Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1880-11-25
The Rugby Colony in Tennessee.

The Rugby Colony in Tennessee.
The English colony which Mr. Thoma:
Hughes and his friends propose to fount
in Tennessee has been misunderstood a:
being an enterprise exclusively English
which was to maintain itself as English
cultivate English traditions and feel
iDgs, and aim to be little England in
the midst of the United States, in the
same way that Plymouth was new
England in the wilderness of 1920. The
American and English critics of the
scheme showed at once that such an un-
dertaking must fail because the move
ment springs from no religious or social
theory, but is merely an industrial en-
terprise. The result would Inevitably be
the mingling of the colony with the
American life around it, and gr.dual
absorption in the great American COM
munity. But when this had been all co
gently set forth and reasoned to logical
conclusion, Mr.. Hughes made speech
at the opening of the town, so to speak,
in which he stated that such was not the
intention, that the gates of the colony
would stand wide open to the entry of
industry and intelligence from every
quarter, and that while in its be-
ginning it was necessarily English, 1--WE
hope that this will very soon cease to be
So"
1t is, in fact. merely an escape from
the narrower opportunities of life in
older communities, and its hope and aim
apparently are to give more and fairer
chances to capable and well-meaning
people than they are likely to find at
home. There is a price to be paid, in
deed, for so great gain, and that price
is separation from the associations of
older regions and of home, and the for
| nation of new ties with strangers.
There is another price to be paid also,
which is inevitable, and that is the at
tempted entrance of the shiftless and
Impracticable. No body of persons can
found simple industrial community
which is designed to lessen the friction
of the great contest for existence with
out being beset by swarm of drones
who hope somehow to be helped without
helping themselves. There is perhaps
to be added to this price-list the slight
u!;naturalness which seems to belong to
the impression of such endeavors. This
is not, indeed, what can be called an
original feeling, because from the COM
munity in some form our modern soci-
ETY. has sprung. But individualism and
every man for himself have become so
wholly the principle of our society that
there is now a shrinking from any re-
turn to any form of communism.
Of this Mr. Hughes is well aware, and
in his very tranquil and sensible speech
he alludes to the odium which attaches
to the word community, and repudiates
entirely all sympathy with the state
communism of which we have had some
ugly teachings in this country, and of
which Lasalle and Marx are leaders in
Europe. Indeed, the Rugby community
is to be neither political nor religious,
but simply Arcadian. 1t proposes no
reorganization Of society, no revision of
fundamental laws. 1t accepts with per-
| feet contentment the laws relating to
property and to family life as they ex-
ist, and hopes to make the business of
living under those laws somewhat east
er. The colonists intend to lay out a
pretty town, with due provision for
parks and gardens, and to erect suitable
simple, and attractive buildings. They
mean also to apply cooperation to the
supply of many of the fundamental and
constant necessities of daily life, econo,
miziug health and labor and expense
and thereby greatly increasing the com,
mon stock of vigor and rational enjoy.
ment; and they consecrate the colony to
perfect religious freedom.
1t is thus unique enterprise. The
colony will avail itself of the results of
experience elsewhere, and begin with
the taste and foresight which are usually
wholly wanting, or which are entirely
condemned in the beginnings of such
communities. Towns and villages are
chance growths. They gather around
some water-power, or mine, or spring
or natural advantage, or they are agri.
cultural centres growing without pur-
pose or plan. There is scarcely pretty
or pleasant town or village which lit.
tie forethought would not have made
very much more charming. The village
Improvement societies are signs of the
wish to remedy congenital defects Of
rural communities. Where there is q
beautiful shore, or river or lake, il
has been generally sequestered to private