Garden cities in theory and practice

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III PROPOSAL FOR PLAN OF FIRST GARDEN CITY My Lord of Verulam quaintly taught ' the past ever deserves that men should stand upon it for awhile to see which way they should go, but when they have made up their minds they should hesitate no longer, but proceed with cheerfulness.' ' The wise and active conquer difficulties By daring to attempt them ; sloth and folly Shiver and shrink at the sight of toil and danger, And make the impossibility they fear.' ' A azur millant lien In the preceding chapter enough, I think, was said to indicate why it was that the ancients were enabled to lay out their cities upon a plan in grandeur, public convenience, and admirable symmetry far exceeding that of our modern cities. Two important factors were involved, and it is indeed pleasing to reflect that these two essentials have, quite unexpectedly, recrudesced in connection with this most modern of schemes — the Garden City. The two sine qud non, as has been shown, were a suitable site and a carte-blanche commission to aHippodamus or a Leonardo da Vinci to produce an apposite plan. Doubtless there was a Senatus—a summum concilium who pronounced the ultima ratio regum, and in this, again, history will repeat itself in regard to Garden Cities. Let us hope that in this combination of counsel ' wisdom will be found.' The motto of procedure might well be Consilio et prudentia. Let us exhort each, therefore, to ' sink not in spirit; for who aimeth at the sky shoots higher much than he that means a tree'; and remind all also of the words of Lord Chesterfield: ' Those who aim vigorously at perfection will come nearer to it than those whose despondency makes them to give up its pursuit from the feeling of its being unattainable.' The work of the civil engineer ends where th...