Part 8

War may bring out fine qualities, but experience has told us, in a minority. War is brutalising to those engaged in it, even to the atmosphere near and far from its centre. War, when the lust for it has entered, degrades a people. Bloodshedding is a form of madness. When the spark is kindled, a flame soon grows, which is fanned by lunatics, and one fears, sometimes by adroit commercial schemers who see in devastation a chance to enrich their pockets. When once greed takes the place of contented energy, avarice, dishonesty and self-seeking enter and shatter national progress. Indeed, there is no end to the mischief war may encourage. The seeds of avarice are sown early in life. Victims to it become unconscious of the rapidity of its growth, its poison spreads indefinitely, and what is in reality vice is excused by the plausible word “business,” which, if laid bare to its root, means tripping up the neighbour, and, if possible, without being found out. It is because tradesmen behaved so ill during the period of their country’s danger that, the eyes of the people are now opened, they are watched, hedged in by honest men, that they shall have no opportunity in the new Commune to rob their fellow citizens of food again. In my dream, by listening and observing, I saw that all classes were bent upon the same conclusion, to attain much for all! This has led to a great reform in the education of the young in their tender and malleable years.

§ 11

The public schools are not only in name public; they are open to all without distinction of class. The peer’s son will sit on a school bench beside the peasant’s. The only difference being that the richer pay higher fees. All classes pay something for education; what is got for nothing no one values, but the education given is identical. Upon the whole it is desirable that all students live in their homes. Day scholars are encouraged more than boarders; and, as we shall presently see that home life is in every respect more refined than it was. Under the old system, “squalor” was more the rule than the exception; it is so no longer. Home life, if properly conducted, is dignified. Every home should be a miniature State, and it is becoming so here. Wealth is not necessary to make a worthy home; it is the atmosphere of industry, amity, and union there which constitute the best school in which to rear a good citizen. The enormous and unprecedented rise in wages, largely caused by the rapacity of tradesmen as well as Government waste of public money, has indirectly promoted industry (not industrialism). Even the better off folk do not send out work which can be done at home. Tradesmen have defeated themselves in a large measure. The best provided citizens are craftsmen, who can use their hands for any manual work, rough or fine. If a chair is broken, no “gentleman” will send it to be mended, he mends it himself.

Experience is fast teaching everybody that a day is long, not short, and that _unlimited_ specialisation is neither good for soul or body, rich or poor. The close student of art or letters needs recreation. He finds it in the new order in manual work, in craftsmanship which detaches the mind from pursuits necessarily sedentary, and which, if continued for too many hours a day, are detrimental to health and vigour. In my wanderings I noticed that one of the chief changes in or differences from the old life is that every man, woman and child _is at work_, rich or poor. Hence games and sports of all kinds, while they take a rational place in life, are not now its main object. In the public schools every student has to learn some handicraft. I see the peasant boy sawing away at one end of a log, while the peer’s son is sawing at the other. It is recognised, of course, that equality of power is out of the question. Few are born to rule, but all can serve their country. Endowments are different in quantity and quality. There are fingers so made as to be bad instruments for performing delicate tasks, as there are minds incapable to lead men. A skilled craftsman--skilled, I mean, in the delicate handling of material--is one thing, the doing rougher work (quite as useful) is another, and more easily obtained. Young fellows soon find out what, and what not, they can accomplish. The outcome of this is energy extended, and if the professional tradesman or craftsman find himself boycotted, he has only to thank his greed and his overweening selfishness during hard times for now being hit with the same weapon he employed on his fellows. Not overmuch attention is given to BOOKS. The first principle initiated is “good citizenship,” honest dealing, and the carrying out of the ancient saying, “Whatsoever thou findest to do, do with thy might.”

§ 12

Business on shifty lines or vicious principles may bring a temporary fortune, but honest dealing will make good and useful members of society, who will last out the former, who, in all higher walks of life, are not seldom mental bankrupts. Music, especially concerted and vocal, forms a part of general education, and in like manner, drawing, but music takes a prior place. Like physical drill, music is useful in training concerted action. Obedience to a leader is a necessary discipline. Some silly people used to think the study of music enervating; the wise know it is otherwise.

But more on that subject when my spirit has travelled further and become more intimate with the great changes that are taking place in this young and wonderful new world. So far as I have travelled, watched and listened, I am certain that _concerted_ action, mental and physical, is good--even necessary! Boys teach one another. The peer’s son can teach the peasant, the peasant the peer’s son. Mixing together of the classes in work as well as play makes for unity, cohesion and strength.

§ 13

A bird’s-eye view of the new world has been indicated. By this time who read what my dream relates so far will know that the principles which guide the new worlds are _socialistic_, that the establishment of Fraternity is the first object. _Inequality is recognised. Equality is impossible. Liberty is subject to obedience. Tyranny under licence is certain, under good fellowship is impossible. The most dangerous of all tyranny is that which is disguised under the cloak of Freedom. Before any class can rule efficiently it must have learnt to obey. Bad leaders are worse than none at all._

My dream had hardly taken any shape when the eyes of my spirit were first awakened. There is a moment between sleep and waking that is neither one thing or another. At its start, my dream revealed an indefinite sketch. I must travel back and hover again over the new city, to see it in detail and work my silent invisible way among the new things being slowly revealed as my spiritual sense acquires power. I am in the new city again, and am full of keen watching.

§ 14

There is one railway station, but, unlike those the other world made, it is clean, orderly, dustless and smokeless. Electric power drives the trains, which in some subtle way are provided with noiseless wheels, which run as smoothly as on ice. When, in my dream, I first saw the railway station, I was sorry. My spirit had been hoping that the world would be content to travel slower. But when it gave no evidence of squalor in its neighbourhood or smoke in its vicinity, my spirit was quieted. Nevertheless, it has not been drawn thither again. When the new city was laid out, a boundary was fixed, and no extension is permitted within prescribed limits. One of the great curses of the old world was the inordinate size of cities. Impossible to govern well, certain to create squalor and be refuges for the idle and dissolute, they were intractable. First comes the open country, freely cultivated, then the city, then a highly cultivated garden of fruit and flowers on the gradual slope of the Acropolis, upon which stand the factories, simply and grandly designed, with no pretence of architecture. What look like broad chimney stacks, reminding one of the towers of some Italian city, are storehouses as well as shafts in which fans are constantly working to take pure air into the factories and workshops. No one but caretakers and watchmen lives on the Acropolis.

As we have seen, the City is surrounded by a wall. There are four entrance gates, which are closed at night, when no work is permitted by the Commune.

More and more interested my spirit became as it made its unseen journey. The houses of the city are erected upon the flat land, and entirely surround the Acropolis. They begin in something over a mile from the Acropolis walls. The circumference of the gardens is two to three miles. They provide a considerable portion of the fruit and vegetables for the city inhabitants. They are tended not only by special gardeners, but any capable citizen is welcome to work in them in spare time under certain restrictions. A beautiful walk indeed it is from the city up to the Acropolis, shaded in summer by luxury of growth (for there is sun now that the smoke fiend has been slain). It was midday, a bell rings, reminding me by its majestic tone of the “Vacca,” in Florence. No ear-distracting hooters are permitted or hellish shrieks of discordant whistles, which in the old factory towns were so nerve-racking. As the sound of the bell filled the air, out of the city came its crowd of workers to make their dinners in their homes. They are a healthy, happy-looking crew. Life shines her best light upon them. They are cared for; they are good citizens, content, honest, and industrious. If the climate is not the best, what is good of it is no longer spoiled. What has become of “strike leaders” and suchlike misleading and “out for themselves folk,” I did not hear for certain. But I did hear one man say to another, “We are well rid of them,” and upon another occasion, pointing to a pond, a man said, “That’s where we ducked him, he wasn’t straight.”

How solid and compact the city appeared, how sensible its houses, how clean and orderly. What a change from the old dreary rows of boxes called houses, slate roofed, almost windowless, more fit for pigs than human habitations. These being novel in construction, and with no pretence to be “architecture,” are quite interesting. It appears that the original soil has been dug out, probably a foot and a half of it, a solid mass of concrete run in, framed by four courses of damp-proof bricks; thus is the floor made and a foundation for walls established. Piers of concrete are erected, from which the roof springs. The ends of timbers are imbedded in these piers, which are thereby strengthened. The intervals between the timbers are filled with strong laths, well bedded in tenacious plaster. Upright posts are placed between the horizontal timbers, which prevent the longer ones from sagging and firmly bind together the intervals of lath and plaster. The roofs are timber covered with red tiles. The colour effect is very pleasing. The ground plan is oblong, formed of two cubes. To avoid monotony, the houses are grouped in four, six and two. Each house measures 40 feet in length and 20 feet in depth. What would be called the ground floor is open to the height of 7 feet. Here are kept household implements. The space serves also as a play-place for children, and in winter can be used by members of the household for skittles, bowls, and other pleasant games. Rising from the centre of the ground plan is a shaft showing at regular intervals pigeon-holes. These shafts contain heat generated in the neighbourhood by electricity. Instead of wasting energy upon the discovery of poison gas to slaughter fellow-beings, science has found means to collect and generate electricity as an agent not only for movement but for heating, and without the expenditure of coal. At intervals stand towers, which have a fine effect among the houses. Within them are the electrical generators.

The houses are composed of two floors, one forming the upward boundary of the ground floor, the other eight feet above that, forming the ceiling of the first floor and the floor of the upper chambers, which are immediately under the roof. To save space, the stairway to the upper chambers is in the form of a ladder with hand rails. The largest room is that occupied by the women, where are their looms and all other implements belonging to their home trades, which are several. The kitchen is a walled off space within the foundation level; from it, the upper floor is reached by a ladder and handrail. The entrance to the first floor is by a stairway parallel with the elevation.

§ 15

The furniture is of simple construction, home made, for, as we have seen, the householders take pleasure in craftsmanship. In the long winter evenings neighbours drop in, giving a helping hand to one another. It has been found to be far cheaper to make at home than to buy of profiteering tradesmen; it only means a little more industry, a good deal less drink, and a pleasure in making and creating innate in all creation, but which so-called civilisation has done much to crush. Since the prices demanded by labour became impossible, profiteering labour has been to a large extent boycotted. Now that economy has to be practised, working men as well as women have grown to be industrious. Each house is a little centre of industry, and great pleasure is evidently derived from following an instinct definite and surviving, that of creating and making all household implements at home. Since shops are rarer than they were, the home is a creating centre, a very home of industry. Hence the look of the people is content, it has something of proudness in its freedom of aspect. They have come into their rights by Industry, by Fraternity. Agitators who would renew disturbances are treated with contempt. The happiness created by productive labour has concentrated the people, given them health and manly independence, besides adding to their incomes. The unmanly vice of drunkenness is rare. When it is in evidence it is punished as an insult to the dignity of the citizen and a crime against the Commune. From its earliest years the child is taught that to be a good citizen is a virtue, and to live by labour a necessity. To give good work for good wage is held to be a virtue which, if proceeded with through life, makes a good man and woman. I was so interested in what my dream was revealing that I made more intimate observation. Upon the partition walls of the houses I noticed pleasant and quaint designs, childlike and barbaric, if you like, but gay, and evidently done by someone who wanted to express a pleasure in making nice shapes and bright colour.

§ 16

The sound of the loom working was music accompanied by singing as the women and maidens plied their home trades. Evidently the garments of these are home made--they look too “good” to be bought at high prices of profiteers. Kaleidoscopic coloured quilts such as I remember in my childhood made the beds look warm and snug, and curtains of bright tints gave a generous feeling of warmth where doors are not needed. By the way, heating is provided by the Commune at a nominal rate, not subject to variation. As far as I could see, gas is of the past; hence houses are cleaner than heretofore, and the air is not vitiated by the fumes of that abominable product. Factory labour is limited to seven hours. In summer it starts at 5 a.m., in winter at 7 a.m. In summer it is all over by 12 p.m., in winter by 2 p.m. The remainder of the days are free, to be enjoyed in garden cultivation or home labour, other pleasures, and games.

Now that workers are really leading lives in which they take a personal interest, and are regarded and regard themselves, not as slaves, but as kings over their own lives, gambling is rare, and distasteful sports such as dog fighting and prize fights and other depressing so-called sports are not in vogue. In their leisure the people are Artists, taking a pride in their homes and competing whose shall be the most attractive. As yet I had not travelled about sufficiently to know whence came the wood so much used in the new Commune, but presently I shall know. Extensive use of lime is accounted for--it is a local product. To avoid unnecessary expense and to encourage local labour, the neighbourhood provides material, for as little foreign material as possible is imported. Water is plentiful, a good river meanders in the valley not far from the city, there are pleasant meadows of fine grass that feeds a goodly number of cattle, whose milk is pure. Adulteration of _milk_ is treated as a _crime_! Bad people who for profiteering purposes adulterate milk or bread are put to prison at once on conviction as criminals.

§ 17

Pollution of rivers, lakes or ponds is _absolutely_ forbidden; hence there is a constant supply of fresh water fish, which forms an important feature in the food of the city. Rivers, lakes and ponds are stocked with fish and fry every year, and close times are respected. The sale of fresh water fish is the outcome of a recognised trade which is conducted by experts, and woe betide the poacher, or still more the factory owner, who steals or poisons them. Preserves for the private pleasure of fishermen or other sportsmen are not forbidden, but are out of fashion: _Fraternity_ has overcome _Egoism_ to a large extent. Inasmuch as honesty is regarded as a virtue and dishonesty a vice (not the case under Trades Unions) it has spread from large to smaller issues. A factory owner who polluted a river, besides being punished by the Commune for so doing, would be regarded a CAD by the public at large, and would find rough handling unpleasant. For a moment my attention is again called to education, for my spirit has been listening. _Truthfulness_, _absolute_ and _pure_, is inculcated from tenderest years at home and at school. It is involved in the duty to the neighbour as to God, it is the foundation of Wisdom, Justice and Fraternity. Faith in the good faith of the neighbour has become a habit. To override, cheat or deceive a neighbour is an _unmanly_ act. The Communes seek to make _men_, men who are responsible, not only to their own dignity, but to the Commune, and this is the first clause of the creed in which there are but two commands--Duty to the neighbour and to God, the one includes the other. Fringes to this simple creed there are no doubt, but those two clauses are essentials on which all addenda hangs. Besides teaching a craft, scholars are initiated into the works of the great English poets. Young people are taught to recite passages from Shakespeare, Milton and other great poets, and they are encouraged to act the part they recite, because, as we shall presently see, the Drama takes a prominent place in the mental development of the new Communes.

§ 18

Caligraphy is taught as an Art. It is pleasant to look over the pages of children’s writing, so different to the scrawls which were called writing a while ago. Drawing comes under the section of caligraphy, to which it belongs. Making nicely shaped lettering means _drawing letters_. A child who has learned to draw letters well will soon learn to copy other forms.

Dancing (not romping) but the good old English dancing, so graceful and dignified, is part of the curriculum of education. It engenders good manners, elegant deportment, and self-control, besides being an extremely beneficial exercise. There is no folk music more lovely than the old English, and it is being revived, that one knows, for familiar old songs are heard in the fields now almost as constantly as Italian folk songs are heard in Italy. The people have lost the stiff, morose manner they had; while they work they sing. Their health is better now that they are more in the open air, and being engaged in open air pursuits their spirits have gained in elasticity and freedom of expression. The invention of new tunes is encouraged; hence there is quite a little school of modern and simple folk song growing which is pleasant, uncomplicated, and melodious.

Before learning foreign tongues our own is better taught now. Dialects are not discouraged; indeed, the reverse, the dialect of a county is encouraged as an indisputable characteristic of the people. There is only one dialect that is hateful (Cockney), and every effort is being made to eradicate that. Our own splendid language is great in poetry, from Chaucer to Wordsworth; to teach it through the works of the poets is to get it at its best. In Italy, where the craftsman class is far more cultivated than it has been in England, her great poets are common property; one hears Dante quoted constantly, as well as Tasso and minor poets. Under the new order in England there is reason to hope that ignorance of our great poets will give place to a general acquaintance with them. An individual who can speak and write his own language decently is not ill educated. If he has acquired facility in the language of his birthplace, diligence will soon give him some in foreign tongues. Those young people who show an aptitude for languages have the opportunity of qualifying in them, but the general run of labour and craftsmanship has no need of them. To fill the mind and memory with too many subjects at once is to dilute all. A sound knowledge of craftsmanship is what is wanted, and that is evidently being supplied by practice, a thousand times better system than by theory. Constant _occupation_, not _excitements_, create content. Excitements produce reaction. Occupation, varied in kind, steadies the character. It is with a view to that that the Communes do not overwork their workers. Energy is left to them after their hours of labour for which they are well paid, and to use it either physically or mentally, out of doors working in gardens or fields, or in their homes upon all such things which tend to make the home a happy and profitable little city in itself. A grumbler is voted a nuisance, an agitator an obstruction. Loiterers and loafers who would live on the earnings of honest citizens are held to be mean unproductive weeds for which the Communes have no use. For agitators there is no room now, the democratic howler at street corners or on common land finds no listeners; he is treated as a windbag since it has become known to the community at large that in the past he was a well-paid mischief-maker, who did far more harm than good to a cause which he pretended to advance.

§ 19

Dreams are vagarious, they are not restricted to times or seasons. Night appears during midday hours. The paradox is lively, often very humorous, but by no means ill fitting. From summer to winter is like the winking of an eyelid. In my dream the shades of a winter evening arrived. Factory working hours were over. My spirit was transported within the walls of one of the houses recently described. Well placed electric lights made the home as bright as day. A pleasant warm air gently circulated in the rooms from the pigeon-holes in the heating shafts. What we used to call England’s sun, the open fire, with all the smoke and dirt it made, its extravagance of fuel and insufficient warmth it provided, is no more. Since the abolition of the use of coal as a speed and warmth producer, sunshine in England is more than doubled and there is much less rain and mist; so, even in winter, the air is warmer, while it is clear and clear of particles which robbed us of light and rendered a clean house almost an impossibility in the barbarous past.