Early Letters of George William Curtis | Page 2

patronized by
those who were in general sympathy with the leaders of the association.
George Ripley was the teacher in philosophy and mathematics, George
P. Bradford in literature, John S. Dwight in Latin and music, Charles A.
Dana in Greek and German, and John S. Brown in theoretical and

practical agriculture. A six years' course was arranged in preparation
for college, and three years were given to acquiring a knowledge of
farming. The pupils were required to work one hour each day, the idea
being that this was conducive to sound intellectual training.
It would seem, however, that Curtis gave only a part of his time to
study, as is indicated in a letter written to his father in June, 1843, and
published in the admirable biography by Mr. Edward Gary. "My life is
summery enough here," he writes. "We breakfast at six, and from seven
to twelve I am at work. After dinner, these fair days permit no homage
but to their beauty, and I am fain to woo their smiles in the shades and
sunlights of the woods. A festal life for one before whom the great
stretches which must be sailed; yet this summer air teaches sea
life-navigation, and I listen to the flowing streams, and to the cool rush
of the winds among the trees, with an increase of that hope which is the
only pole-star of life."
At Brook Farm, Curtis studied Greek, German, music, and agriculture.
The teaching was of the best, as good as could have been had in any
college of the country at that time, and was thorough and efficient.
Much more of freedom was allowed the students than was usual
elsewhere, both as to conditions of study and recitation, and as to the
relations of the pupils to the instructors. The young people in the school
were treated as friends and companions by their teachers; but this
familiarity did not breed contempt for the instructors or indifference to
the work of the school. On the other hand, it secured an unusual degree
of enthusiasm both for the teachers and for the subjects pursued. The
work of the school went on with somewhat less of system than is
thought desirable in most places of instruction; but in this instance the
results justified the methods pursued. The teachers were such as could
command success by their personal qualities and by their enthusiastic
devotion to their work.
The two years spent at Brook Farm formed an important episode in the
life of George William Curtis. It is evident that he did not surrender
himself to the associationist idea, even when he was a boarder at Brook
Farm and a member of its school. He loved the men and women who
were at the head of the community; he found the life attractive and
genial, the atmosphere was conducive to his intellectual and spiritual
development; but he did not surrender himself to the idea that the world

can be reformed in that manner. In a degree he was a curious looker-on;
and in a still larger way he was a sympathetic, but not convinced, friend
and well-wisher. If not a member, he retained throughout life his
interest in this experiment, and remembered with delight the years he
spent there. He more than once spoke in enthusiastic terms of Brook
Farm, and gave its theories and its practice a sympathetic interpretation.
In one of his "Easy Chair" essays of 1869 he described the best side of
its life:
"There is always a certain amount of oddity latent in society which
rushes to such an enterprise as a natural vent; and in youth itself there is
a similar latent and boundless protest against the friction and apparent
unreason of the existing order. At the time of the Brook Farm
enterprise this was everywhere observable. The freedom of the
antislavery reform and its discussions had developed the 'come-outers,'
who bore testimony in all times and places against church and state. Mr.
Emerson mentions an apostle of the gospel of love and no money who
preached zealously but never gathered a large church of believers. Then
there were the protestants against the sin of flesh-eating, refining into
curious metaphysics upon milk, eggs, and oysters. To purloin milk
from the udder was to injure the maternal affections of the cow; to eat
eggs was Feejee cannibalism and the destruction of the tender germ of
life, to swallow an oyster was to mask murder. A still selecter circle
denounced the chains that shackled the tongue and the false delicacy
that clothed the body. Profanity, they said, is not the use of forcible and
picturesque words; it is the abuse of such to express base passions and
emotions. So indecency cannot be affirmed of the model of all grace,
the human body....
"These