The little, scarcely organized Community
had increased into a goodly number, so that its dining room was like a
small hotel; and it was no longer held by the "Transcendentalists," but
had become a portion of a large and increasing body of men who followed
the wild ideas of a Frenchman named Fourier, and called itself the
Brook Farm Phalanx.
And who was this Fourier? It was just at this time; it was just as this
question was asked by anxious mothers, that the slanders of the New
York Press, copied into other papers, far and wide, worked mischief to
the Brook Farm School. I never knew a pupil who was not pleased and
delighted with the school; but the mother who sends a child away from
home to an educational institution, especially if the child is a girl,
will send it where there are no intimations connected with it of the
character of those brought so prominently forward by the New York
newspapers. It matters not so much to her that she believes the stories
are slanders; her duty seems plain to take no risks.
The "Association" or "Phalanx" now overlapped the school, and it could
no longer have the prominence as an industry that it did at first. The
school, from being so intimately connected with the Association, began
to lose caste.
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