Practicable Socialism, New SeriesBarnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
Religion
Practicable Socialism, New Series
Barnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class
If you say, “Why make them so high, or keep them up so expensively, as
you do not preserve your game? Why not have low hedges or short open
fences, over which people can see and enjoy your property?” he will look
at you with a gentle pity, thinking of you as a deluded idealist, or
perhaps his expression will change into something not so gentle as it
dawns on him that, though one is the respectable wife of a respectable
Canon, yet one may be holding “some of those--Socialist theories”.
Not long ago I went at the request of a gentleman who owned property,
with his agent to see if suggestions could be made to improve the
appearance of his estate and the happiness of his tenants. The gardens
were small enough to be valueless, but between and around each were
walls, many in bad repair.
“The first thing I should do would be to pull down those walls, and let
the air in; things will then grow, self-respect as well as flowers,” I
said.
“What!” exclaimed the agent, “pull down the walls? Why, what would the
men have to lean against?” thus conjuring up the vision one has so often
seen of men leaning listlessly against the public-house walls, a sight
which the possession of a garden, large enough to be profitable as well
as pleasurable, ought to do much to abolish.
It is difficult to find arguments for walls. In many towns of America
the gardens are wall-less, the public scrupulously observing the rights
of ownership. In the Hampstead Garden Suburb all the gardens are
wall-less, both public and private. The flowers bloom with the
voluptuous abundance produced by virgin soil, but they remain untouched,
not only by the inhabitants, which, of course, is to be expected, but by
the thousands of visitors who come to see the realization of the
much-talked-of scheme, and respect the property as they share its
pleasures.
In town-planning literature and talk much is said about houses, roads,
centre-points to design, architectural features, treatment of junctions,
and many other items both important and interesting; but the tone of
thought pervading all that I have yet read is that it is the healthy and
happy, the respectable and the prosperous, for whom all is to be
arranged. It takes all sorts to make a world, and the town planner who
excludes in his arrangements the provision for the lonely, the sick, the
sorrowful, and the handicapped will lose from the midst of the community
some of its greatest moral teachers.
The children should be specially welcomed amid improved or beautiful
surroundings, for the impressions made in youth last through life, and
on the standards adopted by the young will depend the nation’s welfare.
A vast army of children are wholly supported by the State, some 100,000,
while to them can be added nearly 200,000 more for whom the public purse
is partly responsible. In town planning the needs of these children
should be considered, and the claims of the sick openly met.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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