We have to express our thanks to the Westminster Review for the
publication of two MS. letters to Leonard Horner, Esq. one of the factory
inspectors, from the proprietor of a cotton mill in the north of England,
whose modesty it is to be regretted prohibits the publication of his
name, and has hitherto prevented the publication of these letters.
The introductory article in the Review contains some admirable strictures
upon the radical defect of governments failing to perceive that the
elevation of the people, in a moral and physical point of view, is not
only one, but the fundamental duty of legislators. The writer points out
that in all countries and ages to the present time, those who have been
placed at the head of public affairs have had little or no leisure, if
they possessed the inclination, to study schemes of human improvement;
their time has been occupied in maintaining order, making war, and
raising a revenue for these and similar objects, whereas the necessity
for police and armies would be lessened by striking at the root of the
evil, and elevating the “hewers of wood and drawers of water” in the
scale of intelligence and happiness.
“Melancholy,” says the writer, “is the result of centuries of mischievous
and often wicked legislation, in the impression it has left upon the mind
of the public. Long after a government has ceased to do evil, it is left
powerless for good by the universal distrust with which it is regarded.
The people have yet to learn to place confidence in their own servants,
and to support when needed in their persons their own authority, instead
of seeking to overturn it as that of tyrants or masters. So numerous
have been the evils which have arisen from unwise interference, that
an opinion very widely prevails that a government can do nothing but
mischief; and the almost universal prayer of the people is to be left
alone.” Again he says, “Why should it not be borne in mind that there
are higher objects for human exertion, whether for individuals or
communities, than the greatest possible aggregate of wealth? And although
the realization of those objects in our time may be but the visionary
dream of the philanthropist, let no one say that good will not arise from
keeping them steadily in view.”
And to explain his sentiments upon the subject of the elevation of the
labouring classes, he quotes the following paragraph from Dr Channing’s
first lecture, delivered at a meeting of the Mechanic Apprentices’
Library Association at Boston:
“By the elevation of the labourer I do not understand that he is to be
raised above the need of labour. I do not expect a series of improvements
by which he is to be released from his daily work. Still more, I have
no desire to dismiss him from his workshop and farm, to take the
spade and axe from his hand, and to make his life a long holiday. I
have faith in labour, and I see the goodness of God in placing us in
a world where labour alone can keep us alive. I would not change, if
I could, our subjection to physical laws, our exposure to hunger and
cold, and the necessity of constant conflicts with the material world.
I would not, if I could, so temper the elements that they should infuse
into us only grateful sensations, that they should make vegetation so
exuberant as to anticipate every want, and the minerals so ductile as
to offer no resistance to our strength or skill. Such a world would
make a contemptible race. Man owes his growth, his energy, chiefly to
that striving of the will, that conflict with difficulty, which we call
effort. Easy, pleasant work does not make robust minds, does not give
men a consciousness of their powers, does not train them to endurance,
to perseverance, to steady force of will, that force without which all
other acquisitions will avail nothing. Manual labour is a school in which
men are placed to get energy of purpose and character--a vastly more
important endowment than all the learning of all other schools. They are
placed indeed under hard masters, physical sufferings and wants, the
power of fearful elements, and the vicissitudes of all human things; but
these stern teachers do a work which no compassionate indulgent friend
could do for us, and true wisdom will bless Providence for their sharp
ministry. I have great faith in hard work. The material world does much
for the mind by its beauty and order; but it does more by the pains it
inflicts; by its obstinate resistance, which nothing but patient toil
can overcome; by its vast forces, which nothing but unremitting skill
and effort can turn to our use; by its perils, which demand continual
vigilance; and by its tendencies to decay. I believe that difficulties
are more important to the human mind than what we call assistances. Work
we all must, if we mean to bring out and perfect our nature. Even if we
do not work with the hands, we must undergo equivalent toil in some other
direction.… You will here see that to me labour has great dignity. Alas
for the man who has not learned to work! He is a poor creature; he does
not know himself.”
That the labouring classes can be greatly, immeasurably elevated in the
social scale, without relieving them from the least portion of that
labour entailed upon the race of Adam, is beautifully exemplified in the
mill-owner’s letters which follow the article from which the foregoing
has been extracted. We regret that their length far exceeds the utmost
space which we could afford them, or we should present them to our
readers in full. The account which they give of the social condition
of the operatives employed in the writer’s factory, more resembles the
details of a Utopian scheme than of one actually carried into effect by a
single philanthropic individual.
The first letter describes the wretched and dilapidated state of the
mill, and destitute condition of the few persons living about it, at the
time (1832) that the writer and his brothers took it, and proceeded to
rebuild and furnish it. This and the collection of the necessary hands
occupied two years. In employing operatives they selected only the most
respectable, such as were likely to settle down permanently wherever they
should feel comfortably situated; and in order to hold out inducements,
these gentlemen broke up three fields in front of the workmen’s cottages
into gardens of about six roods each, separated by neat thorn hedges.
Besides which, each house had a small flower-garden either in front or
rear, and the houses themselves were made as comfortable as possible.
When the mill was completed and the population numerous, the proprietor
called a meeting of all the workmen, and proposed the establishment of
a Sunday school for the children. The proposal was gladly received, and
some of the men were appointed teachers. He then built a schoolroom for
the girls, and the boys had the use of a cellar; but he subsequently
built a schoolroom for them also. In the girls’ school were 160
children, and in the boys’ 120. Each was placed under the management
of a superintendent and a certain number of teachers, whose services
were given gratuitously; and they relieved each other, so that each was
obliged to attend only every third Sunday. They were all young men and
women belonging to the mill, the proprietor taking no further part in
the management than spending an hour or two in the room. As soon as the
school was fairly established, the proprietor turned his attention to the
establishment of games and gymnastic exercises amongst the people, and
having set apart a field he called together some of the boys one fine
afternoon, and commenced operations with quoits, trap and cricket balls,
and leap-frog. The numbers quickly increased, regulations and rules were
made, the girls got a portion of the field to themselves, and there were
persons appointed to preserve order. The following summer he put up a
swing, introduced the game called _Les Graces_, and bowls, a leaping-bar,
a tight-rope, and a see-saw. Quoits became the favourite game of the men,
hoops and tight-rope of the boys, and hoops and swing of the girls, the
latter being in constant requisition. He at first found some difficulty
in checking rudeness, but being constantly on the spot, it was soon
corrected, and gradually quite wore away. The play-ground was only opened
on Saturday evenings or holidays during the summer. He next got up
drawing and singing classes. The drawing-class, taught by himself, on
Saturday evenings during the winter, from six to half past seven--half
the time being spent in drawing, and the remainder with geography or
natural history. To those pupils he lent drawings to copy during the
evenings of the week, thereby giving them useful and agreeable employment
for their leisure hours, and attracting them to their home fireside.
The breaking up of the drawing-class at half past seven gave room to
the singing-class until nine. The superintendent of the Sunday school
took charge of this class, which became at once very popular, especially
with the girls. But what he seems to consider the most successful of his
plans for the civilising of his people, was the establishment of regular
evening parties during the winter, the number invited to each being about
thirty, an equal number of boys and girls, and specially invited by a
little printed card being sent to each. This afforded a mark of high
distinction, only the best behaved and most respectable, or, as he calls
them, “the aristocracy,” being invited. These parties are held in the
schoolroom, which he fitted up handsomely, and furnished with pictures,
busts, &c., and a piano-forte. When the party first assemble, they have
books, magazines, and drawings, to amuse them. Tea and coffee are then
handed round, and the proprietor walks about and converses with them,
so as to render their manners and conversation unembarrassed; and after
tea, games are introduced, such as dissected maps or pictures, spilicans,
chess, draughts, card-houses, phantasmagoria, and others, whilst some
prefer reading or chatting. Sometimes there is music and singing, and
then a wind-up with Christmas games, such as tiercely, my lady’s toilet,
blindman’s-buff, &c., previous to retiring, the party usually breaking
up a little after nine. These parties are given to the grown-up boys and
girls, but he sometimes also treats the juniors, when they have great
diversion. The parties are given on Saturday evenings about once in three
weeks, the drawing and singing bring given up for that day.
He next established warm baths at an expense of £80, and issued bathing
tickets for 1d. each, or families subscribing 1s. per month were entitled
to five baths weekly; and with an account of the arrangements of the
baths, the receipts, &c., he concludes his first letter, which appears to
have been written about the year 1835.
In the second letter, dated March 1838, he developes the principles upon
which he acted, and the objects which he had in view, in answer to the
request of Mr Horner. His object he avows to be “the elevation of the
labouring classes,” or, to use his own language, “promoting the welfare
of the manufacturing population, and raising them to that degree of
intellectual and social advancement of which I believe them capable.” And
amongst the matters which he considers necessary to the attainment of the
object in view, he enumerates “fair wages, comfortable houses, gardens
for their vegetables and flowers, schools and other means of improvement
for their children, sundry little accommodations and conveniences in the
mill, attention to them when sick or in distress, and interest taken
in their general comfort and welfare.” He says that attention to these
things, and gently preventing rather than chiding rudeness, ignorance,
or immorality--treating people as though they were possessed of the
virtues and manners which you wish them to acquire--is the best means
of attaining the wished-for end; and that he has little faith in the
efficacy of mere moral lectures. He established the order of the silver
cross amongst the girls above the age of 17. It immediately became an
object of great ambition, and a powerful means of forwarding the great
object of refining the minds, tastes, and manners of the maidens, and
through their influence, of softening and humanising the sterner part of
the population. He says that he does not want to establish amongst the
humbler classes the mere conventional forms of politeness as practised
in the upper, but he would refine them considerably. He would have the
most beautiful and tender forms of Christian charity exhibited in all
their actions and habits, and mere preaching, rules, sermons, lectures,
or legislation, can never change poor human nature if the people are not
permitted to see what they are taught they should practise, and to hold
intercourse with those whose manners are superior to their own. He points
out the necessity of supplying innocent, pleasing, and profitable modes
of filling up the leisure hours of the working-classes as the best mode
of weaning them from drinking, and the vulgar amusements alone within
their reach. He also points out that merely intellectual pursuits are not
suited to uncultivated minds, and that resources should be provided of
sufficient variety to supply the different tastes and capacities which
are to be dealt with. It is with these views that he provided various
objects of interesting pursuit or innocent amusement for his colony, and
established prizes for their horticultural exhibitions; and to show how
the taste for music had progressed, he mentions that a glee class had
been established, and a more numerous one of sacred music that meets
every Wednesday and Saturday during winter, and a band had been formed
with clarionets, horns, and other wind instruments, which practised
twice a-week, besides blowing nightly at home; and a few families had
got pianos, besides which there were guitars, violins, violoncellos,
serpents, flutes, and dulcimers, and he adds that it must be observed
that they are all of their own purchasing. He goes on to observe that
his object is “not to raise the manufacturing operative or labourer
above his condition, but to make him an ornament to it, and thus elevate
the condition itself--to make the labouring classes feel that they have
within their reach all the elements of earthly happiness as abundantly
as those to whose station their ambition sometimes leads them to
aspire--that domestic happiness, real wealth, social pleasures, means of
intellectual improvement, endless sources of rational amusement, all the
freedom and independence possessed by any class of men, are all before
them--that they are all within their reach, and that they are not enjoyed
only because they have not been developed and pointed out, and therefore
are not known. His object is to show them this, to show his own people
and others that there is nothing in the nature of their employment, or
in the condition of their humble lot, that condemns them to be rough,
vulgar, ignorant, miserable, or poor--that there is nothing in either
that forbids them to be well bred, well informed, well mannered, and
surrounded by every comfort and enjoyment that can make life happy; in
short, to ascertain and prove what the condition of this class of people
might be made, what it ought to be made--what it is the interest of all
parties that it should be made.”
In the name of our common humanity we thank him for the experiment which
has so satisfactorily proved the truth of his propositions; and whilst
wishing him God speed, we shall do what in our power lies to promote
the benevolent object, by directing the attention of philanthropists to
the good that may be effected by the unassisted efforts of a practical
individual.