The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-11-16
EDITORS Easy Chair, in Harpers for November.
The Rugby Colony in Tennessee

li-uitoi Easy CDalf, IN Hafper'S Tor November.
The Rugby Colony in Tennessee
The English colony which Mr.. Thomas
Hughes and his friends propose to found i'll
Tennessee has been misunderstood as being al.
enterprise exclusively English, which was to
maintain itself as English, cultivate Englisl,
traditions and feelings, and aim to be little
England in the midst of the United States, in
the same way that Plymouth was New Eng
land in the wilderness of 1920. The American
and English critics of the scheme showed a,
once that such an undertaking must fail, be.
cause the movement springs from no religious
or social theory, but is merely an industrial
enterprise. The result would inevitably bt
the mingling of the colony with the American
life around it, and gradual absorption in the
great American community. But when this
had been all cogently set forth and reasoned to
a logical conclusion, Mr.. Hughes made a
speech at the opening of the town, so to speak.
In which he stated that CHI was not the in
tention, 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 beginning it was necessarily English.
So"
1t is, in fact, merely an escape from the mar.
rover opportunities of life in older commune
ties, and its hope and aim apparently are to
give more and fairer chances to capable and
well-meaning people than they are likely to
lind at home. There is a price to be paid, in
deed, for SO great gain, and that pric. is SEN
aration from the associations of older regions
and of home, and the formation of new ties
with strangers. There is another price to be
paid also, which is inevitable, and that is the
attempted entrance of the shiftless and i'm.
practicable. No body of persons can found a
simple industrial community which is designed
to lessen the friction of the great contest fo,
existence without being beset by o swarm of
drones who hope somehow to be helped with
ont helping themselves. There Is perhaps tn
be added to this price. list the slight unnatural
ness which seems to belong to the impression
Oh such endeavors. This is not, indeed, what
can be called an original feeling, because from
the community in some form our modern socie-
ty has sprung. But individualsm and every
man for himself have become so wholly The
principle of our society that there is now
shrinking from any return to any form of com
munism.
OF this Mr. Hughes is we'll aware. and in bis
very Il anquil and sensible speech he alludes to
the odium which attaches to the word comm.
nifty, and repudiates entirely all sympathy with
the State communism of which we have had
some ugly teachings in this country, and of
winch Lasalle and Marx are leaders in En-
rope. Indeed the Rugby community is to be
neither political nor religious, but simply Ar
cadian. 1t propo es no Reorganization of soci
ETY., no revision of fundamental laws. II nc.
cepts with perfect contentment the laws relat.
ing 70 property and to family life as they exist,
h0 1oiv sc lii
those laws somewhat easier. The colonists in
tend 10 | " out pretty town, with due provi-
sion Tor parks and gardens, and to erect suita
Die, simple, and attractive buildings. They
mean also to apply cooperation to the supply
of many of the fundamental and constant nc,
cessities of daily life, economizing health and
labor and expense, and thereby greatly increas-
Ing the common stock of vgor and rational en-
10. ment; and they consecrate the COLONY to
perfect religious freedom.
III IS thus unique enterprise. The colony
will avail itself of the results of experience
elsewhere, and begin with the taste and fore
sight which are usually wholly wanting or
which are entirely condemned in the BEGIN
ninIs Of such eommanities. Towns and vii.
lagos are chance growths. They gather around
some water-power, or mine, or spring or natnr
al advantage, or they are agricultural centrts
growing without purpose or plan TIL, r, ia
scarcely pretty or pleasant town or VILLAGE
which little forethought would not have
naue very h,ucn more Charming. The village
improvement societies are signs of the wish fo
remedy coDgenital defects of rural communi-
ties. Where there is beautiful shore of a r:y-
or or lake, it has been generally sequestered
to private and individual use, and is lost to the
community. Ii the natural beauty of thous-
ands OF towns had been developed for the COM
mon benefit, it would be found that both profit
and pleasure are different faces of the same
fact, for property in an attractive Community
is more valuable than in one which is not go.
But when, as at Rugby, it is proposed to adj
to this cheap and easy care for the common
pleasure the tightening of the common labor
by the Introduction of kind of cooperation
whose value is incontestable, the only question
come to settle will have the taste and intelii.
gence of the few leaders, or will yield to them
the control. The hope of the colony, as Mr..
Huges expressed it, is that it will be COM
munIty of natural, not of artificial or conyen-
tional, ladies and gentlemen, This is the nat
urai hope of generous enthusiasm,