Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great ScientistsHubbard, Elbert
Science
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists
Hubbard, Elbert
Scientists -- Biography
He gave lectures on everything, and taught the things that no one else
could teach, and of course he got more out of the lessons than any of
the scholars.
But after a few months' experience with the ideal life, Tyndall had
commonsense enough to see that Harmony Hall, instead of being the
spontaneous expression of the people who shared its blessings, was
really a charity maintained by one Robert Owen. It was a beneficent
autocracy, a sample of one-man power, beautifully expressed.
Robert Owen planned it, built it, directed it and made good any
financial deficit. Instead of Socialism it was a kindly despotism. A few
of the scholars did their level best to help themselves and help the
place, but the rest didn't think and didn't care. They were passengers
who enjoyed the cushioned seats. A few, while partaking of the
privileges of the place, denounced it.
"You can not educate people who do not want to be educated," said
Tyndall. The value of an education lies in the struggle to get it. Do
too much for people, and they will do nothing for themselves.
Many of the students at Harmony Hall had been sent there by Owen,
because he, in the greatness of his heart and the blindness of his zeal,
thought they needed education. They may have needed it; but they did not
want it: ease was their aim.
The indifference and ingratitude Robert Owen met with did not discourage
him: it only gave him an occasional pause. He thought that the bad
example of English society was too close to his experiments: it vitiated
the atmosphere.
So he came over to America and founded the town of New Harmony, Indiana.
The fine solid buildings he erected in Posey County, then a wilderness,
are still there.
As for the most romantic and interesting history of New Harmony, Robert
Owen and his socialistic experiments, I must refer the gentle reader to
the Encyclopedia Britannica, a work I have found very useful in the
course of making my original researches.
After a year at Harmony Hall, Tyndall saw that he would have to get out
or else become a victim of arrested development, through too much
acceptance of a strong man's bounty. "You can not afford to accept
anything for nothing," he said. Life at Harmony Hall to him was very
much like life in a monastery, to which stricken men flee when the old
world seems too much for them. "When all the people live the ideal life,
I'll live it; but until then I'm only one of the great many strugglers."
Besides, he felt that in missing university training he had dropped
something out of his life. Now he would go to Germany and see for
himself what he had missed.
While railroading he had saved up nearly four hundred pounds. This money
he had offered at one time to invest in shares in the Owen mills. But
Robert Owen said, "Wait two years and then see how you feel!"
Robert Owen was not a financial exploiter. Tyndall may have differed
with him in a philosophic way; but they never ceased to honor and
respect each other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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