specified. It must be understood, however, that there is no invitation to the slaveholder in feeling and obstinate habit. None can be. received who do not come with the feeling of good will to all men; and who, regretting the prejudices of their own education, shall not desire, for their children, one of a completely opposite character. No difference will be made in the schools between the white children and the children of colour, whether in education or any other advantage.

'What degree of assistance this infant institution may receive, must depend on the amount of sympathy, scattered throughout the world, with the views and feelings expressed in this paper.

'To those acknowledging such sympathy, the paper is addressed. Those who have money, or other property, will bring it; they who have only their arms or their heads will bring them.

'To secure this assistance cheerfully and lastingly, it is necessary that the independence of every individual should be secured beyond the possibility of interruption. Without such security, human exertions must be feeble, and human happiness incomplete. Perfect independence, and entire exemption from all anxiety respecting the future, both as regards the parents themselves, and their children, it is one of the objects of this deed to insure.

'Therefore it is, that so many difficulties are thrown in the way of the admission of members. Were a system of prevention followed, instead of punishment, laws would be unnecessary. And in all the transactions of life, the only effective precautions seem to be those which provide against the occurrences of evil, not those which attempt provisions for remedying the evil when it has occurred.

'It will be seen that this establishment is founded on the principle of community of property and labour; presenting every advantage to those desirous, not of accumulating money, but of enjoying life, and rendering services to their fellow-creatures; these fellow-creatures, that is the blacks here admitted, requiting these services by services equal or greater, by filling occupations which their habits render easy, and which, to their guides and assistants, might be difficult or unpleasing. No life of idleness, however, is proposed to the whites. Those who cannot work, must give an equivalent in property. Gardening or other cultivation of the soil; useful trades practised in the society, or taught in the school; the teaching of every branch of knowledge; tending the children; and nursing the sick-will present a choice of employments sufficiently extensive.

'Labour is wealth: its reward should be enjoyment. Those who feel and admit this truth, will see that it needs not to be rich, in the now received sense of the word, to contribute towards the building up of an institution, which, however small in its infancy, may be made, with their co-operation, to open the way to a great national reform. Deeds are better than words. After all that has been said

let something be at least attempted. An experiment that has such an end in view, is surely worth the trial.

To the friends of man and their country; to the respecters of the institutions of this republic; to all imbued with liberal principles; to all who wish, and believe in the possibility of the improvement of man; to all, in short, who sympathise in the sentiments expressed in this paper, this appeal is made. Let us, then, come forward; let us dare to express our feelings, and to act in accordance with them. Let us view, in a spirit of kindness, the prejudices, as well as the misfortunes, of our fellow-beings; remembering that prejudice is not a crime, but an evil entailed by education, and strengthened by habit.

'Witness my hand and seal, this 17th of December, 1826. FRANCES Wright.'

Communication from the Trustees of Nashoba.

THE experiment by the Trustees of the Nashoba to form a community of equality and of common property is one of many experiments which have been lately made in different parts of the United States with a similar object. The trustees have encountered, as probably all pioneers in the co-operative system will encounter, many difficulties. These were for the most part incidental to the experiment as attempted by a generation trained and circumstanced as is the present generation of men, not inherent in the system itself. They were modified, in the present instance, by the peculiar nature of this trust for the benefit of the negro race; and they have produced, after the experience of two years, a modification of the plan originally adopted and since published by Frances Wright. This modification, caused by the habits of the present generation, and applying in its practice solely to them, it is the object of the following communication to explain.

In a co-operative community, when perfectly organized, the simple relation between the society and the individual is, that the latter devotes his time and his labour for the public good in any way the public voice may enjoin, while the society supports each individual member. This relation presupposes in the members the physical strength and the practical skill necessary to render their labour an equivalent for that which the community expends to support them.

Besides these physical requisites, each member in a society of which mutual kindness is the bond, sincerity and liberality the ground-work, and harmony of feeling the characteristic, must possess mental, and, above all, moral requisites of high order. Let no one deceive himself; if there be introduced into such a society thoughts of evil and unkindness, feelings of intolerance and words of dissention, it cannot prosper. That which produces in the world only common-place jealousies and every-day squabbles, is sufficient to destroy a social community.

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In the outset of their labours the Trustees perceived, that it would be a very difficult matter to find men and women with all the qualifications, as well mental and moral as physical, which are indispensable to the success of the experiment in its purest form. Many of the individuals who were the best calculated mentally and morally for the good work, wanted physical force and practical knowledge; and many more who possessed the hands wanted the head and the heart. To meet this difficulty they agreed, that where the mental and moral qualifications existed, they would receive, instead of labour, a certain sum of money yearly; which, as society is at present organized, is an equivalent for labour. Other members, having no capital, they agreed to admit where the physical requisites accompanied the mental and the moral.

The society thus assumed a mixed form. It admitted some members to labour, and others as boarders from whom no labour was required. Now, the experience of the Trustees has proved to them, that they erred in so doing. The arrangement they made introduces, in spite of the best and most charitable feelings, a sense of inequality among the members which may not without injury be created and felt. 1.

It became necessary, therefore, either that physical labour should be required from all, or that it should be required from none; in other words, either that the society assume the form of a simple co-operative society, or else of a society composed of small capitalists, of whom each should furnish a certain sum of money yearly for his or her support.

Convinced that one of these modifications was necessary for the present generation of human beings, half-trained as they are, the Trustees have determined to adopt the latter, and to receive those members only who possess the funds necessary for their support. They were influenced in their decision by a conviction, that they themselves and the friends they know best and trust most possess not the physical requisites as co-operatives; perceiving, as they did, that several of them had lost their health by attempting exertions for which their previous deficient physical training had disqualified them. Leaving, therefore, to others better qualified for the task, the attempt to become independent as all men ought to be, by their own labour, they have agreed for themselves and the associates who may join them, to adopt the other less rational, but for them more practical plan. Deeply sensible, however, how imperfect the experiment and how much they themselves have lost by the ignorance of their ancestors, they will train their children to be physically independent of money; and they hope in the next generation to dispense altogether with an artificial aid, which their weakness and want of skill alone render necessary to them.

The Trustees have been confirmed in the resolution they have thus adopted by observing the difficulty of first commencing a co

operative society with a very small number; while, according to the present plan, a small number can live in comfort and prosper, even if it should so happen that they receive no additions to their number. The small number of probationers who had joined the Trustees under the former plan, have since voluntarily left the establishment, so that the Trustees are at liberty, without injury to any one, to act as they now do.

The Trustees desire to express distinctly that they have deferred for the present the attempt to form a society of co-operative labour, and they claim for their association only the title of a preliminary SOCIAL COMMUNITY.

The Trustees propose, that this Community be composed of those whose mental and moral characters mark them as fit members, without reference to physical skill and efficiency, and without regard to colour; and that each throw into the common fund yearly one hundred dollars, as board alone, paid quarterly in advance this fund to be managed as the public voice shall direct. And they propose that every other expense be defrayed individually, according to the desires and habits of each member.

They farther propose that each member build himself or herself a small brick house, with a broad piazza; each house containing one room, perhaps 15 feet by 17, and 10 feet high, with a closet and presses; these rooms or small houses to be built according to a regular plan, probably in the form of a square or parallelogram, upon a spot of cleared ground which has been selected for that purpose, near the centre of the lands of Nashoba. Each member's room to be furnished and filled up at the expense and according to the taste of the owner.

It is further proposed, that as soon as the funds can be commanded, a school shall be erected for the children of the establishment; and for the reception, afterwards, of other children from individual society; to be received, without regard to colour, at a fixed board.

It is estimated that the first cost of each room or house, when completed and plainly furnished, will be about 500ds.; and that the total yearly expenses of each member will not, with proper economy, exceed 200ds. This sum includes board and every other expense, except house-rent; which, if each member build his own house, will not form an item in his yearly expenditure.

The Trustees think it necessary to state, that under the plan which they have just adopted, they retain, and remain alone responsible for, the management of the slaves now on the place, and the care of enabling them to emancipate themselves, as they are now gradually doing, by their own labour; also to prosecute the other objects of the trust. The associates who may join them do not become Trustees, and have no voice in the management of the

slaves or of the trust, unless they should be expressly elected to be Trustees. Thus the Social Community and the trust of Nashoba are two separate concerns; which, though they may, and it is hoped must, materially assist each other, have no necessary or indispensable connection. The Trustees, in placing themselves, as members of the Social Community, exactly upon the same footing as every other associate, now decline availing themselves of the right which the deed of trust gives them, to food, clothing, and other necessaries, from the funds of the trust. They will, like the other associates, support themselves from their own private funds. 'Dated at Nashoba, 1st February, 1828.

FRANCES WRIGHT,

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Foreseeing the probable unpopularity of the principles set forth in the following Address, I feel it to be consistent with the spirit of candour, which I desire should ever guide my actions, writings, and conversations, and moreover, a due attention to the feelings, and, perhaps, the interests of my personal friends, to observe, that no individual can be considered as pledged to the opinions herein explained, and openly and conscientiously professed, but the resident Trustees of Nashoba. In my deed of trust, I included the names of some individuals from a personal feeling of respect and affection, and from the sympathy I knew to exist between them and myself on the broad question of Negro slavery, and on the general principles of human improvement, and the political liberty of men and nations.

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The deed being also dictated under the pressure of sickness, induced by over-exertion, physical and mental, and which, at the time, threatened to prove mortal, I was desirous of leaving to them a last testimony of personal regard and confidence. But it has since occurred to me, that the appearance of their names in the deed of trust, may be viewed as pledging them to all the principles which that deed involves, and which the following address is intended to explain, while their personal friendship for myself might inspire some delicacy in expressing their dissent from the same. would allude here more particularly to two individuals, the one professing a public reputation in his own country, the United States; and the other a public character in all countries. Let me therefore state, and this withont previously consulting them on the subject, that I have no ground whatever to presume their assent to the moral principles and peculiar views now exposed to the public; the responsibility of which I take singly and entirely on myself. And the statement here made with respect to my personal friends, I would in like manner apply to all editors of journals, magazines, reviews, or other periodi