Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1898-06-11
asked IND ANSWERED.
John Johnson's Questions and Our
REPLIES.

t, colony notes. Our school system
is not yet thoroughly organized, some
of our children going to the public
school of the Edison district, and 9th
ers, the youngest (of school age, be-
ing taught in the kindergarten and
primary school of the colony The
higher grades are not organized as
yet. Much study and consideration
are now being devoted to the question
of our educational facilities, we hope
to organize the school district of our
immediate vicinity, and we are look
ing forward to having a splendidly
equipped school, with very compre-
hensive grading, with the most mod
ern methods of imparting instruc-
ton, and with 4 corps of teachers
real educators unexCelled by any
corps with whom they should proper
ly come into comparison. 1t has ever
been a characteristic of socialists
and cooperative communities that
the subject of the education of their
youth has always been considered in
the most careful and serious manner:
and the colonies of the B c G will
never fail to give to this essentially
significant matter all the care and
consideration that it deserves.
IS. Can women become members in
the b &C, the same as men?
Ans. In all proper theories and
principles and practice of socialism,
men and women are on an equal foot
ing and have the same rights of prop
erty and of suffrage. There can be
no socialism, worthy of the name, with
out the economic and political equal
ity of the sexes. Hence women are
of course eligible to membership in
the B G c, and in the colonies, and
they are eligible to all the voting and
official rights that the men. as men,
bers, enjoy. A large number of wo-
men are members of the B c c, and
over one-third of the voting members
of Equality colony are women.
10. Who vote at Equality colony
in the business meetings?
Ans. All those members, male and
female, who are eighteen years
of age and over. For instance, if
Thomas jefferson comes into the col
ony and has paid one membership in
full, he has vote himself in all the
affairs of the colony: if he has 4
wife, or depend mother or father,
or both. each of these has a vote. as
members who have been admitted on
Mr.. Jeffersons fee; if he has son or
daughter of the age of eighteen or
upwards, that son or daughter also
has vote; but if the son is over
twenty-one, when his father enters
the colony, both the son and the
father would each have to pay the
: membership fee-the father paying
for his DEPENDENT family, and the
son paying for himself and for his own
family, present or prospective.
20. Have you any musicians in the
colony? What are you doing for the
musical education of your children?
Ans. A partial answer to this ques-
ton may be inferred from the reply to
question II. 1t is our purpose to give
our children in our colonies the most
ample musical facilities that we can
possibly provide, and it is altogether
likely that the children of socialists
will ordinarily surpass other children
in their musical aptitudes, music and
socialism seeming to have, as has
been more than once noted, natural
affinity. The most musical nations of
most socialistic, and the development
of the esthetic nature of man, in
which development music plays 50
important role, seems to make
strongly for the growth of the social
istic sentiment. The present writer
has for some time been impressed
with this theory: Whatever works
toward the increase of human ten
derness aud kindly consideration.
operates to increase the altruistic
sentiment in man. this being, OF
course, truism; now the cultivation
of the musical faculty develops, in a
far greater degree, possibly, than
does the cultivation of the other es-
thetic faculties. the spirit Of tender
ness and chivalry and courtesy, and
il consequently makes very powerful
ly for the development of socialistic
and altruistic sentiments. While
Shakespeare's oft quoted saying that
1.-THE man that hath no music in his
soul. is fl for treasons, str2tagems,
and spoils" things abhorrent to good
socialists, cannot be applied fairly to
the individual, yetitcan surely be ap-
piled with some truth to the class or
the group or the race.
To answer, after so lengthy a pre-
lude, the first part of this question, t
} may be said we have a great many