My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

LONDON WORKERS, SECULARISTS, ETC. 55. . . Never perhaps in the history of the human racehas so simple a device created in so short a periodso much order, virtue, goodness, and happiness, out ofso much ignorance, error, and misery. And for manyyears the permanent daily conduct of a very largemajority of those who were employed deserved, andhad, No. I placed as their character on the books ofthe company."anyEvery visitor to New Lanark who publishedaccount of his observations seems to have agreed asto the exceptional health, good conduct, and wellbeingof the entire population ; while residents in thevicinity, as well as the ruling authorities of the district,bore witness that vice and crime were almostwholly unknown. And it must be remembered thatthis was all effected upon the chance population foundthere, which was certainly no better if no worse thanthe usual lowest class of manufacturing operatives atthat period. There appears to have been not a singlecase of an individual or a family being expelled forbad conduct ; so that we are compelled to trace themarvellous improvement that occurred entirely to thepartial application of Owen's principles of humannature, most patiently and skilfully applied by himself.They were necessarily only a partial application,because a large number of the adults had not receivedthe education and training from infancy which wasessential for producing their full beneficial results.Again, the whole establishment was a manufactory,the property of private capitalists, and the adultpopulation suffered all the disadvantages of havingto work for long hours at a monotonous employmentand at low rates of wages, circumstances whollyantagonistic to any full and healthy and elevatedexistence. Owen used always to declare that the