In education Brook Farm appears to present greater mental freedom than most other institutions. The tuition being more heart-rendered, is in its effects more heart-stirring. The younger pupils, as well as the more advanced students, are held mostly, if not wholly, by the power of love. In this particular, Brook Farm is a much improved model for the oft-praised schools of New England. It is time that the imitative and book-learned systems of the latter should be superseded or liberalized, by some plan better calculated to excite originality of thought and the native energies of the mind. The deeper, kindly sympathies of the heart, too, should not be forgotten; but the germination of these must be despaired of under a rigid hireling system. Hence Brook Farm, with its spontaneous teachers, presents the unusual and cheering condition of a really "free school."
By watchful and diligent economy, there can be no doubt that a community would attain greater pecuniary success than is within the hope of honest individuals working separately. But Brook Farm is not a community, and in the variety of motives with which persons associate there, a double diligence and a watchfulness perhaps, too costly will be needful to preserve financial prosperity. While, however, this security is an essential element in success, riches would, on the other hand, be as fatal as poverty, to the true progress of such an institution. Even in the case of those foundations which have assumed a religious character, all history proves the fatality of wealth. The just and happy mean between riches and poverty is, indeed, more likely to be attained when, as in this instance, all thought of acquiring great wealth in a brief time is necessarily abandoned, as a condition of membership. On the other hand, the presence of many persons, who congregate merely for the attainment of some individual end, must weigh heavily and unfairly upon those whose hearts are really expanded to universal results.
As a whole, even the initiative powers of Brook Farm have, as is found almost everywhere, the design of a life much too objective, too much derived from objects in the exterior world. The subjective life, that in which the soul finds the living source and the true communion within itself, is not sufficiently prevalent to impart to the establishment the permanent and sedate character it should enjoy. Undeniably, many devoted individuals are there; several who have, as generously as wisely, relinquished what are considered great social and pecuniary advantages, and, by throwing their skill and energies into a course of the most ordinary labors, at once prove their disinterestedness, and lay the foundation for industrial nobility.