Back of the factory system lies the household and neighborhood system.
Those of us who are here today need go back only one, two, or at most
three generations, to find a time when the household was practically
the center in which were carried on, or about which were clustered,
all the typical forms of industrial occupation. The clothing worn was
for the most part made in the house; the members of the household were
usually familiar also with the shearing of the sheep, the carding and
spinning of the wool, and the plying of the loom. Instead of pressing
a button and flooding the house with electric light, the whole process
of getting illumination was followed in its toilsome length from the
killing of the animal and the trying of fat to the making of wicks and
dipping of candles. The supply of flour, of lumber, of foods, of building
materials, of household furniture, even of metal ware, of nails, hinges,
hammers, etc., was produced in the immediate neighborhood, in shops which
were constantly open to inspection and often centers of neighborhood
congregation. The entire industrial process stood revealed, from the
production on the farm of the raw materials till the finished article was
actually put to use. Not only this, but practically every member of the
household had his own share in the work. The children, as they gained in
strength and capacity, were gradually initiated into the mysteries of the
several processes. It was a matter of immediate and personal concern,
even to the point of actual participation.
We cannot overlook the factors of discipline and of character-building
involved in this kind of life: training in habits of order and of
industry, and in the idea of responsibility, of obligation to do
something, to produce something, in the world. There was always something
which really needed to be done, and a real necessity that each member
of the household should do his own part faithfully and in co-operation
with others. Personalities which became effective in action were bred and
tested in the medium of action. Again, we cannot overlook the importance
for educational purposes of the close and intimate acquaintance got
with nature at first hand, with real things and materials, with the
actual processes of their manipulation, and the knowledge of their
social necessities and uses. In all this there was continual training of
observation, of ingenuity, constructive imagination, of logical thought,
and of the sense of reality acquired through first-hand contact with
actualities. The educative forces of the domestic spinning and weaving,
of the sawmill, the gristmill, the cooper shop, and the blacksmith forge,
were continuously operative.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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