Review of The Oneida Community
The Oneida Community ; A Record of an Attempt to Carry out the Principles of Christian Unselfishness and Scientific Race-Improvement. By ALLAN ESTLAKE. London: George Redway, 1900.Pp. vi + 158.
THIS is a defense rather than a history of an interesting experiment in marital and economic communism, by a member of the communistic community. "If the public interest warrants, it will be followed by a very much more complete and authoritative work, containing voluminous details which have necessarily been omitted from the present pamphlet." A faithful and full narrative history of this movement would, indeed, be of great interest, though it is doubtful whether a sympathetic member of the community would be able to report the facts in a scientific way. The writer claims that the experiment was entirely successful in all respects, that communism in marriage was deliberately abandoned as the result of public criticism, not because it worked unsatisfactorily, and that the "Oneida Community, Limited," is still prospering greatly in a business way. The most interesting light thrown upon human nature by the sketch is the degree to which normal habits may be modified through suggestion.
W. I. THOMAS.
