On his third visit to South Africa, Gandhi decided to have a colony of people who could lead simple lives, after Ruskin's "Unto the Last." He therefore bought land near the Phoenix Railway Station and founded a colony in 1904. He named it Phoenix Settlement.
The idea was that people should have an opportunity to lead a clean, contented and religious life. All men, irrespective of nationality, caste or creed, could enter the Settlement. Many Europeans came and lived in it with their families. All were feeling equal in status and all took part in cultivating the land allotted to each and harvesting the produce. It was no easy life. Readiness to work hard and give a helping hand to one another was their motto.
"The Indian Opinion" a weekly which Gandhi edited, which is still being published was first produced in this settlement, with the co-operation of the people of the farm.
The settlers rich or poor made their own bread. The flour was ground by hand. The children and women were all engaged in healthy house-hold duties. "I can recall few youngsters in those days fighting shy of work or pleading fatigue." Gandhi wrote. Each man was allotted three acres. Gandhi also had three acres as his share. Houses were built with corrugated sheets.
At the Phoenix settlement, Gandhi was in the prime of his youth. He was strong and decisive. He undertook great experiments. It was here that he took the vow of absolute celibacy and started the non-violent non-co-operation, later called, the Satyagraha movement.
Education was imparted on a new pattern. It was his idea to see that every one lived thriftily. The school and hostel were conducted on ideas of brotherhood, natural human development and ideals of public service. There was no tuition fees. Coffee or Cocoa were seldom used. Children wore uniforms. Workers with families were asked to take in eight boys in their homes, who were to be treated as children of the family. They were foster children.
"One has to suffer greatly to serve truth." He dinned this into the minds of the inmates and prepared the way for Satyagraha – offering civil-resistance against injustice and untruth and subjecting one self to untold suffering so as to secure the sympathy of the opponent. To enable the Indians to be free from insults and humiliation, he started a Satyagraha movement. Satyagrahis went to jail in South Africa. Gandhi took the lead.
Like the Phoenix settlement, he later started another colony called "the Tolstoy Farm." It consisted of 1100 acres of land bought and given by his co-worker, the Africa-born German called Kallenbach. This plot was twenty one miles from Johannesburg. Gandhi used to walk this distance daily in about five hours and return home in the evening by train.
The meal in the farms was purely vegetarian. Men of all faiths - Christians, Muslims, Parsis, Hindus came and lived there. There was an atmosphere of self-restraint and there were days of fasts too. Gandhi gave shelter at the Farm to families of Satyagrahis who went to prison.
At the farm it was necessary to make provision for education of boys and girls. Gandhi did not believe in the usual system of Western education. He did not believe in engaging teachers. True teachers, he said, were parents themselves. The Tolstoy Farm was a family in which Gandhi occupied the place of a father.
Gandhi always paid the greatest attention to the building of character. He felt the necessity for literary training also. He had classes for arithmetic, language, and other subjects. The building of the body was not neglected. From cooking down to scavenging, everything was done by the inmates. There were no servants. The meal was common. He spent a good deal of time in the kitchen to see that the bread was neither burnt nor underdone. Gandhi was the head cook.
There was enough gardening to be done as well. Those who were not engaged in the kitchen devoted their time to gardening. The children were to dig pits, water trees, and lift logs of wood. This gave them ample exercise. On this Farm, it was a rule that the youngsters should not be asked to do what the teachers did not do and so the teacher co-operated and worked with them. Hence whatever the youngsters had to do they did cheerfully.
Gandhi used to get up early at the Tolstoy Farm and go round the colony waking up other boys. He usually spent about three quarters of an hour on this. When all had risen and collected, he would take them to the garden with pick-axes to dig. Gandhi also used to dig along with others. In fact, he turned out more work than any one else in the garden.
Gandhi had his own sons in the school and they mixed freely with other boys. Once Kallenbach said, "Your way of mixing your own boys with the bad ones does not appeal to me. It can have only one result. They will become demoralised through bad company."
"I must have them there. My boys must live with them. Surely you do not want me to teach my boys to feel that they are superior to other boys."
"I do not consider my sons were any the worse for the experiment. On the contrary, I can see that they gained something... They were tested and disciplined." reminisced Gandhi later.
He formulated a scheme for teaching religion, geography, history, arithmetic etc. But they were all elementary. Boys and girls were taught together. He even allowed boys and girls of adolescent age to bathe in the same spring in his presence. "My eyes followed the girls as a mother's eyes follow a daughter."
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the great patriot, went to South Africa to study the condition of the Indian community and assist Gandhi in improving it. Gandhi was always by his side when he stayed in South Africa.
Of Gandhi, Gokhale spoke, "Gandhi has in him the marvelous spiritual power to turn ordinary men around him into heroes and martyrs."
Gokhale visited the Phoenix Farm in a small horse carriage. Gokhale's arithmetic was one of the text books at the Phoenix school. The book was a translation into Gujarathi from the Marathi original. The pupils thought he would ask them questions on arithmetic, but he put this question instead to Devadas, Gandhi's son.
"Imagine that you are in a jungle with your father on one side and your mother on the other. A hungry tiger appears. If you go to the rescue of your father the tiger would attack your mother. If you try to protect your mother, your father will be in danger. What would you do in this situation?"
Devadas was puzzled. Gandhi intervened and suggested this answer: "I would go myself towards the tiger and thereby protect both my father and mother."