The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1858-12-11
Robert Owen.

/ Our dispatches by the Europa announce
the death Of Robert Owen--at one time, per-
haps, the most famous man of his day. He
was in the eighty-eighth year of his age,
/ hay ng been born in Wales in the year I77l.
He distinguished himselfquite early at school
but before hewas eighteen he engaged in the
/ cotton manufacturing business, into which
/ he was instrumental in introducing the
! machinery of .Arkwright, then a great i'm
| provement. His factories, called the Chorl-
/ ton Mills, were situated near Manchester,
| and became very lucrative.
| But he was induced, after few years, to
remove to New Lanark, between Edinburgh
and Glasgow, in Scotland, where Arkwright
had founded q number of factories, in con-
nection with David Dale an enterprising and
| benevolent man. Owen married the daugh-
ter of Dale, and was taken into the partner
/ ship. His sympathies in behalf of the work
| ing classes concurring with those of Dale,
| they commenced together practical reform
in regard to their dwelling-hOuSes, their
hours of labor, and the education of their
! children, which was conducted for some
| time under such fiattering promises of success
| that it attracted the attention of philanthro-
| pists and statesmen in all parts of the world.
As there were more than thousand persons
emPloyed-in the mills, about half of them
under eighteen years of age fine field was
| presented for the display of their benevolent
activities. Owen succeeded, we believe in
shortening the duration of the children's Ia
bors, and III enabling them to attend his
school, where the intellectual system, as il
was called, or the system of teaching by
objects, was first put i'll practice. In the eve
nings and on Sundays the adults were in
structed by lectures, objects, diagrams and
books, so that the place soon put on a scho-
I lastic air, quite unusual in the manufacturing
towns of Scotland or England. As Owen
instituted, at the same time a police which,
though it was carried on without punish
ments, was rigid, his community was re-
garded as a model community. He himself
cousidef it SO, and he began to commend
it as ample for all the earth The late
Dp'-s Of Kent, father of the present Queen
of Great Britain, became very much interest
ed in Mr.. Owens experiments, and through
his influence the aristoeraey and clergy of
Eng gland lent him their countenance But
unfortunately, Mr.. Owen connected his
scheme for the practical improvement of the
working classes with certain religious ans
social doctrines, which soon deprived him of
the support ofthose eminent orders Adopt
ing a grossly mates.alistic theory Of life he
held that men were entirely the creatures of
circumstances, and that all that was neces-
sary for the thorough regeneration ofsociety,
was 4 change in its external conditions
Improve the circumstances by which the
child is surrounded, he said, and YOU i'm
prove the child. All the difference which
subsists between the most polished and kind
of ,iy-iIi I'd
rudeaI1d crnel u barharnus conntrr
IS a difference in their circumstances. The
civilized man, placed in New Zealand, would
I have been savage, and the New Zealand
savage, placed amid the means and applian-
ces OF an educated family of London or Paris,
would have been a civilized man.
There was enough of truth-and of the
| most important truth-in Owens theory to
commend it to the attention of the world
and particularly of the classes for whose
/ beneht,it was specially intended He was
7 considered an oracle by them, and indeed
! the fame which he acquired and the reputed
| success ofhis practical scheme attracted to-
wards him the regards OF soyereigns. The
| King of Prussia we think it was, sent for
him, and consulted him in respect to the
| establishment and management of model
/ villages in Prussia He lived also on terms
| Of familiarity With the King of France, and
| be made several voyages To Mexico, at the
I request Of the government, TO Introduce his
! reforms into that country. On one of these
! visits lin l82S) he requested from the MeXi-
| can ministry the control OF the States OF
| COahuila and Texas, for the purpose oytest-
/ ing his system of social organization on the
| largest scale. But as those provinces were
/ not within the gift OF the ministry. they
| offered him, as an alternative a district of
some hundred and fifty miles in breadth ON
! the Pacific coast, north Of the Gulf of Cal
/ ifornia. Mr.. Owen, for some reason or other.
! did not accept it, and il is curious TO remark
that, ii he had tine gold mines of California
would probably have been discovered TWEEN
ty years before they were, and Mr.. owen
! become the richest man in all the world
/ The riches, however, would not have tempted
/ him from the prosecution of his scheme III
which he was indef;itigablc, ing in be-
/ half of it many voyages across the Atlantic
/ visiting the crowned heads and great min
isters OF Europe, aud the Presidents of the
North and South American Republics, wri-
ting in the newspapers and periodicals. and
Iecturmg before associations and meetings
He was enabled to do all this because his
manufacturing Aperiment had brought him
/ "A fortune OF bali q million of dollars and
inore-all of which, we presume, he ex-
pended in his various benevolent projects.
la 1925, Mr. Owen purchased New Harmony
an Indiana, which was owned by the uar-
mOnisis. IA band ot German socialists under
Rapp, (sinee, the founder of Economy, near
Pittsburg, and he made trial of his sys-
tem there. with the assistance OF his son,
Robert Dale owen, now our Minister at
Naples For a while, we think ii flourish
ed, evea beyond the market of western towns
generally, but so far as ii was a new exper-
iment oil social life, it failed
F.. I We STE ii elsewhere mentioned that Mr.
- sold about one-half his estate to MIR. v m.
Mcclure who attempted to establish a Schoo
Z OF Industry upon an extensive scale. This
PROJECT also failed, and Mr. Mcclure went to
Mexico where he remained until he died
By his will he distributed libraries, valued
at $500 each, all over the State of Indiana
An attempt is now being made by David
Dale owen (son OF Robert Owen and others
to establish school OF Practical Science at
New Harmony.
Mr. Owen was the author of several books
on social science, the principal of which
were the s'New Moral World, wherein he
discussed his doctrines at length ia sim
pie and unpretending style, but with con-
siderable ctearness and vigor. He was, in