Oxford Review of EducationAquatic Insects

Vol. 37, No. 5, October 2011, pp. 619–635

Education and Utopia: Robert Owen

and Charles Fourier
David Leopold*
University of Oxford, UK

The aims of education, and the appropriate means of realising them, are a recurring preoccupa-
tion of utopian authors. The utopian socialists Robert Owen (1771–1858) and Charles Fourier
(1772–1837) both place human nature at the core of their educational views, and both see edu-
cation as central to their wider objective of social and political transformation. The greatest
philosophical difference between them concerns human nature: whereas Owen saw character as
plastic and open to creation, Fourier saw it as God-given and liable to discovery. The most
striking practical difference concerns their institutional recommendations: whereas Owen saw
schooling as taking place in largely conventional spaces, Fourier sought to integrate education
into the community—his ideal society contains no schools and no teachers. Both authors had
some (limited and often indirect) practical influence on educational practice, despite the failure
of their wider ambitions for social reform.

Introduction
The aims of education, and the appropriate means of realising those aims, have
been a persistent, if not universal, concern of utopian authors (Masso, 1927;
Fisher, 1963; Ozmon, 1969). Thomas More (1478–1535) might be thought to
bear much of the responsibility here, since education plays an indispensable role in
the commonwealth of ‘Utopia’ (whose citizens are said to be so well educated that
they need few laws). However, whilst More named he did not invent the utopian
tradition, and this preoccupation with education certainly predates him. Plato
(429–347 BCE) would be an obvious example; the central role of education is made
clear in Book Four of the Republic, a work plausibly considered the first great polit-
ical utopia. (I use the term ‘utopia’ here to refer to a detailed description of an
ideal society, whether or not that description takes the narrative form typical of

*Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, Manor Road

Building, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UQ, UK. Email: david.leopold@politics.ox.ac.uk

ISSN 0305-4985 (print)/ISSN 1465-3915 (online)/11/050619–17

Ó 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2011.621679
620 D. Leopold

what we might call a literary utopia proper—in which a traveller from the world of
the author visits a superior society in a chronologically or geographically distant
location.)
It is tempting to contrast this longstanding and characteristic preoccupation with
educational questions on the part of utopian authors with a lack of equivalent
interest in utopia on the part of educationalists. That contrast looks real enough,
but should not be overdrawn. Not least, the relation is a shifting one. In the 19th
century, for instance, when educationalists were perhaps more engaged with wider
issues of social reform, their links with certain kinds of utopia were stronger.
Moreover, the lack of utopian enthusiasms on the part of modern educationalists
is not universal. There are recent signs, for example, of a minority interest in what
are sometimes (predictably) labelled ‘Edutopias’ (Halpern, 2003; Peters &
Freeman-Moi, 2006).
My ambition here, however, is not to unpack the many and complex connec-
tions between education and utopia, but to give a taste of what two 19th-century
utopian writers thought about education. Robert Owen (1771–1858) and Charles
Fourier (1772–1837) are usually characterised as ‘utopian socialists’ (a somewhat
problematic label popularised by Karl Marx (1818–1883)). Both authors placed
human nature at the centre of their educational views, and they both saw their
educational views as forming an important and integral part of their wider project
of radically transforming the social and political world. However, they developed
their educational and other views independently of one another, and they concep-
tualised the fundamental importance of human nature in very different ways.
(Their direct engagement was largely limited to a brief and unproductive corre-
spondence, and a few passing and unsympathetic comments on the myriad errors
of the other.)

Robert Owen
Born in Newtown in central Wales, Robert Owen left home at the age of ten. He
worked first as a draper’s assistant, before moving—with considerable entrepre-
neurial success—into the expanding cotton industry in Manchester. As manager
and part-owner of the New Lanark Mill in Scotland, he sought to implement his
already formed views about human character and the environment: improving
working (and living) conditions, moderating child labour, and providing infant
education. Those views and that social experiment were promoted in A new view
of society (1813–1814). Owen subsequently sought a larger public role, initially as
an authoritative voice on factory legislation, and then as a radical critic of contem-
porary society. In increasingly millenarian language, he prophesied the imminent
collapse of the old order and the emergence of a new moral world. He now recom-
mended small communitarian settlements, initially as an alternative to poor relief,
and then as an alternative form of society. Owen lost most of his personal fortune
on a communal experiment at New Harmony, in Indiana (1825–1827), but subse-
quently pursued another settlement at Harmony, in Hampshire (1839–1845).
 Robert Owen and Charles Fourier 621

Between these two transatlantic communal experiments came the brief period
when (parts of) the growing Owenite movement coalesced with two mass working-
class movements: the first wave of the cooperative movement (when Owenite
‘labour exchanges’ issued labour notes as currency); and a period of dramatic
growth in trade unionism (culminating in the short-lived Grand National
Consolidated Trades Union). The Owenite movement subsequently retreated into
its so-called ‘sectarian’ phase, with Owen promoting his ‘new religion’ through The
book of the new moral world (1842–1844) and lectures to the Rational Society. His
last years were marked by a conversion to Spiritualism, to the embarrassment of
some of his subsequent admirers. (Happily, following a spiritual communication
from the former Duke of Kent, Owen was able to confirm the absence of titles in
the afterlife.)
Owen’s central claim about human nature (repeated endlessly in his writings)
has two (equally contestable) component parts. First, he insists that individuals do
not form their own character, rather their character is wholly formed for them by
circumstances. Second, he insists that individuals are consequently not accountable
for their own sentiments and habits; to imagine that they merit rewards for some
actions and punishments for others is a fundamental mistake. Owen maintains that
with the application of the right means any ‘general character’ from the ‘best’ to
the ‘worst’ can be created in a community. In A new view of society, the contrast
here is broadly between a ‘good’ character that is intelligent, rational and happy,
and a ‘bad’ character that is ignorant, irrational and miserable. (An elaborated
version has ‘manly’, ‘just’, ‘generous’, ‘temperate’, ‘active’, ‘kind’ and ‘benevolent’,
traits, being contrasted with ‘effeminate’, ‘deceitful’, ‘ignorantly selfish’, ‘intemper-
ate’, ‘revengeful’, and even ‘murderous’, ones (Owen, 1993a, p. 62).) It is not that
human nature provides no constraints whatsoever on what can be created, but
rather that human nature is sufficiently plastic that, with the appropriate means, it
can be formed into either the best or the worst of characters.
The appropriate means of forming human nature consist of education in what
we might call broad and narrow senses. In a broad sense, education is synonymous
with the social environment in which all individuals are circumstanced. In a narrow
sense, education is concerned with the training of the young, typically in specialised
institutions. The right direction of these means requires their being controlled by a
minority with an understanding of, and authority in, human affairs. (Even in his
most radical moments, Owen subscribed to a variety of socialism ‘from above’, a
socialism that viewed ‘self-emancipation’ and democratic control with mistrust.)
Initially, Owen wrote as a ‘manufacturer for pecuniary profit’, advising his peers
to take as much care of their ‘vital machines’ as they did of their ‘inanimate
machines’, ensuring that both were kept neat, clean, kindly treated and well-sup-
plied (Owen, 1993a, p. 28). The workers of New Lanark before his own arrival are
portrayed (perhaps exaggeratedly) as sunk in vice: they lived ‘in idleness, in poverty,
in almost every kind of crime; consequently, in debt, out of health, and in misery’,
all this overlain, in Scotland, by religious sectarianism (Owen, 1993a, p. 45).
However, with a few judicious changes Owen claimed to have transformed their
622 D. Leopold

sorry condition. Circumstances were instituted which quickly and effectively formed
habits of order, regularity, health, temperance, industry and faithfulness to employ-
ers. Some changes were of general application. For example, housing conditions
were improved, roads were maintained and a company shop providing necessities at
low prices was established. Other changes were more closely linked to specific kinds
of behaviour. For example, to reduce alcohol abuse, public houses were closed,
alternative recreation was provided (gardening and walking are identified as eco-
nomical and innocent pleasures which individuals can be trained to enjoy), and the
health benefits of temperance were explained to workers (when they were most
receptive—whilst suffering from hangovers).
Owen was keen to appeal to New Lanark as experimental proof of the veracity
of his claims about the formation of character. He presented himself as a success-
ful practical man (not yet another speculative theorist), whose thorough study of
human nature was reflected in a combination of self-evident propositions and
empirically proven recommendations.
Having succeeded locally, Owen sought to work on a national scale to form
character and ameliorate the ‘lower classes’. He initially urged the British govern-
ment to institute a series of measures—said to follow from abandoning the absurd
and damaging notion that individuals form their own characters—including:
restricting the sale and consumption of alcohol; ending the state lottery; removing
religious tests; reforming the poor law (providing a modest system of public
works); and introducing a system of education along the lines established at New
Lanark (see below).
Owen insisted that these changes could be made without social upheaval and
injury to any part of society. Existing social arrangements are said to be held
together, not by class interests, but by an ignorance that the light of (Owenite)
truth was already beginning to dispel. Class struggle is ‘irrational’ because it pre-
supposes what is—on the Owenite account—false, namely that the ‘higher classes’
are responsible for the misery of the ‘lower classes’. And it is ‘useless’ because it
encourages (misplaced but nonetheless real) resistance to change on the part of
the ‘higher classes’. Rich and poor, Owen avers, have but one interest, and the lat-
ter ought to view the former not as class enemies but as potential friends and
active collaborators.
Owen always retained both this foundational assumption about the formation
of character, and this innocence about the nature of political power. What changes
is that he subsequently adopted more radical views about the problems besetting
modern society and the measures required to solve them.
Contemporaries were outraged by Owen’s increasingly critical pronouncements
on contemporary religion and marriage. He attacked all of the religions of the
world (as currently taught) for their sectarian and superstitious attitudes, and for
being based on ideas (about character formation) destructive of human well-being
and happiness. And he attacked existing marriage arrangements for compelling
men and women who did not love each other to live together (thereby generating
selfishness, cunning, deception, prostitution and crime).
 Robert Owen and Charles Fourier 623

However, it was his evolving economic and communitarian ideas which were
ultimately a more influential part of his growing radicalism.
Owen criticised the contemporary economic system—which was based on com-
petition and the idea of buying cheap and selling dear—on various grounds: for
being inefficient and wasteful; for creating unhealthy and unpleasant employment;
for overproducing commodities with little or no intrinsic utility or worth; and for
encouraging injurious inequalities. Its central failing, however, was predictably its
effect on character, since competition encourages the ‘most inferior feelings, the
meanest faculties, the worse passions, and the most injurious vices’ (Owen, 1991,
p. 358).
Owen increasingly identified small communal settlements as both the means to,
and the final institutional form of, the rational and humane future. The triumph
of communitarian socialism would take a gradualist and non-confrontational form;
spreading by example from community to community, country to continent, until
the whole world is organised according to cooperative principles. He enthused
about the many advantages of communal life, including the avoidance of domestic
duplication; for example, better food would be prepared at a fraction of the effort
and cost of individual family arrangements. He found it much harder to imagine
any potential disadvantages of communal living. Indeed, the only practical worry
he raises concerns the dangers of people living under the old order rushing precipi-
tately into the new settlements.
A consistent picture of the ideal Owenite community emerges despite some var-
iation in the detail. Communities should be small, not falling below 500 or rising
above 2,500 persons. Agriculture (adopting a specific kind of spade cultivation)
should predominate over manufacture; machinery could be used—for example, to
reduce harmful and laborious tasks—but must always be subordinated to human
interests. Each settlement should be built in a closed ‘parallelogram’, with living
quarters on each side, and school, church and dining hall in the middle. Property
arrangements are a little less certain. Owen’s conviction that labour was the source
of all wealth, and that competition bred an undesirable kind of character, encour-
aged him to endorse common rather than private property. However, his views on
this issue are not always clear or consistent, and he remained cautious about the
speed with which divisions between rich and poor might be overcome.
The place of politics and government in these communities is also uncertain.
Owen’s resistance to democratic control was constant, and he always personally
sought paternalistic authority over both communal experiments and the wider
Owenite movement. In later formulations of his communal plan, he settled on a
kind of gerontocracy as the ideal arrangement. In one version, he divides the pop-
ulation of each settlement into eight age cohorts, the seventh and eighth of which
would control ‘domestic affairs’ (preserving communal harmony and affection)
and ‘foreign affairs’ (managing communications between communities), respec-
tively. It seems that the artificial and irrational distinctions of class and status are
gradually to be replaced by natural and rational divisions based on age and
experience.
624 D. Leopold

Turning from the broad to the narrow sense of education, Owen maintains that
the right kind of schooling is both crucial—the best-governed state is the one with
the best system of education—and seemingly relatively easy to accomplish. At
least, forming the character of children is said to be much less difficult that reform-
ing the character of adults. Adults resist the need to unlearn and abandon long
acquired (bad) habits, whereas children are without exception ‘passive and won-
derfully contrived compounds’. A rightly directed environment, of which a rational
system of schooling is a crucial part, might easily mould this ‘plastic’ into an
appropriate bundle of rational wishes and desires (Owen, 1993a, p. 41).
Discussion of Owen’s educational views typically focus on the schooling in New
Lanark and in the New Harmony settlement (Harrison 1969). However, it was Wil-
liam Maclure (1763–1840) rather than Owen who was the predominant influence
on the latter project. It was Maclure who brought in European teachers—part of
the famous ‘boatload of knowledge’—who had trained with the Swiss reformer
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827), who initiated the School of Industry
providing ‘useful’ rather than ‘ornamental’ education, and who subsequently estab-
lished the school as a separate entity under his direct control (see Bestor, 1950, pp.
133–159, 190–201). Consequently, I concentrate here on New Lanark as the most
extended and successful practical educational experiment in which Owen was the
predominant influence. Whilst the social context of education alters radically in his
later writings—schooling is now organised within a global network of cooperative
communities rather than the towns and villages of a competition-ridden nation
state—Owen’s narrowly educational views are relatively unchanged. New Lanark
appears to give us as accurate a picture of the narrowly educational content of the
future as we are likely to get this side of the Millennium (Owen, 1993d, p. 166).
The ‘Institution for the Formation of Character’ at New Lanark (which opened
in 1816) admitted children from 18 months (when they could walk unaided) until
ten when they could work in the factory (or occasionally, as Owen would have pre-
ferred, until 12). It occupied a two storey building with a playground. The upper
storey was divided into two, and consisted of a classroom for the older children—
with the furniture arranged after the monitorial system associated with Andrew
Bell (1753–1832) and Joseph Lancaster (1778–1838), with desks against the walls
and a free space in the centre of the room—and a lecture room, complete with
history time-lines, globes, models and specimens (Silver, 1996, pp. 49–52). The
lower storey was divided into three rooms for the younger children. The older
children were taught for some five hours daily, the infants for half of that (with
supervised play for the rest of the day). Younger children were taught in mixed-
sex classes, whilst older children were taught separately (although mixed for lec-
tures). There was a school uniform (improbably combining the shape of a Roman
tunic with tartan material). Parents were charged a small amount for the schooling
of the older children, much less than the full cost but thereby avoiding the stigma
of a pauper school. (Educational subsidies are easily justified, Owen maintains, by
the wider benefits to the community.)
 Robert Owen and Charles Fourier 625

Owen did not neglect education before and after these ages. The earliest peri-
ods of a child’s life were particularly important on his account, since a great deal
of good or evil could be taught in the first 12 months. He sought to influence this
period before school indirectly, for example, by providing lectures on parenting to
workers, with a focus on forming children into valuable members of the commu-
nity. There were also evening classes for young persons (between ten and 20 years
old) who wanted to continue their education outside of work. (Universities are not
mentioned in A new view of society, but are later portrayed as irrational and distort-
ing ‘moulds’ for forming character that will disappear with the triumph of commu-
nitarian socialism.)
The content of the Owenite curriculum might look broadly familiar, but
contains some innovations. The core curriculum consisted of reading (using books
which are practical and relevant to the young), writing (encouraging a legible busi-
ness hand useful in later life), and arithmetic (latterly adopting the ‘tables’ of
Pestalozzi). The older children were also taught natural history, geography and his-
tory. Perhaps more striking, in terms of content, was the attempt to balance physi-
cal and mental instruction. Owen viewed singing and dancing as powerful means to
forming a rational and happy character (appearance, bearing and health, were all
thereby improved), and they constituted a regular part of the curriculum (charming
many visitors but provoking the disapproval of his Quaker business partners). Both
sexes were to have equal opportunities to acquire useful knowledge, although Owen
presumes that the useful knowledge in question would vary according to sex. Girls
were taught to sew and make useful garments, to prepare appetising food economi-
cally, and to keep a neat and ordered house. Boys were instructed in the art of
war—there were drill exercises in the playground, training in the use of firearms,
and some introduction to military tactics. Owen enthuses about the individual and
collective advantages of such training: it encourages ‘attention, celerity, and order’,
and provides for the self-defence that would be necessary as long as irrational
beings still remained in the world (Owen, 1993a, p. 72).
The place of religious instruction at New Lanark was always controversial, and
the issue contributed to Owen’s eventual resignation from the school management.
Owen was a deist—believing in the existence of natural moral laws and a supreme
being—and he would have preferred to teach (only) the foundational part of ‘pure
and undefiled’ religion (the lesson that one should seek to promote the interests of
others). However, since neither his co-owners nor the parents concerned shared
these views, Owen was compelled to ensure that Christian scriptures were read
and the catechism taught.
Perhaps more remarkable than the curriculum are the teaching methods and
aims that Owen advocated.
The means of instruction were designed to make learning a pleasure and
delight to children. Reflecting Owen’s controversial views on responsibility, there
was to be no scolding or punishment (or rewards) of children; teachers were
required rather to show affection and ‘unceasing kindness’ to all their charges
(Owen, 1993d, p. 287). Children were not to be irritated or bored by books, and
626 D. Leopold

every effort was made to use ‘sensible signs’ in lessons and lectures (that is, mod-
els, diagrams and specimens of the things themselves). Conversation with teachers
was to be the norm, and children were encouraged to ask questions and seek clari-
fication. Lessons might be held indoors or outdoors, and there were occasional
trips (to learn about agriculture and natural history).
The aim of Owenite instruction was to develop both character and reasoning.
The ‘New Institution’ was fundamentally a place of safety where children would
acquire the best habits. From their first admission, they were instructed that they
must never injure one of their ‘playfellows’, but must rather strive to make them
happy. This central precept was repeatedly emphasised until it became ‘easy and
familiar’ (and therefore ‘natural’) to them (Owen, 1993a, p. 57). Having interna-
lised this lesson in their behaviour, they were then taught the Owenite theory of
character formation that lay behind it. For example, they might learn that if they
had grown up in such and such a country, then they would have been ‘cannibals
or Hindoos’ themselves (Owen, 1969, p. 158). Such a discovery would: first,
encourage interest in, and sympathy with, a wide sphere of humanity; and second,
demonstrate the central Owenite claim that our characters are formed for us, and
that ‘consequently’ notions of individual praise and blame are misguided. As well
as being formed with the best of characters, children would be taught to reason
for themselves. For example, when learning to read, the content of books was to
be discussed (not learnt by rote). If children could be taught to think and reason
correctly, Owen insists, they would discover how to distinguish truth from false-
hood for themselves.
This focus on character and reasoning was central to Owen’s criticism of con-
temporary educational theory and practice. He did not doubt that the Bell and
Lancaster schemes, for example, constituted an improvement on what went before,
and contained much of pedagogic value at the level of detail. However, both
approaches, he noted, could produce individuals who—whilst undoubtedly able to
‘read, write, account, and sew’—had the worst of habits and characters. Similarly,
he maintains that so-called ‘national’ schools encouraged rote learning at the
expense of understanding. A visitor to these institutions, he recounts, would be
shown pupils able to reproduce the most precise answers to the most insoluble
theological questions, without those children having understood a word of what
they had memorised (Owen, 1993a, p. 87).
Owen thought that the results of his proposed transformation in the aims and
methods of education were liable to be underestimated (since contemporaries were
usually familiar only with the results of poor and erroneous instruction). With the
right direction, and the appropriate communitarian changes to the wider society in
place, he confidently predicted that children would soon outstrip the learned of
previous generations. In due course, the second of his eight age cohorts (at least
by the age of ten) would emerge as well-trained, rational beings, whilst those of
the fourth group (aged 15 to 20) would effectively be men and women of ‘a new
race’—physically, intellectually and morally far superior to any who have previ-
ously lived upon the earth (Owen, 1991, p. 349).
 Robert Owen and Charles Fourier 627
Charles Fourier
Fourier was born in Besançon, in the French province of Franche-Comté. His
childhood was dominated by the commercial background and religiosity of his fam-
ily, against which he subsequently rebelled. In adulthood, Fourier earned a modest
living from a variety of commercial jobs (mainly in the silk and textile industry of
Lyon), but increasingly devoted his energies to producing a torrent of idiosyncratic
brochures, multi-volume treatises, letters and polemics. Educational themes took
up a large part of his Traite´ de l’association domestique-agricole (1822), and early ref-
erences to Fourier often describe him as a theorist of education. His lesser publica-
tions also include a strange pamphlet (the Mne´monique ge´ographique), which sought
to function as both a coded introduction to his own system and a critique of
contemporary geography teaching (Beecher, 1986, pp. 378–380). Despite a
deserved reputation for being a difficult and suspicious person, Fourier gradually
accumulated a small school of followers, complete with its own journals (Le
Phalanste`re and La Phalange). He lived in Paris for the last 15 years of his life,
obsessed with the threat of plagiarism and the need to find a patron (to fund a trial
community).
Fourier’s systematic and often extraordinary worldview includes: an account of
the origin and development of the universe; a philosophy of history (including a
32-stage narrative of infancy, ascent, descent and decrepitude); a critique of ‘Civi-
lisation’ (a term used with ironical intent to refer to contemporary society); and a
vision of an ideal future (which, simplifying somewhat, we can identify with the
historical stage called ‘Harmony’). I will focus here on the social and educational
arrangements of Harmony, but begin with Fourier’s views on Providence and
human nature.
Fourier shared Owen’s concern with human nature, but with a crucial differ-
ence: he saw character as God-given and liable to discovery, rather than plastic
and open to creation. Given His own nature, it was impossible that God had not
provided for the terrestrial happiness of humankind. The role of the social theorist
was consequently to discover the key which would make that earthly paradise
achievable. Fourier acknowledges that he appears an unlikely prophet, but main-
tains that God had once before chosen the most obscure man to deliver the most
important message to the world. The key in question involves a divinely underwrit-
ten model of human nature, according to which individuals are born with different
innate dispositions and propensities. The problem with all hitherto existing socie-
ties was that they had (unintentionally) constrained and misdirected that nature.
What was needed instead were social arrangements that would facilitate the free
development and deployment of these basic human characteristics.
These opening assumptions about Providence and the liberation of a
God-given human nature may not seem so remarkable. The same cannot be said
of the ways in which Fourier elaborates these foundational ideas.
Fourier’s complex account of human nature identifies 12 basic drives or ‘pas-
sions’: five ‘luxurious’ passions corresponding to the senses (taste, smell, hearing,
sight and touch); four ‘affective’ passions corresponding to the need for other
628 D. Leopold

people (friendship, love, ambition and ‘familism’); and three ‘distributive’ passions
which govern the gratification of the others (the ‘Cabalist’ passion for intrigue; the
‘Butterfly’ passion for variety; and the ‘Composite’ passion requiring both spiritual
and physical gratification). These twelve ‘passions’ were combined in various ways
to generate a ‘scale’ of some 810 basic personality types (Fourier, 1972, p. 220).
(Fourier often uses musical and mathematical language to elaborate his ideas.)
Fourier illustrates this account with confident identifications of the character
types of various historical figures, and brief descriptions of the ways in which social
arrangements failed to discern and liberate the drives and propensities in question.
The Emperor Nero (37 BCE–68 CE) can provide both a representative example and
an introduction to Fourier’s educational views (Fourier, 1972, pp. 303–307). Nero
is identified as a relatively unusual character type; a ‘tetratone’ dominated by four
passions (cabalist, composite, ambition and love). He had been born with blood-
thirsty inclinations, which his teacher Seneca (3 BCE–65 CE)—mistakenly believing
his nature to be corrupt—had foolishly sought to deny and constrain. The result
was that Nero’s natural dispositions subsequently reappeared in distorted and dan-
gerous form, as he gave vent to the inclinations repressed in childhood. For Fou-
rier, it was not Nero who was corrupt, but rather the society which had failed to
utilise his natural inclinations constructively. In a rational and humane world,
Nero’s bloodthirsty penchants would have drawn him at an early age to one of the
work groups involved with the preparation of meat for consumption, and by the
age of 20 he would have been an accomplished butcher happily serving the
community.
Harmony is based on this account of liberating natural drives. All its basic insti-
tutions are designed to facilitate rather than restrict human nature, and can be
seen as contributing to education in the broad sense. However, education in the
narrow sense is radically transformed, since there are no specialised institutions for
the training of the young (see below).
Perhaps the most obvious feature of Harmonian society is its communal organi-
sation. The ideal society would be organised into Phalanxes—intentional commu-
nities of roughly 2000 individuals. (The ideal Phalanx would have 1620 members,
twice the complete ‘scale’ of basic personality types.) There are few details of com-
munal life that Fourier can resist describing, but its architecture is a particular
obsession. He was especially enthusiastic about the covered walkways (cooled in
summer and heated in winter) encircling the Phalanstery—the grand central build-
ing of the community, combining public and private spaces—and connecting it to
surrounding buildings.
The most striking social feature of the community is that it has class divisions
but no class antagonisms. There would be classes in that disparities of income
would coalesce to form three groups with slightly distinct lifestyles (the rich would
include wealthy shareholders helping to finance the community, and drawing an
income from their investment). There would be no class antagonisms, however,
because their primary cause—poverty—would be absent. Fourier insists that it is
not inequality per se that causes class antagonisms; disparities in wealth only
 Robert Owen and Charles Fourier 629

provoke conflict in the absence of provision for our essential needs. And Harmony
would eradicate poverty by instituting what would now be called a universal basic
income; that is, an income paid to individuals, irrespective of their income from
other sources, and without requiring the performance of any work. In Harmony,
this income would be set at a subsistence level (covering basic needs). Class antag-
onisms would also be removed by Harmony’s property arrangements (in which
labour, talent and capital all share an annual dividend), by rich and poor working
together in small groups, and by a unified system of education (establishing a com-
monality of language and manners).
The political arrangements of the Phalanx are less clear. Initially, it appears
that the coercive and coordinating tasks undertaken by states in Civilisation would
either be unnecessary, or occur in a decentralised or informal manner. Closer
inspection, however, reveals a rather shadowy central body—the ‘Areopagus’
(made up of elders, large shareholders, and representatives from various work
groups)—that issues infrequent advice not backed by coercion (for example, rec-
ommending the day on which to start the harvest). In addition, there is some simi-
larly shadowy use of something like punishment. At least, Fourier recognises that
circumstances might arise in which an individual would be excluded by their peers
from a workgroup, or even—although this seems almost unimaginable to him—
banished from a community as a whole (Beecher, 1986, p. 256).
It will already be apparent that productive activity plays a central role in Har-
monian life. Fourier rejects the familiar view of work as a necessary evil, as some-
thing both unpleasant and which we are compelled to undertake. He sees work
rather as potentially creative and fulfilling, and identifies self-realisation in work as
a central part of the good life.
The adoption of a universal basic income (set at a substantive level) together
with the absence of coercion, raises the question of whether, and why, Harmo-
nians would engage in productive activity. Fourier’s answer is ‘attractive work’;
individuals would freely engage in productive activity as one of the central ways in
which to self-realise, to develop and deploy their essential human characteristics.
To facilitate this self-realisation, work in Harmony is organised ‘serially’. That is,
productive tasks are carried out by small groups (typically some 15 people) which
are voluntary, hierarchical, socially diverse and united by a passion for the activity
in question. A typical work session might last only an hour, but there could be as
many as ten sessions in a day (Fourier, 2001a, p. 193).
Education, in both senses, plays an important role in Fourier’s vision (Zeldin
1969). All social arrangements in Harmony are broadly educative, aimed at liberat-
ing human nature and enabling individuals to discover and deploy their own particu-
lar combination of human characteristics. Education in the narrow sense plays this
role at a vital early stage, revealing the various (plural) vocations of each individual.
Fourier criticises the educational arrangements of contemporary Civilisation as
unnatural and incoherent. They are ‘unnatural’ in seeking to constrain the pas-
sions, and in treating children as unproductive. They are ‘incoherent’ in that what
children are taught in schools not only varies according to sex and class, but also
630 D. Leopold

conflicts with, and is undermined by, what they are taught by their peers and fam-
ily. Fourier had some limited knowledge of contemporary educationalist ideas—he
had certainly read about Pestalozzi and the ‘Lancastrians’ (Andrew Bell and
Joseph Lancaster)—although he was characteristically dismissive of the opinions of
others.
The most striking institutional feature of Harmonian education is that it takes
place without schools and without teachers. First, education occurs not in schools,
nor in the family, but in the wider community. It is the Phalanx that collectively
raises and educates Harmonian children. Fourier is usually said to ‘abolish’ the
family, but that description is surely misleading. The modern family certainly dis-
appears, and there are communal arrangements for child rearing. However, moth-
ers breastfeed their children, biological parents often have close relationships with
their offspring, and the familial passion is identified as one requiring expression.
Second, there is no longer a class of professional educators. Harmony would, of
course, contain people who teach others, but they would do so as one of many dif-
ferent activities as they go about their daily lives.
Up to the age of four and a half, although they might be visited by their biological
parents, children would be brought up by adults working serially as nurses (the latter
drawn from the minority of adults attracted by nature to child care). These nurses
would introduce their charges to the world of work, but thereafter (from the age of
four or so) children would become free and independent members of the Phalanx,
contributing to production from the start. Work is central to life in Harmony, and
voluntary engagement in productive activity is the context in which education usu-
ally occurs.
Fourier loved detailed typologies, although—to the frustration of commenta-
tors—these often vary without explanation between texts. One account has chil-
dren progressing through a series of eight ‘choirs’, corresponding approximately to
age ranges. Progression through these choirs is governed by a satisfactory perfor-
mance in various practical tests. (Fourier does not worry quite as much as we
might like about the fate of those unable to progress; there is some unclear talk of
‘half-character’ choirs, and of ‘late developers’ being able to catch up.) For exam-
ple, an ‘urchin’ of four and a half, hoping to enter the choir of ‘cherubs’, might
have to perform the following tasks: participating in the choir and corps de ballet
at the opera; washing 120 plates in half an hour; peeling a quantity of apples
within a given time; and lighting (and extinguishing) a fire promptly. Their success
at these tasks would be judged by slightly older children, who would prove much
more reliable critics than the parents of Civilisation (all too quick to praise the
mistakes of their own offspring).
Those various tasks illustrate a number of features of Fourier’s views on educa-
tion, including the developmental importance of voluntary participation in cooking
and opera. He saw children as nascent gourmands, drawn instinctively to the
kitchen by smell and taste. Harmony would encourage participation in the culinary
arts, thereby developing the child’s manual dexterity and control, introducing
them to the world of work, and engendering a practical interest in the sciences of
 Robert Owen and Charles Fourier 631

agronomy, biology and chemistry. Similarly, opera would attract children through
sight and sounds, and develop their physicality. (Harmonian opera is a superior
art form unifying music, song, poetry, dance, gymnastics, design and gesture.)
Every Phalanx would have an opera house in which ordinary Harmonians com-
bined to produce performances superior to those of the largest cities in
Civilisation.
One of the interesting formal features of Fourier’s writings is his use of narra-
tive and quasi-narrative, episodes alongside more conventional theoretical pas-
sages. The following two examples—involving the shelling of peas and the cleaning
of sewers—illustrate both the importance of work and the changing focus of edu-
cation depending on the age of the child. Until the age of nine education focuses
on physical faculties and senses; after nine, it focuses on moral and emotional
development. These episodes also convey Fourier’s love of ceremony, and his
interest in the ways in which decorations and ranks might motivate a contribution
to production.
In Harmony, the shelling and grading of green peas will be done by children as
young as two to four years old. We are asked to imagine a group of such children
sitting at a sloping table, with a number of slots in it, ranked from the oldest at
the top to the youngest at the bottom. Those at the top would shell and handle
the smallest of peas, those in the middle would collect the medium peas, and the
youngest would simply gather up the remaining large peas in a basket and return
the occasionally rogue medium pea up the table to the older children. A new vol-
unteer for the series—a candidate member of the green pea shellers—would per-
form the latter role. Their task was the simplest, but they would, if successful, feel
that they had contributed as much as anyone, and be rewarded with a decoration
for their hat or collar. (A succession of such decorations would, in due course,
mark their ascent through the work group.) In this way, social arrangements which
encourage natural proclivities are used to initiate children into the world of work.
Fourier identifies the five dominant tastes of children as: a desire to ‘ape’ or imi-
tate; an eagerness to follow (slightly) older children; a fondness for small things;
the enjoyment of rummaging about; and the love of making noise. The tableau of
the little peas shows the first two of these instincts, in particular, being used to
constructive ends within the Phalanx (Fourier, 1972, pp. 307–310).
Notoriously, Fourier also offers a solution to the problem of certain (literally)
‘dirty jobs’ in Harmony (cleaning the sewers, tending the communal dungheap
and washing out slaughterhouses are all mentioned). He estimates that two-thirds
of boys, and one third of girls, aged between nine and 15, enjoy getting dirty (and,
more generally, being fearless and creating havoc). Whereas Civilisation sought to
repress these proclivities, Harmony would encourage and utilise them. These chil-
dren would choose to enrol in the work group known as ‘the Little Hordes’, who
dauntlessly perform certain tasks that ordinary workers would find debasing. Marx
would later charge Fourier with confusing work and play, mistakenly imagining
that sewer cleaning could become a game played by children. Closer examination,
however, shows that the Little Hordes are not simply having fun, but are rather
632 D. Leopold

motivated by a concern for the community at large, and for the honour of their
own corporation. This is an age when selfless devotion is at its strongest, and cor-
porate pride is here directed towards the common good. These moral motivations
are accompanied, and reinforced, by a bewildering range of ceremonial ranks and
titles, which are highly sought after by members who yield to no one in loyalty to
their own intermediate association (Fourier, 1972, pp. 317–318).
Two surprising absences in Fourier’s account of education (narrowly under-
stood) might be noted. First, despite Fourier’s deserved reputation as holding
extravagant and (to some) shocking views on love and sexuality, there is no place for
sex education. Adolescence arrives late in Harmony, and up until the age of 15 chil-
dren have no interest in, or exposure to, sexual activity. Second, there does not
appear to be much room for ‘book learning’ narrowly understood. This is surprising
because elsewhere we are told that Harmony will have a huge number of brilliant
scholars and great authors (all well-remunerated and appropriately honoured). It
seems that any engagement in narrowly intellectual pursuits will have been largely
self-motivated, and come later in life.

Some concluding remarks

It might be helpful to rehearse some of the more specifically educational threads in
the work of these two utopian authors.
Owen sees education, first, as properly aimed at creating character (moulding
children into valuable members of the community) and developing the faculty of
reason (teaching children to understand). Second, he stresses the importance and
efficacy of early schooling, and acknowledges the correspondingly greater difficulty
in (re)forming characters once they have been established. Third, his views about
the delivery of education emphasise the importance of kindness on the part of
teachers, and the use of ‘sensible signs’ in the classroom. Fourth, he maintains that
the sexes should have equal opportunities to acquire useful knowledge, albeit that
utility here might reflect a somewhat traditional sexual division of labour. Fifth,
although his views about institutional arrangements and curriculum are broadly
progressive, they look rather less radical than his developing ideas about the social
context within which education takes place. Sixth, he sees education as having an
extraordinary constructive potential; the rationally moulded inhabitants of the new
moral world will effectively be a ‘new race’, far superior to the products of poor
and erroneous instruction with which we are familiar.
Fourier sees education, first, as properly aimed at liberating character, develop-
ing and deploying (not repressing and misdirecting) our God-given essential pas-
sions. Second, education for Fourier is always closely connected with the world of
work, engaging in productive activity is the main way in which we discover and
express who we are. Third, he endorses a striking institutional integration of edu-
cation into the community; there are no schools and no teachers, only a variety of
social spaces in which we might learn, and lots of different people who might
teach us something. Fourth, he maintains that education should start early and
 Robert Owen and Charles Fourier 633

initially focus on physical development and dexterity (only later turning to concen-
trate on moral and emotional development). Fifth, freedom is at the heart of Har-
monian education; children seemingly profit from instruction only when, and
insofar as, they have themselves solicited it. Sixth, his enthusiasm for social differ-
ences and competition between work groups does not stop him endorsing educa-
tional arrangements that are broadly egalitarian, in that all classes, and both sexes,
would enjoy the same opportunities.
Picking out these (narrow) educational threads in this way risks treating the
work of Owen and Fourier in a fashion that they would have resisted. They both
emphasised the systematic character of their theories, and portrayed the meaning
and value of their educational views as dependent on the broader social and politi-
cal transformation to which their writings were a contribution. And yet their prac-
tical impact on the world typically took what we might call a ‘cannibalised’ form.
Particular policies were isolated from the systematic radical vision, modified, and
then adopted in contexts very different to those intended by their authors. The
appearance of certain Fourierist themes—including the focus on production, and
the use of ceremony and decorations—in the pedagogic experiments of Anton
Makarenko (1888–1939) in the Soviet Union might serve as a particularly stark
example.
It might surprise some readers to learn that Owen and (perhaps especially)
Fourier left any mark on the wider world (given the wilder shores of some of their
work). In that context, I close with two observations.
First, although their practical impact fell short of their own ambitions (namely,
the radical transformation of the existing social and political world), their educa-
tional views did have some (albeit limited and often indirect) influence. In the
19th century, that influence was carried by two conduits, in particular: communi-
tarian socialism; and the movement for popular education. Communitarian experi-
ments flourished in the first half of the century, especially in the United States
(one recent study identifies some 22 Owenite and 31 Fourierist examples) (Pitzer,
1997, pp. 481–482). Historians once dismissed these often short-lived settlements
as failures (heroic or otherwise), but increasingly recognise not only that ‘success’
might be more complex than longevity but also that these communities had some
influence upon the larger societies of which they formed a part. Education looks to
be an important part of that complicated and still-emerging story. (Examples
might include the involvement of ex-Owenites in the ‘state guardianship’ plan pro-
posed in New York elections in 1829, and the Fourierist adoption of ‘industrial
education’ in 1840s Wisconsin.) In addition, these utopian ideas formed one of
the intellectual sources of the, somewhat better documented, movement for popu-
lar education, especially in Britain and France. (For example, the influence of
Owen was felt by Samuel Wilderspin (1792–1866) of the Infant School Society,
amongst others; whilst Jean Macé (1815–1894) and the founders of the e´cole
maternelle both owed some debt to the educational views of Fourier.)
Second, and finally, it is important not to think of utopias as only having a
‘constructive’ function; as if their sole purpose, and the only possible benchmark
634 D. Leopold

by which they might be assessed, is their practical and reforming impact. Detailed
descriptions of an ideal society, of the kind that Owen and Fourier provide, can
have a number of additional functions. These utopian designs can, for instance,
play a critical role, providing a vantage point from which to evaluate less than ideal
societies. They can also reflect their historical context, telling us something about
the world in which they were written. They can also help to clarify particular (con-
ceptual and normative) issues, acting as thought experiments which help us under-
stand something better. They can also console, acting as a diversion from the
harsh realities of the existing world. And they can also, of course, cheer, entertain
and otherwise amuse their readers. I do not mean to suggest that all of these
potential functions—the list is not intended to be exhaustive—will necessarily be
of interest to educationalists (qua educationalists). However, the existence of these
other functions does show that the constructive weakness (real or imagined) of
these ideal commonwealths is not enough to make them worthless to that audi-
ence. The interest of utopian writings can sometimes lie elsewhere.

Notes on contributor
David Leopold is University Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Oxford
and a Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford. He has interests in both
contemporary political philosophy and the history of political thought. His
recent publications include a monograph entitled The young Karl Marx. German
philosophy, modern politics, and human flourishing (Cambridge, 2007).

References
Beecher, J. (1986) Charles Fourier: the visionary and his world (Berkeley, University of California
Press).
Bestor, A. E. (1950) Backwoods utopias. The sectarian and Owenite phases of communitarian
socialism in America 1663–1829 (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press).
Fisher, R. T. (1963) Classical utopian theories of education (New Haven, College & University
Press).
Fourier, C. (1972) The utopian vision of Charles Fourier (eds J. Beecher & R. Bienvenu) (London,
Jonathan Cape).
Fourier, C. (2001a, 1st edn. 1822) The´orie de l’unite´ universelle, vol. 1 (Paris, Presses du réel).
Fourier, C. (2001b, 1st edn. 1822) The´orie de l’unite´ universelle, vol. 2 (Paris, Presses du réel).
Fourier, C. (1996, 1st edn. 1808) Theory of the four movements (eds G. Stedman Jones & I.
Patterson) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).
Halpern, D. (2003) Hope and education. The role of the utopian imagination (London, Routledge).
Harrison, J. F. C. (1968) Utopianism and education. Robert Owen and the Owenites (New York,
Teachers College Press).
Massó, G. (1927) Education in utopias (New Haven, College & University Press).
Owen, R. (1969) Robert Owen on education (ed. H. Silver) (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press).
Owen, R. (1991) A new view of society and other writings (ed. G. Claeys) (London, Penguin).
Owen, R. (1993a, 1st edn. 1813–1844) vol. 1 of G. Claeys (ed.) The selected works of Robert
Owen (London, Pickering & Chatto).
 Robert Owen and Charles Fourier 635

Owen, R. (1993b, 1st edn. 1803–1822) The development of socialism, vol. 2 of G. Claeys (ed.)
The selected works of Robert Owen (London, Pickering & Chatto).
Owen, R. (1993c, 1st edn. 1825–1848) The heyday of Owenism, vol. 3 of G. Claeys (ed.) The
selected works of Robert Owen (London, Pickering & Chatto).
Owen, R. (1993d, 1st edn. 1857) The autobiography of Robert Owen, vol. 4 of G. Claeys (ed.)
The selected works of Robert Owen (London, Pickering & Chatto).
Ozmon, H. (1969) Utopias and education (Minneapolis, Burgess).
Peters, M. A. & Freeman-Moir, J. (2006) Edutopias. New utopian thinking in education (Rotterdam,
Sense).
Pitzer, D. E. (ed.) (1997) America’s communal utopias (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina
Press).
Silver, H. (1966) The concept of popular education: a study of ideas and social movements in the early
19th century (London, Routledge).
Zeldin, D. (1969) The educational ideas of Charles Fourier (London, Routledge).
Copyright of Oxford Review of Education is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or
emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.