172 City Homes on Country Lanes 



The drawback about average rural conditions in 

 respect to organized social life is the lack of necessary 

 facilities, and the difficulty of assembling the people 

 without great inconvenience. The city, of course, has 

 all the facilities for the most diversified social and in- 

 tellectual experience within easy reach of its popula- 

 tion, but in this case there are other conditions that 

 make it difficult to obtain the best atmosphere and real- 

 ize the best results. It is an axiom that in the city 

 you scarcely know your next-door neighbor. Naturally, 

 you have your own circle of acquaintances, your own 

 social, religious, and intellectual affiliations, and so 

 enjoy the benefits of society to some extent; but com- 

 paratively few people own their own homes, while the 

 population is constantly shifting. They are more or 

 less like the tumble-weed which, because its roots fail 

 to strike into the ground, goes rolling about the country 

 before every stiff breeze. So the shifting winds of 

 employment and unemployment, of prosperity and de- 

 pression, have their effect upon neighborhoods com- 

 posed almost wholly of those living in rented houses 

 or apartments. These conditions do not favor a high 

 development of social relationships, and the consequence 

 is that beyond a small circle of intimates very many 

 of us have no social diversions except church and the 

 movies. 



The population of the garden city, on the other 

 hand, will be composed 100 per cent of home-owners. 

 There will be comparatively little shifting of population 

 as the years go by. The home-in-a-garden folk are not 

 like the tumble-weed ; they are more like the oak that 

 sends its roots deep, taking firm hold upon the soil, in 



