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Philad., 27 Sept. 1846.
Dear Miss Dwight,
The hopelessly lost letters have been recovered - every one of which I have any knowledge. They came to hand on the 25th inst.; and I now acknowledge the receipt of your favour of [inserted]the[/inserted] 10th as also of Mr Dwight's of the 3d ultimo. I am afraid that anything which I can now say will be too late; and yet I wish to make a few remarks on the remarkably lucid exposition of the views advocated by yourself and others which you have placed before me in connexion with Mr Dwight's plan. If there were no difficulties in the way, I should prefer your idea, as I am sure Mr Dwight would; and if those difficulties can be removed, I would still prefer either of your plans to his. But I assume that they cannot be, when I say that the project of independent groups and individuals is much preferable to the total adandonment of any and every mode of associated life on however restricted a basis. From the first hour in which I have been honoured by a share in your councils, I have invariably and urgently and with sad prophecy pressed the indispensable necessity of requiring each group, and each individual, to show that they were not pecuniary burthens to the institution. This result was to be attained by no offensive personalities but [inserted]by[/inserted] the organization of such a system of accounts and pecuniary compensations, as should show a weekly pecuniary result to the labour of each group and each individual. Mr Dwight's plan of compensating all the household groups by a stipulated payment is an illustration of what my plan was. At the time when this mode of operations was first talked of, it could readily have been carried into effect. You will perceive what a sense of responsibility would thus have been infused into the life of every individual - how it would have gently and certainly removed every incompetent person from among you, how it would
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have prevented the admission of that host of blind, halt and diseased persons who have afflicted you and at once perplexed your counsels and exhausted your means, and have awakened an active regard to the fostering of existing and the introduction of new and productive branches of industry. It was my opinion then, as it is now, that the test of spiritual and social worth would have proved to be material excellence, or the ability to earn a livelihood. It your plans exclude this idea, I can only repeat that I cannot give them my confidence. If they do, I can see nothing incompatible with Mr. Dwight's views in [inserted]the plan of[/inserted] that section of the people which you represent. You seem to think that Mr. Ripley, Mr. Dwight, &c. would refuse to accept the conduct and income of the School & Harbinger independently from the Phalanx, provided that the latter be under the direction of other individuals, & to the exclusion of the former. I confer that, without the least knowledge of the subject, I auger otherwise. As the friend of these truly eminent individuals, I should urge their acceptance of such a proposiiton. I have long felt the claim of at least two of them to some repose from the harassing & exhausting cabinet & executive labours which have fallen to their share; and moreover I am and long have been certain that the School cannot be worthily and successfully conducted by individuals to whom any other important responsibility attaches. If then the editorship & authorship required by the Harbinger be added to the management of the School, all the time and labour of those engaged in them must be exhausted. To the Association at large would be left the management & labour of all the material interests which it can profitably conduct. The household, in boarding the school & Harbinger people, would be a successful industry. Other individual industries might doubtless be added now, and more would come. Let me not also forget that a handsome income would be derivable from visitors like myself. (I would mention here my opposition to the practice of receiving any visitors whatsover (whether connected with any of the members or not) except for a fixed & unvarying compensation for board & lodging.) And now we come to
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speak of the Farm – a subject of great delicacy in the estimation of my fair friends Miss Dwight & Miss Curson. I affirm then my belief (from positive knowledge with reference to one year's transactions) that the Farm has never been otherwise than a very heavy loss to the institution. Of course I say nothing of this year's operations, which may and doubtless have been much more successful. Can you certainly make the farm pay its way? I confer my doubts. But I have not the least objection to a trial – provided that the means of making it are at hand. It would be unsafe for the responsible payers of the interest on the mortgage to part with it into your hands, unless they could receive a guarantee that the interest should be duly met. Part of the burthen of this sum might be shaken off by letting such portions as you cannot cultivate? I have fears of success in this matter, because I have always understood, & Miss Curson admits, that the profits of a farm are but small & that its chief recommendation is the certainty of a livelihood which it affords, and I add provided that there be no mortgage on it. I do not think it very necessary nor even very desirable that you should have a very able business man to conduct the various operations of business in a Phalanx. My plan was to require each group to be independent & responsible in its business management in subordination always to certain fixed and universally applying laws of the whole body; whilst I should look to the accountant department to officiate as the general harmonizer & arranger of the aggregate of business transactions. I never considered Mr Ripley as valuable except as the representative of the institution out of doors, and as the preserver of order & decorum; and in those capacities I never saw anyone so fitted for the function as he. Always I considered it unjust that more should be expected from him; and where, by a general disposition to lean on him (as another Atlas created to support the world) or from his own feeling that he must endeavour to do what no one else was competent or deputed to do, some things have not been as well managed as they might & should have been. I have felt deep sympathy with him &
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bestowed heavy reproaches else where - mentally. It would give me the most exalted pleasure to see you making your attempt a triumphant fact; and if you can obtain the necessary funds for the effort, always provided that you get rid of human incumbrances (I wish I could utter the last eight words with a speaking trumpet), I hope that you will be enabled to try it. I repeat that I cannot perceive any ground for believing that our literary friends will object to an arrangement which gives to those who labour intellectually the management of the intellectual pursuits, and to those who live by physical labour the direction of the material occupations. Your plan, after all, is the same as or nearly akin to Mr. Dwight's; because the separation which you propose would be only for a time - provided that success attend both sections. Again, hereafter, would you write, when the sense & the worth of absolute pecuniary responsibility had caused both departments, and every member of each of them, to understand the true relation of one to the other. Once more, would Mr. Ripley be President, when, and as his friend I say only when, his office should be unattended by the performance of duties which in other governments have required the time and ability of several men. But if your plan be impossible, because the difficulties in your section are insurmountable, then by all means rent the farm to a responsible individual, and fall back gladly on the admirable alternative which your brother advocates modified as he has proposed in a subsequent letter which I received from him. I understand it to be this: that the groups & individuals shall be pecuniarily responsible for their support; but that any surplus earned by any group shall be deposited in a general fund for general purposes. I have written with but little of hope to Mr. Dwight & Miss Curson on the subject of your future, because I had no information of your proceedings except in a most desponding letter from Mr. Dana. I much wish that I had received your and Mr. Dwight's favours previously. I am rejoiced to hear so good an account of the school, & wish that pecuniarily it had been still better; and my parental anxieties
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have been relieved by the information I receive of Ally's improvement. I observe gain in his letters to me; and it is only when I contrast his progress with even my own at the same age, or measure the seeming impassable gulf between his present condition and the ripe scholarship of Mr Dwight, that I become sorely disquieted. I am glad that at last you have some suitable companions for him. It has always been a trouble to him that he had no playfellows; whilst there has been no want of the worst influences that ever surrounded children. I am curious to learn if these last have been abated & finally exercised. It is not in place to remark here that I should scarcely fear that Mr Dwight's original plan would have consequences so deplorable as you deprecate. If by no other mode individual responsibility can be enforced, I would have it adopted at all hazards. It is your incapacity or unwillingness to dispose of burthensome individuals which has been one chief cause of your repeated & progressively more disastrous failures. The retention of such persons as Westacott, Chiswell & particularly the Whitehouse family has cost you thousands of dollars, and the loss of the confidence of the best friends of association. But for this single vice, it is my impression that you would have been at this moment so prosperous that a Phalanx according to Fourier's own idea would have been in process of formation. And now, dear Miss Dwight, I confide to your kindness these speculations freely "born out of due season." I hope they will be of some little use to you. I wish much to hear what you are now doing. Will you not let me know? I hope to be with you before the 10th of October if some contingencies eventuate favourably. Please to present my best regards to you mother and sister, Mr. Dwight, & may I not say Mr. Orvis? Will you tell Ally that I wrote to him yesterday, & forgot to inform him that there is or should be a parcel containing some books for him at the store or dwelling of Mr. Hastings in Boston? I am Sincerely your friend,
James Kay, Jun.
