Daily Honolulu press. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1886, 1886-05-29
FAMILISTERE DE GUISE.
A SUCCESSFUL INSTITUTION RUN
UPON COMMUNlSTlc PRINCIPLES.
NJ. Godin's Home for werkmen and Their
Families-Ad of Cooperation
Secured without the Loss of Independ-
ence--:Sohools and stores.

About forty years ago M. GOdin erected
In Guise France, a small foundry, in
which he and three or four workmen as
sociated with him began to make inn
proved stoves and cooking ranges The
foundry has developed into an enormous
institution, and is run upon communistic
principles. An idea of the social life of
the community may be gained from the
following excerpt taken from recently
published correspondence in The London
Times: M, Godin himself is native of a
small village not far from Guise who be-
gan life rs n journeyman whitesmith, and
the origin of his fortune was the discov-
cry that stoves and cooking ranges could
be made better and cheaper from cast-iron
than sheet-iron. AS soon as he found
that his discovery was bringing him in a
good many orders he came to Guise, and
built small workshop in one of the sub
urbs. This was upwards of forty years
ago, but the enterprise prospered so much
that NJ. Godin soon found himself rich
man, and might, had he cared for the
money alone, have retired from business
while in the prime of life.
NJ. GoDIN's IDEA CARRIED OUT.
But he had been from his youth an
ardent student of Fourier and had en-
Rejecting much that was visionary in
their ideas, NJ Godin, whose fund of COM
mon sense served to keep him clear of the
illusions which crazed so many apostles
Of st. Simonism, determined to see if he
could not create Phalanstery which
would work and pay its way, and, what
ever may be the fate of the establishment
at Guise when the master mind which
brought it into being is no longer there to
direct, there can be no doubt that so far
Nj. Godin has succeeded, perhaps beyond
his own expectations. His main idea was
to assemble all those who worked with
him in one building, which he prefers to
call the Palais Social rather than the
Familistere, by which latter name it is
generally known, and to let each work
man shave share in the profits of capital
proportionate to the value of the work
that is to say, proportionate to the value
of his part in the production of those
protitsn The idea has been to some ex-
tent altered in carrying it out, but only in
degree, and the result is that those who
work in conjunction with NJ. Godin are
far better off than great majority of
those who have to get their living by man
nal labor
The first thing to do was to erect
home in which the workmen and their
families could live, and when the central
portion of the large building, which now
has a frontage of something like $50 feet,
was completed, NJ. Godin had great diff
Guilty to induce his men to come and live
in it, They dreaded what would, they
thought, be the loss of their independence,
and with the suspicion so general
among men of their class, fancied
that NJ. Godin was going in some
way to get the best of them. This feeling,
however, soon passed off, for it was easy
to see that the apartments in the building
were SO arranged that each family would
be as much at home and free from intru-
sion as if it were residing in house Of its
own. The additional advantages which
cooperation brings were soon perceived,
too, and the central pavilion, which is 216
feet long by 1888 feet deep, has now two
wings of almost equal size, the whole
building containing rooms enough to ac-
commodatein comfort upward of 400 fami-
lies. The rooms are lofty, being about ten
feet high on all the four floors, and they
would, if built in a town, form street
more than mile in length.
THE SCHOOLS, STORES AND NURSERIES,.
The Palais Social does not end here, for
other blocks have been erected within the
three or four years TO meet the increased
demand for accommodations; and then
there are the schools, the nurseries, the
theatre, the cooperative stores, the Ii
brary and reading-room, the cafe and the
gardens, all of which are open to the
whole of the Inhabitants, without any re-
striction whatsoever. With regard to the
schools, of which there are several differ
ent classes, the education given in them
is above rather than below the standard
of good primary schools in other parts of
France, and the theatre, in which dra-
matte performances are given once or
twice week by the troupe from the
neighboring town of st. Quenten, Is not
free, the charge for seats ranging from 3
francs to the eighth of that modest sum-
The library and reading-room are we'll
stocked with books and periodicals, relat-
ing chiefly to questions of social economy;
but the two most important features out
side the dwellings are the nurseries and
the cooperative stores.
The stores, which supply almost every
article of daily consumption, yield larger
profit than the dwellings, but it is, l
think, very unfair to compare them to the
struck Shops" as more than one writer
hostile TO M. Godin has done, for there is
no compulsion upon the workmen or their
families to get their things from them,
although they have every inducement to
do SO, the profits made in the stores being
divided into equal proportions between
the association and the purchasers. The
nursery arrangements deserve special
mention, as it is u great convenience for
the mothers who have their household
duties to attend to, or who are employed
in the stores, the laundry, and the recently
opened workshop for stocking-making to
be able to leave their infants in safe keep
ing The pavilion in which the nursery is
placed communicates with the main build
ing by means of an open gallery, and it is
divided into two parts, one for children in
the cradle and the other for those who are
just learning to walk.
The infant in arms is brought by the
mother from her lodging-where she has
cradle of her own-and placed in sec
one cradle, where 1t remains until the
evening. There are nurses. of course, to
feed it, but they are saved great deal of
trouble by very clever invention of M,
Godin, which has not, he thinks, been fol-
lowed elsewhere, effective and simple as
it is. This consists in filing the cradle
with bran, which, covered with cloth,
forms a soft and clean bed for the infant.
When the sheet is wetted it can at once be
removed, and, as the moisture does not
penetrate into the bran, the portion of II
which has become coagulated, can be
taken out at the same time
NJ. Godin, for whom no detail Of man
agement is too small, tried several other
plans before this, but all of them Were
omen to some sort of objection, wherea: