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Untitled Article
longer contained within the walls of a city—the interests common to all can no longer be debated by all assembled together . The division of labour , one of the essential conditions of the progress of civilization , by inclosing indivi duals in a circle constantly narrowing , has carried them more and more away
from the consideration of general interests ; and , that whilst these considerations become more difficult to comprehend on account of the complication of the social relations , the intensity and regularity of moral education ought then to keep pace with the division of labour , as it alone is capable of giving to men those comprehensive views which it is the tendency of the individualization of labour to destroy /'
" General education must be the same for all , as they will all be called to live in a society uniformly organized ; but special or individual education , including the cultivation of the jfeelings—the intellectual and bodily powers , fit to make artists , men of science , and artisans , ( this triple division includes the whole of society , ) will be given , without regard to birth , with regard only to individual organization /' No one will be devoted , by a sort of hereditary fatality , to an occupation contrary to his faculties or inclination .
After a primary education equally preparatory to all destinations , the children , whose tendencies have been carefully studied and consulted by skilful masters , will be distributed in the three great schools of fine arts , sciences , and industry . However numerous may be the subdivisions of these schools , we can understand the necessity of an education common to artists , as artists , as well as for men of science , as such , and for artisans as artisans . It will not be
till after this second preparation that the youth , now fixed in their career , will be distributed among the different schools of practical instruction . Here the pupils will remain until the society believes them sufficiently taught to confide to them the functions for the due discharge of which they have been qualified ; all functions , all occupations will be filled and carried on with a higher degree of perfection , and thus must a much more rapid progress be made in every branch of human activity .
Division of labour has been with reason considered as one of the most powerful causes of the progress of civilization ; but it is evident that this division will not produce all its fruits , until it has taken for its basis the difference of capacity in its agents . The object of legislation is the teaching and maintenance of the moral rule j it is divided into two parts , negative and positive , or penal and remuneratory * The legislation of the new organic epoch , St . Simonian , will be simple ; " it is , indeed , almost needless to say this after having spoken of the abolition of
inheritance , the source of the greater part of judicial proceedings ; it will be easy to comprehend and respect it , the social object or end being known and loved by all ; all that favours the development of feeling , the intellectual and bodily powers , is virtue ; all that impedes this development is vice . In every class of society each individual will have his immediate superiors for his judges ; the men best able to appreciate all the attendant circumstanced . Penal legislation , in short , will be softened in its forms ; it will have no other object than to submit to a particular mode of education those men who quit the paths pointed out by the common and ordinary education . "
" These considerations , on the two great instruments of social order , shew Ht once the necessity of a supreme sanction for the precepts recommended by education and prescribed by legislation . —Who are to be the men charged with the direction of instruction ? Who shall be the men charged to make the law ? Whence comes their mandate ? What shall be their character ? What their rank in the social hierarchy ? What in short shall be this hierarchy , which ought to be the expression of the whole society , of its labours and its
conceptions ?" 44 The solution of these questions is involved in that of an immensely important problem—is there a religious future for humanity ? If so , ought re-
Untitled Article
The Saint Simonites . \ &J
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 187, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/43/
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