When it is considered, how much the useful portion of life is dependent
upon the preparatory part, the character of the influences brought to
bear during that part, and the manner of their application, become a
subject of deep importance. Education has received the most special
attention from scholars, savants and professors; but they seem to have
forgotten or to have ignored the fact that within the mind is contained
the germ of all acquirements, and that teaching by rule merely what
others have said or written, cramps and dwarfs the mind which, under a
more natural system, would more rapidly and more healthfully develop its
latent powers, through its stimulated efforts to evolve ideas connected
with such facts and phenomena as may be exhibited to it, and thus become
a part of the mind itself.
Instead of training the mind to rely upon method, books and authorities
as rules, it should be encouraged to form methods of its own. The mind
should be questioned, and its answers listened to, instead of being
furnished by the teacher.
The mode proposed has many decided advantages. It inspires
self-reliance, disciplines the mind to think for itself, accustoms it to
express its own conclusions in its own chosen language, leads to clear
and comprehensive forms of expression, gives decision and confidence,
and tends to produce individuality of thought and character.
The Children’s Progressive Lyceum, instituted upon this idea, has
already been inaugurated, and should receive the careful and
unprejudiced attention of all interested in educational reform. Children
who have been under this system but a few months are able to stand
before an audience, and, in a clear and comprehensive manner, speak
without embarrassment upon any subject comprehended by their minds. The
coming generations will acknowledge a debt of gratitude to the founder
of this system which no depth of respect or reverence could fully
express.
No proposition can be made which will be more readily accepted by the
general progressive mind than that, as the world advances in knowledge
and wisdom, its general welfare becomes more and more dependent upon
reciprocal interests; that is to say, as _persons_ and _nations_ become
more and better individualized, their reliance upon interests outside of
themselves becomes more positively and distinctly defined; thus a system
of mutual dependence and reciprocal interests is every day being more
widely inaugurated, which will continue to spread until the whole world
will be brought into harmonious co-operation. This is _commerce_!
Commerce, to the material world, is what thought is to the
spiritual—interchange and exchange of material product in the one and of
spiritual in the other—hence no restrictions or embargoes should be
placed on the one which would not be legitimate if placed upon the
other. The dependence and independence of each is mutual and general.
Restrictions upon commerce is a system of commercial slavery, flowing
from _politic_ and _special_ legislation, and is in violation of the
eternal principles of right, because it renders equality in interchange
impossible. If it is the right principle to restrict commerce between
nations, it extends to States, to cities and to individuals as well.
Under the rule of an unrestricted commercial intercourse throughout the
world, the principle of supply and demand would control the movements of
commerce without the aid of legislation; and, when once fully
established, it would give stability and security to production
everywhere. The products of the world entering into commerce would
localize themselves where they naturally belong—where most could be
produced with the least labor; and, population obeying the laws of
equalization, would adjust itself to the demands of the respective
interests of productive labor. This is a vast problem, in the solution
of which the whole world is vitally interested, and one which, sooner or
later, must be solved. If its solution were possible _now_, coming
generations would look back and bless us for the solving. An
international congress should be called to consider the subject, and to
take proper measures for the inauguration of a system of general economy
in production and consumption. The prophecies of the age point to this
as a reform of sufficient magnitude to demand the immediate attention of
the nations, and to call for a _Christ_ to rise up for their salvation
more powerful than the Democratic Party.
The political, national or personal advantages which are supposed to
flow from restraints upon commerce, have nothing to do with the question
of general reform. While it is the duty of every nation and every
individual person to press forward the work of reform upon general
principles, each nation and person must always keep in view the law of
_self-preservation_, otherwise individuality will be lost in the
struggle for supremacy, which has hitherto characterized the legislation
of nations and the conduct of individual persons. The great principle of
unrestricted universal commerce can only be practically established by
universal acquiescence in its wisdom and justice. When legislation shall
conform itself to general principles, instead of sectional, local or
personal policy, and when its course shall be shaped by such broad
action, it may be safely prophesied that the government it represents
will be perfect and perpetual. Commerce will then obey the law of
progress, and rise from the petty policies of nations, which strangle
its development and limit its benefits: it will rise to be conducted
upon the dignity of principle, untrammeled by policy; and on this
platform the world will unite in harmonious prosperity under a universal
government, not limited even by the boundaries between the material and
the spiritual world.
Underlying all advancement and prosperity, material and spiritual, is
action—motion—which, guided by intellect, results in _labor_, without
which the world would be as though man had never been; for no form of
creature below him has ever left permanent artificial beauty, systems of
economy or usefulness as the result of its workings, except in so far as
the form itself may be accounted such.
What, in two hundred years, has so changed the face of this country from
the wilderness it was to the teeming garden it is, dotted all over with
the habitations of men? What has produced the floating palaces that
everywhere walk its deep waters “like a thing of life?” What has united
all its distant parts by iron bands, along whose guiding lines those
other representatives of _art_ and _motion_ speed, almost outstripping
the wind? What has overcome time and space, and is now extending its
arms to embrace the globe, that we may speak, and that the ends of the
earth answer our call? Marvelous demonstration of the rapidly growing
mutual and reciprocal dependence of the children of men! What has made
the wilderness to blossom as the rose? What has achieved all these
glorious, god-like results? Labor! labor! labor! physical, mental and
spiritual labor!
Labor, therefore, is the fulcrum of the great lever of progress, lifting
humanity from the material up to the spiritual realm. One short century
ago nearly all physical labor was performed by the hands of man. Since
then the mind has come up to the work, and rescued the body from the
laborious servitude of former times; and now a single mind, directing a
single machine, produces an hundred-fold more than it could when acting
through its own personal machine. The inventive powers of the mind will
continue to produce more labor-saving machines until labor directly with
the hand will be almost, perhaps entirely, superseded.
The products of the mind, when compared with purely physical labor, are
of inestimable value, and the great distinction everywhere recognized in
their relative compensations is still too limited. No argument is needed
to establish the dignity of labor; it has established itself in becoming
the architect of the great future, by building the past and the present.
Out of the multiform phases of labor, questions will arise which will
require for their adjustment equitable rules of compensation; the best
talent in the world can find ample scope for useful employment in the
solution of the numerous problems growing out of this vast subject.
_Labor_—physical, mental and spiritual—finding itself in a position of
injustice, is in a state of constant irritation and discontent, and
legitimately seeks redress through the organization of associations to
control its price; but it is at least questionable whether such
combinations have been productive of any permanently beneficial results.
If it could be perceived and comprehended, there must be, in the nature
of things, perfect and complete harmony in the practical operation of
all the working elements or agencies, not only in this world, but in the
boundless universe.
This problem may find a practical solution in co-operative labor
associations, in which the members share equally the profits upon what
they produce.
Suppose the entire labor of the country were conducted upon this just
principle, what would be the result? The rapidly accumulating wealth of
the country is the result of labor; if the united labor of the country,
producing this increase, should henceforward share it equally, the
result, in time, would be the _equalization_ of the wealth of the
country, which is now rapidly growing into a necessity, to modify the
luxurious habits of the rich on the one hand, and the crying evils of
poverty on the other, which are rapidly engendering an antagonism, which
will continue to increase in volume and intensity until it will
culminate in a storm that will consume the elements of discord in the
same manner (and upon the same immutable principles) by which African
slavery was abolished in the Southern States of this Union.
A careful investigation of the co-operative principle will show that it
is not only possible, but perfectly simple and practicable, and that it
is full of glorious prophecy to the vast numbers who are now “ground to
the earth” by the condition of actual slavery to the ordinary demands of
nature which is entailed upon them from generation to generation,
through the operations of false systems, which were founded upon and
which are sustained by injustice and usurpation.
While viewing this subject in its practical aspects, it must not be
forgotten that _it_, too, is intimately connected with progress, and
subject to its decrees.
It is a well-established fact that the powers of endurance of the
physical system are growing less, generation after generation, while the
mental power is increasing in about the same ratio; the legitimate
deduction from this fact is in perfect harmony with the general
progressive tendency of all things leading from the purely physical to
the spiritual, from which we may safely prophecy that the time will come
when all labor will be performed by the mind, and when it shall have
acquired perfect dominion over the material. The necessity for physical
endurance will then have ended. The tendency to such a condition, though
it has been, is, and may continue to be gradual, is nevertheless
positive and well-defined.
Intimately connected with the subject of labor, and the tendency to
perform by the agency of inventions what still devolves upon the direct
application of physical strength, is that of supplying the demands of
the body. The food used now is very different from that of a hundred
years ago. Some who recognize this fact argue that the change of diet
has produced the change in the physical condition; but reasoning from
analogy, and applying the general rules of progress, leads to the
conclusion that the changes in the relative conditions of the physical
and mental, by which the latter asserts superior control, have rendered
a corresponding change of diet necessary; hence it is fair to conclude
that the change grows out of the necessities of the consumer, and is not
the producing cause in the premises; in other and general terms, the
physical system demands and should receive appropriate supplies.
Hundreds of people who once made use of the flesh of swine have entirely
discarded it from their boards, instinctively feeling that it does not
meet their present demands, and there is a growing distaste for it.
Common observation shows that all kinds of flesh are gradually falling
into disfavor, especially among those who labor mentally or are devoted
to spiritual things.
As the physical system is gradually being relieved of labor and the
consequent waste of its energies, the character of food it requires
necessarily changes, and in the place of physical strength to be
supplied is that upon which the brain can draw to replenish its wasting
stock; the failure to recognize these demands causes very much of the
dyspepsia from which those who lead sedentary lives suffer so generally;
these should discard those articles of diet that principally contribute
to build up the material, and use such as will impart strength to the
mind.
There are quite a number of well-authenticated cases of the actual
subsistence of the body upon the elements contained in the atmosphere a
sufficient length of time to show that it could be continued
indefinitely if the proper conditions were preserved. One of these cases
in the State of Kentucky has remained seventeen years in this condition;
one in Chicago nearly four years; there is one in Brooklyn of three
years’ duration; and a number of others from ten to sixty days. In this
condition the physical system becomes entirely renovated, purified, and
almost transparent, and the spiritual faculties intensified many fold.