were extensive, and his valuable scientific apparatus. He induced Gerard Troost, C. A. Lesueur, and Thomas Say, also Joseph Neef, the Pestalozzian, to come into the community with him, to act as instructors in the institution proposed. When the society was divided into a manufacturing and educational, and an agricultural branch, Maclure became the leading spirit in the educational division.
Owen visited New Harmony a second time in the winter of 1825-'26. His third visit was made in the spring of 1828, and by that time so many troubles had arisen that the community was disbanded. The failure of the undertaking was due to the one great cause that makes all communistic enterprises impracticable in the present age—the imperfections of human nature. In the same year Mr. Owen went to Mexico, on the invitation of the Government, to put his ideas into practice there, but effected nothing because the Government insisted that the state religion of the proposed community should be Roman Catholic. Some experiments were afterward tried by him in Great Britain, and he continued to advocate his views with voice and pen until his death, in 1858. His followers received the name of "Owenites." He published a considerable number of writings, including an autobiography.
David Dale Owen's early education, which was received from a private tutor, included the English branches, the rudiments of Latin, and a course in architectural drawing. He was also trained in the use of carpenter's tools in the mechanical department connected with his father's mills. He was for a time a pupil in the grammar school, or academy, at New Lanark. His father, while traveling on the continent of Europe, had visited the celebrated educational institution of Emanuel von Fellenberg, at Hofwyl, Switzerland, and was so much pleased with the system pursued in it—neither moral, physical, nor intellectual development being neglected that he sent there first his two oldest sons Robert Dale and William—for a three years' course, and after their return sent David and his younger brother Richard, in 1824, also for three years. The studies of the more advanced classes were partly elective, and David Dale and his brother chose chemistry, drawing, and modern languages in addition to the prescribed mathematical and literary course.
David Dale and Richard returned to Scotland in September, 1826, the former being then nineteen years old. They entered the classes in physics and chemistry conducted by Dr. Andrew Ure, author of the Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, at Glasgow, where their mother then resided. Their father was absent at New Harmony. For that place the two younger sons set out in November, 1827, going by a ship from Liverpool to New Orleans, thence up the Mississippi by steamer, reaching the settlement on the Wabash early in January, 1828.
