My Friends at Brook Farm | Page 6

the thought of the
American people in after years. Among these were Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Bronson Alcott, George William Curtis, Francis George
Shaw, translator of Eugene Sue and of George Sand, and father of
Colonel Robert Shaw, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, Dr. Howe and
his fiancee Julia Ward, Charles A. Dana, John S. Dwight and perhaps a
score of other bright spirits. Occasional attendants at their gatherings
and contributors to The Dial were Horace Greeley, William Page,
afterward President of The National Academy of Design, Thomas
Wentworth Higginson and my father, Charles Sears. Their
acknowledged leader was the Rev. George Ripley, the founder of
Brook Farm.
I do not know anything more about this old time Transcendentalism
than I do about the Pragmatism of our day, and that is not much. I
believe the two schools of thought were alike in this, they both held
that modern civilization has gone sadly and badly astray in the pursuit
of wealth. Not money but the love of money is, now as ever, the root of
all evil. The first work of the makers of America was necessarily the
creation of property, the accumulation of the means of life, but we have
pushed this pursuit too far, have gone money mad not knowing when
we should stop trying to get rich and give our time and attention to
higher things.

There is another matter to be noted as of some significance namely that
leading Transcendentalists were, and leading Pragmatists now are,
scholars and university men. It is true America was not turning out
university men in the '40's and it might perhaps better be said that the
Transcendentalists were college men, but as several of them were
educated in Germany the connotation may be allowed to stand. It was
said of these learned students that at their meetings they read Dante in
the original Italian, Hegel in the original German, Swedenborg in the
original Latin, which language the Swedish seer always used, Charles
Fourier in the original French, and perhaps the hardest task of all,
Margaret Fuller in the original English. Margaret was an honored
member of the illustrious company and was held in high esteem; but
her writings are mighty hard reading. I can quite understand James
Russell Lowell's judgment in his "Fable For Critics" where he
condemns a certain literary offender to severe punishment, sentencing
him to 30 days at hard labor, reading the works of Margaret Fuller.
It was, as above said, after one of his visits to Boston that my father
came home with the suggestion of sending Althea and myself to school
at Brook Farm. The idea met with a good deal of opposition from the
Dutch side of the house, which was my side for all I was worth, but I
suppose father opined that it was time some of the provincialism of the
Old Colonie should be rubbed off. Through his acquaintance with
Thurlow Weed he came to know Mr. Greeley and through Mr. Greeley
was introduced to Dr. Ripley and the Transcendentalists, gaining, by
the way, broader views and a wider range of ideas than those which had
prevailed in Beaver Street for two hundred years. Such, I take it was the
sequence of events, not as noted by a little boy but as partly imagined
and partly reasoned out at a later time. Partly imagined, too, is the
presumption that my father was attracted by the philosophic ideals
presented by his Boston friends. A tired business man might well be
impressed by the Transcendental teaching that our civilization has gone
wrong in forcing all human energy into the one pursuit, that of getting
riches. They held that while hard work rarely harms any one, the
monotonous grind in the money making mills results in arrested
development. Work as hard as you please, spend all the energy, all the
talent, all the skill you have but not in seeking wealth. That is not worth

while, and it prevents the doing of what is worth while. Do your best in
the world; give all you can, but be sure to get a fair return, not in
money but in better things. Seek culture, seek knowledge, seek
character, seek friendship, good will, good health, good conscience,
and the peace that passeth understanding shall be added unto you. Be
content with a small measure of this world's wealth and do not crave
costly luxuries to make a show withal. To this end, go out into the
country; raise what you need as far as possible with your own hands,
and enough more to exchange for such things as you cannot produce.
Abandon the world, the flesh and the Devil and go back to the soil and
find the Garden of Eden.
My father accepted these teachings in good faith and