us, and all of their unknown and unnamed followers had to take their
courage in their hands, think out for themselves the meaning of
intolerable conditions, and as best they could feel after the readiest
remedies. To these women the very meaning of international or even
interstate trade competition must have been unknown. They had every
one of them to learn by bitter experience how very useless the best
meant laws might be to insure just and humane treatment, if the ideal
of an out-of-date, and therefore fictitious, individual personal
liberty were allowed to overrule and annul the greatest good of the
greatest number.

This second period was essentially a seedtime, a time of lofty ideals
and of very idealist philosophy. The writers of that day saw clearly
that there was much that was rotten in the State of Denmark, and
they wrought hard to find a way out, but they did not realize the
complexity of society any more than they recognized the economic basis
upon which all our social activities are built. They unquestionably
placed overmuch stress upon clearing the ground in patches, literally
as well as metaphorically. Hence it was that so many plans for general
reform produced so little definite result, except on the one hand
setting before the then rising generation a higher standard of social
responsibility which was destined deeply to tinge the after conduct
and social activities of that generation, and on the other hand much
social experimenting upon a small scale which stored up information
and experience for the future. For instance the work done in trying
out small coöperative experiments like that of Brook Farm has taught
the successors of the first community builders much that could only be
learned by practical experience, and not the least important of those
lessons has been how not to do it.