Class: First Year Seminar 125G
Instructor: Chocos, Theodora & Welsh, Polly
Name: Xianglong Tao
10/18/09
Journal6
Amos Bronson Alcott, Charles lane and François Marie Charles Fourier
American Transcendentalism offered people opportunities to be brave telling their
thoughts for individual, to put their ideas in practice, and to organize American
literature.
The
book
American
Bloomsbury
not
only
focuses
on
some
transcendentalists’ lives, loves and works, such as Louisa May Alcott’s, it also
mentioned some trailblazers such as Louisa May Alcott’s father Amos Bronson Alcott,
founder of Fruitland Charles lane, and French utopian socialist François Marie
Charles Fourier. Their thoughts and activities lead benefits to later generations.
Amos Bronson Alcott was born in 1799. He was an American teacher, a
forward-thinking writer and a philosopher. He still paid a lot of attentions to education.
He opened a school which named Temple School in 1834 at Boston. Susan Cheever
wrote, “The school was a great success, and the journalist, Charles lane, persuaded
Alcott to think about founding a true Alcottian community, a “second Eden” where
children could be educated as if their interests were important, and men and women
could live in harmony” (62). In this school, men and women could be treated equal. In
another words, women also have same opportunities to be educated. That was a good
start for women to learn knowledge and become more thoughtful than before. In
addition, Bronson Alcott also taught his student in an innovative way. He respected
students’ interests, thus he suggested students to analyze and try to find answers by
themselves. That was beneficial for American Transcendentalism to encourage people
to develop self-analysis. I believe American education is influenced by Temple School
because today American professors also hope students could be open-mind and think
by themselves.
Bronson Alcott believed that private property was wrong. He got the support from
his friend Charles Lane, a transcendentalist and abolitionist was born in 1800. In 1843,
Alcott and Lane began the “consociate” community and practiced their idea through
the experiment Fruitlands. Both of them were interested in whether people could get
pure freedom through living from society economy. During this experiment Lane
spent a lot of money and time to help Alcott, such as he spent 1800 dollar for the
house and 100acres. People in Fruitlands would not win any private property, and
they must follow the vegetarianism. This experiment started in July and failed in
December 1843. Cheever wrote, “without manure or the use of animals for farming,
the little community was doomed to fail at growing and making their own food,
Alcott’s Edenic ideal”（64）Lane’s money would not be wasted easily. This experiment
became evidence that people should keep the balance between their freedom and their
demands. In my own way of thinking, people need private property to exchange
anything they need or want. If a person wants to eat beef, but he could not get it
because he does not have money, he is not free. Although Alcott considered that is
illegal to treat animals as a part of property because they belong to nature. However,
human being also is a part of nature. We also are a factor of food cycle.
In addition, this experiment also certifies that people could not live without rules
and regulations which be built in society. The French philosopher Fourier has the
similar idea that “society had to be rebuilt from scratch” (67) People’s livings need an
organization to administer. The rules in society only could be consummated not be
destroyed. Looking back to Alcott’s Temple School, it offered women equal
opportunities to be educated. Education would make women have power to struggle
their equality. Women can fix the relationship between men and women and make it
better than before, but it not means women break the relationship with men. Cheever
wrote, “If people were free to do what they wanted, to follow what Fourier called
their “passions,” they would automatically live in love and harmony” (67) Society
would be more and more perfect with the development of people’s laws and
civilizations. When people think about their individual freedom, they should consider
whether their desires will disturb other. The laws protect each person be away from
dangers. Civilization can make people live together well. Honestly, people’s freedom
more or less would be limited to laws and civilizations. However, they farthest protect
people’s community’s stability.
Alcott, Lane and Fourier all thought about people’s freedom. Alcott gave students
opportunities to analyze by themselves. Lane and Alcott made an experiment and tried
to know whether people can win pure freedom when they were away from society.
Fourier expressed his thought about human being and believed people would
understand each other in future. Those three persons leaved some meaningful theories
to their later generations such as help people understand freedom better than before.