T H E C O V E N A N T E R
Robert Owen, a Welshman, dying at in body and mind. Some of them were
the age of eighty-seven in 1858, had the deformed’.
time to do and say more than most of Although others, such as Rousseau, in
his contemporaries. He is admired and his Emile, had provided the educational
remembered by many but has been called theories, it was Owen who made such
a ‘Utopian Crackpot’ by his critics. Owen, ideas a reality. Three hundred children
son of a saddler, was largely self-educated were removed from the Mill up to the age
and self-made. Having worked since the of ten to be educated in what became an
age of ten, he eventually gained enough Institute of the Formation of Character. The
skill and experience to become a manager curriculum was not confined to the 3Rs
of a Manchester cotton mill at the age of because Owen, believing in developing the
twenty at the very high salary, for the times artistic talents of children, had them taught
of £300 per annum. He realised that the dancing and singing. The achievements of
squalor, the jerry built future slum housing, New Lanark became known at home and
with the ever-increasing urban population, abroad. Included among the many visitors
would create industrial strife and threaten were the Tsar of Russia, Duke Maximillian,
the stability of society. He correctly forecast foreign ambassadors, the so-called great
that unless ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ was and good of Britain and others. All the
halted an Age of Revolutions would occur visitors were entertained by the children,
in the nineteenth century and beyond. He dressed in Highland and Roman style
began to try out his ideas in Manchester. costumes, performing as couples the dances
The New Lanark Mill was built by of Europe, followed by a choir of a 150
David Dale and Richard Arkwright to use singing old Scottish songs in Harmony.
the waters of the Clyde to drive the new Owen’s aim was to educate children to take
spinning-jennies for the mass production their places as rational human beings in
of cotton. Owen came to New Lanark on self-supporting, happy, model communities
business, met and married Dale’s daughter, of 2000 inhabitants. As the Jesuits said:
Caroline, and took over the running of the ‘Give me a child until he is seven and he is
Mill in 1800. Owen was not a democrat, for mine for life’.
he believed that an educated elite should Today if we drive along the M74, and
rule and saw himself as a paternalist. At other roads, to and from Glasgow, there are
New Lanark, he changed the appearance of many signs to invite us to visit New Lanark.
the village by building better houses for the There we will find a thriving community,
workers, paved streets, made deductions conservation of the buildings and due
from their wages for sickness and old tribute paid to both David Dale and Robert
age and replaced the exploited private Owen. New Lanark did not, as predicted,
shopkeeper with a co-operative store selling turn into another Manchester and looks
goods at cost price. In his policy one can almost as it did in the early nineteenth
see the blueprint for the welfare state and century. It is rightly called an historical site.
the image of the Israeli Kibbutz. Bill Coughlan
Robert Owen was also a good
businessman, for he calculated that a
contented workforce would improve
‘Within a Mile of Edinburgh Toon’
efficiency and give greater profits. He could
At the end of every concert we played
be accused of doing the right thing for
off with The Garb of Auld Gaul, the
the wrong reason? Nonetheless, today we
Cameronian Rant, Within a Mile of
recognise the effects of nature and nurture
Edinburgh Toon and the National Anthem.
and the desirability of a sound mind in
To relieve the boredom of the frequent
healthy body. Owen stressed the importance
playing of such items I automatically
of the effect of the environment on the
memorised them and played them without
formation of character. He advocated the
being conscious of what I was doing. I used
state founding of education but failed to
to look at my actual or potential girlfriends
recognise that it would create a desire for
in the audience.
social mobility and change the way Owen
A few years ago I heard the melody of
saw society. If you educate the peasant, he
Within a Mile of Edinburgh Toon being
will want to leave his plough.
played at a very slow tempo on BBC Radio
Owen is best remembered for what he
3. The pianist played the tune followed
did for the children of New Lanark. He is
by two variations and a drone like sound
seen as one of the pioneers of infant and
in the last movement. I had thought of
primary education. In his Report of 1821,
Within a Mile of Edinburgh as another
he described how children, as young as
irritating Scottish snap tune but, having
six years old, were working thirteen hours
heard it in this slow adagio tempo, I realise
a day in the Mill with disastrous results.
it was a lovely tune: it would make a good
Owen described many of them ‘as dwarfs
hymn or could be arranged as a slow
march. Just as the last note faded away, the
announcer gave the name of the work as
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