The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth: As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social ReformerBerens, Lewis Henry
History
The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth: As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer
Berens, Lewis Henry
Communism; Land use; Winstanley, Gerrard, 1609-
"Mankind in the days of his youth is like a young colt, wanton and
foolish, till he be broken in by education and correction; the
neglect of this care, or the want of wisdom in the performance of
it, hath been and is the cause of much division and trouble in the
world. Therefore the Law of a Common-wealth doth require that not
only a Father, but that all Overseers and Officers should make it
their work to educate children in good manners, and to see them
brought up in some trade or other, and to suffer no children in any
Parish to live in idleness and youthful pleasures all their days,
as many have been; but that they may be brought up like men and not
like beasts. That so the Commonwealth may be planted with laborious
and wise experienced men, and not with idle fools."
He continues his reflections as follows:
"Mankind may be considered in a four-fold degree, his childhood,
youth, manhood, and old age. His childhood and his youth may be
considered from his birth till forty years of age. Within this
compass of time, after he is weaned from his mother, his parents
shall teach him a civil and humble behaviour towards all men. Then
send him to school, to learn to read the Laws of the Common-wealth,
to ripen his wits from his childhood, and so to proceed with his
learning till he be acquainted with all Arts and Languages.... But
one sort of children shall not be trained up only to book-learning,
and to no other employment, called Scholars, as they are in the
Government of Monarchy. For then through idleness they spend their
time to find out policies to advance themselves to be Lords and
Masters over their laboring bretheren, which occasions all the
trouble in the world."
After again indicating the source of all real knowledge, he continues:
"Therefore, to prevent idleness and the danger of Machivilian
cheats, it is profitable for the Commonwealth that children be
trained up in trades and some bodily employment, as well as in
learning languages or the histories of former ages. And as boys are
trained up in learning and in trades, so all maids shall be trained
up in reading, sewing, kniting, spinning of linnen and woollen,
music, and all other easy neat works, either for to furnish
Storehouses with linnen and wooll cloth, or for the ornament of
particular houses with needlework. If this course were taken, there
would be no idle person or beggar in the Land, and much work would
be done by that now lazy generation for the enlarging of the Common
Treasury."
INVENTION TO BE ENCOURAGED.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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