John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

You may like to know something about the mode of life there. In reorganizing the society and bringing it down to the new basis, the teaching of Fourier, which we adopted, was that all industries should be carried on in groups and series. For instance, there should be a series of gardeners. One group of them cultivated trees, another small fruits, another vegetables, and there were half a dozen of these different but connected groups. So it was all through the establishment. There was a series that managed the domestic labor or housework. There was a group called the group of the dormitory that made the beds and took care of the bedrooms generally; one called the consistory that had charge of the parlors and public rooms; and one called the refectory, which included the cooks, the waiters, and the dishwashers. They were organized and worked together. I know that, because I was the headwaiter. And it was great fun, I can tell you. There were seventy people or more, and at dinner they all came in and we served them. So every department of the establishment was carried on in that way. Each person chose what he wished to do, what groups he would work in, and none of the boys and girls tried to shirk. There was more entertainment in doing the duty than in getting away from it. Every one was not only ready for his work, but glad to do it, and this brings me to a peculiar feature of the system: the person who did the most disagreeable work was the one to receive special honor and distinction, because he was a servant of the others and was rendering to his brothers a service not pleasant in itself, but which, in other circumstances, they would render to him. In this scheme of social democracy that was one of the most suggestive features. In the phalanx the young people, the middle-aged, and the old should all be ready to do a duty which may be inconvenient, as well as that which it is convenient for them to do. For instance, Mr. Ripley, the head of the phalanx, was the chief of the cow-milking group. I belonged to the same group. That was a universal quality and characteristic of the society. Just as a sculptor who is carving an Apollo, an image of divine beauty, goes to his work with joy and passion, so among us every duty and every kind