert Owen thought he had failed, but he had not, for his ideas have
enriched the world, and when we are worthy of Utopia it will be here.
John Bright's father caught it from Robert Owen, just as Owen had been
exposed to Josiah Wedgwood. Great hearts never fail, no matter what
occurs; even though they die, they yet live again in minds made
better.
Joseph Bright had an auditorium attached to his mill, and often
invited speakers to come from Liverpool or Manchester and give
lectures to his people on science, travel or literature. By the time
John Bright was twenty-one he was usually chosen to preside at these
lectures. This, because he had learned to speak in Quaker meetings by
speaking. He was quiet, simple, forceful, direct. In size he was
small, but what he lacked in inches he made up in brain.
The grandfather of John Bright's mother was John Grattan, a Quaker
preacher who spent five years in prison because he refused to take the
oath of allegiance to the English Church. The life of Grattan
descended as a precious legacy from mother to son, and all history was
early made familiar to him through the teaching of this mother who
passed away when the boy was eighteen. So she did not live to know the
greatness of her son, but before her passing he had developed far
enough so she prophesied that if ever a Friend were admitted to the
Cabinet, John Bright would be that one. This prophecy, unlike so many
born of the loving mother heart, came true, and this in spite of the
fact that the Quakers up to this time had never had anything to do
with politics.
Once John Bright was asked how he had been educated, and he replied,
"By my mother, with the help of the Rochdale Literary Society."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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