The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1886-03-25
FAMILISTERE DE GUISE.
A SUCCESSFUL INSTITUTION RUN
UPON coMMUNIsTIc PRINCIPLES.
NJ. GOdin's Home for workmen and Their
FamiIies-Advantages of Cooperation
Secured without the Loss of Independ-
ence-schoOls and stores.


FamiIies-Advantages of CO-operatiOu
/ Secured Without the Loss of Independ-
ence-schoOls and stores.
About forty years ago NJ. Godin erected
in Guise, France, a small foundry in
which he and three or four workmen as
sociated with him began to make i'm
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: NJ. Godin himself is native of a
small village not far from Guise, who be-
gan life as 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
good many orders he came to Guise, and
built a 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. GoDTN's IDEA CARRIED OUT
| But he had been from his youth an
ardent student of Fourier and had en-
braced the doctrines of Pere Enfantin.
/ Rejecting much that was visionary in
: their ideas, M. 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 a 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
10 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 a 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
profits" 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
tar 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 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 Ne 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
we're so arranged that each family would
be as much at home and free from intru-
zion as If 1t were residing in a house of it's
own. The additional advantages which
cooperation brings were soon perceived,
tod, and the central pavilion, which is 216
teet long by 1873 feet deep, has now two
wings of almost equal size, the whole
building containing rooms enough to ac-
sommodate in 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
emit 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 a 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 well
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, 1 |
think, very unfair to compare them to the |
truck Shops" as more than one writer |
hostile to NJ. Godip 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 |
as it is a 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
q cradle of her own-and placed in sec |
one cradle, where it remains until the !
evening. There are nurses, of course, to |
feed it, but they are saved great deal OF !
trouble by a very clever invention of M, |
Godin, which has not, he thinks, been fol- |
lowed elsewhere, effective and simple as !
1t is. This consists in filling the cradle |
with bran, which, covered with cloth, |
forms soft and clean bed for the infant |
When the sheet Is wetted it can at once be |
penetrate into the bran, the portion of it |
which has become coagulated, can be
taken out at the same time.
M. Godin, for whom no detail OF man
agement is too small, tried several other
plans before this, but all Of them were |
open to some sort Of objection, whereas
this works perfectly.
Customs Omcers of COnstantinopIe.
At the harbor there was one last strug-
gle; the customs officers went through my |
hnnrranL 70 500 that nothing WAC hainR