Produced by Eric Eldred, Beth Trapaga
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
JOHN S. DWIGHT:
Brook Farm and Concord
Edited by
George Willis Cooke
George William Curtis was born in Providence, February 24, 1824. From theage of six to eleven he was in the school of C.W. Greene at JamaicaPlain, and then, until he was fifteen, attended school in Providence. Hisbrother Burrill, two years older, was his inseparable companion, and theywere strongly attached to each other. About 1835 Curtis came under theinfluence of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was heard by him in Providence, andwho commanded his boyish admiration. Burrill Curtis has said of thisinterest of himself and his brother that it proved to be the cardinalevent of their youth; and what this experience was he has described.
"I still recall," he says, "the impressions produced by Emerson's deliveryof his address on 'The Over-Soul' in Mr. Hartshorn's school-room inProvidence. He seemed to speak as an inhabitant of heaven, and with theinspiration and authority of a prophet. Although a large part of thematter of that discourse, when reduced to its lowest terms, does notgreatly differ from the commonplaces of piety and religion, yet its formand its tone were so fresh and vivid that they made the matter also seemto be uttered for the first time, and to be a direct outcome from theinmost source of the highest truth. We heard Emerson lecture frequently,and made his personal acquaintance. My enthusiastic admiration of him andhis writings soon mounted to a high and intense hero-worship, which, whenit subsided, seems to have left me ever since incapable of attachingmyself as a follower to any other man. How far George shared suchfeelings, if at all, I cannot precisely say; but he so far shared myenthusiastic admiration as to be led a willing captive to Emerson'sattractions, and to the incidental attractions of the movement of which hewas the head; and Emerson always continued to command from us both thesincerest reverence and homage."
Burrill went so far as to discontinue the use of money and animal food;both the brothers discarded the conventional costumes in matters of dress,and their interest was enlisted in the reforms of the day. The familyremoved to New York in 1839, George studied at home with tutors, and wasan attendant at the church of Dr. Orville Dewey.
The warm and active interest of the brothers in the Transcendentalmovement, in all its phases, led them to propose to their father thathe permit them to attend the school connected with the Brook FarmAssociation. Permission having been granted, they became boarders therein the spring or summer of 1842. At no time were they members of theassociation, and they paid for their board and tuition as they wouldhave done at any seminary or college.
At this time the Brook Farm Association had two sources of income—thefarm of about two hundred acres, and the school which was carried on inconnection therewith. In fact, the school was more largely profitable thanthe farm, and was for a time well patronized by those who were in generalsympathy with the leaders of the association. George Ripley was theteacher in philosophy and mathematics, George P. Bra