178 City Homes on Country Lanes 



information and intelligence, in regard to big things 

 that are happening all of the time. The same thing 

 may be done in a big city, of course, and is done in 

 extraordinary cases. But in a garden city the matter 

 is reduced to a science. We make a business of it, 

 deliberately setting out on a voyage of intellectual 

 discovery, and making it a matter of common pride to 

 keep abreast of the world's progress. We have the 

 spirit and the facilities to do it, and — we do it! Speak- 

 ing again from experience, I can testify that it is a 

 great privilege, appreciated by everybody, including 

 some to whom it would not be expected to appeal. 



I have a very clear recollection of the first evening 

 of this kind I ever experienced — perhaps the first occa- 

 sion when such a programme was carried out in such a 

 community. It was inaugurated by a young woman 

 of brilliant intellectual attainments, a graduate of 

 Vassar, who had had the benefit of post-graduate 

 courses at Columbia and at Stanford ; and, though 

 the affair was held in a tent, it is no exaggeration to 

 say that it would not have proven disappointing if 

 held at Carnegie Hall, New York. It covered every 

 worth-while topic of contemporaneous interest, pre- 

 senting not only the essential facts, but philosophic 

 deductions that enlarged the outlook of all hearers. 

 For example, Bleriot had just made the first flight 

 across the English Channel, and, upon the strength of 

 what now seems a trivial achievement, we soared 

 through the- skies of the future on the airplane — a 



future now fully realized and become commonplace. 



Indeed, under that extremely intelligent leading we en- 

 joyed a luminous vision of the new intellectual universe 



