Lectures were not on the list of our favorite pastimes. This indifference to the attractions of the Lyceum was all the more noticeable as there were several lecturers of repute among our own members. In the decade 1840-1850 a wave of interest in what was then known as Social Reform swept over Europe and America, and in the public discussions of the time the teachings of Brook Farm practical reformers were in constant demand. Dr. Ripley, John Dwight, John Allen, Ephraim Chapin, Charles A. Dana and others were called out on lecturing tours extending all over the Northern states, and, as most of this service was gratuitous, the cost to the community was a heavy tax on our limited resources. The socialistic propaganda was an educational movement of unquestionable value, and, while the immediate objects contemplated were never realized and are now lost to sight, yet the agitation had a permanent influence in awakening intelligence, giving an impetus to thought and enlarging the liberality of the public mind.
Oftentimes the long dining room was promptly cleared after supper for some minor entertainment, a dance, in which everyone took part, being always in order when nothing else demanded more immediate attention. Miss Russell was a most efficient teacher of dancing and we all took lessons, from the gaunt and grizzled old General to the little ones just able to learn their steps. It was a marked characteristic of the Farmers that they all joined hands in whatever was going on. With unfailing unanimity they all moved together, flocking like birds in whatever direction happened to be taken at the moment, even those of the most pronounced individuality preferring to go the way of the others rather than go his own way alone. The lovers of solitude, self centered folk, egoists and searchers into the mysteries of their own souls—Emerson, Hawthorne, Hecker and Margaret Fuller were out of place in this united association where each person wanted, first of all, to be in harmony with the common mind.
The dance was so much a matter of course that no preparations were needed save the putting away of the tables and benches. The music was always ready, a dozen or more players of the violin and piano relieving each other in rendering sets of cotillons, waltzes and polkas, the latter dance being then just in fashion.