Revieic of Remews, 119100. 



Leading Articles, 



267 



LAYING WASTE PLEASANT PL4CES. 



The June number of the Gcuilciiia>i's Magazine 

 contains an article entitled '" The Laving Waste of 

 Pleasant Places," our waste-layers being Boards of 

 Works, Urban and Count\ Councils, Corporations, 

 etc. 



DWELLINGS AND PAEKS. 



These bodies, the writer says, do their work with 

 all the ardour of progressive reformers. We over- 

 rate the value of public playgrounds, and it is as- 

 sumed that these breathing-spaces are sufficient for 

 the needs of millions of people dwelling together 

 in "great blocks of tall, ugly flats." The ideal city 

 is the city of low-roofed houses, each with its own 

 garden at the back, yet in every city the fever of de- 

 struction is busy pulling down the small houses and 

 felling the trees to make room for deserts of bricks 

 and mortar. For instance, beautiful old gardens 

 have been destroyed not a stone's throw from Grove 

 End-road in order to build a block of artisans' dwell- 

 ings in a ad de sac. 



THE WRONG REMEDY. 



Artisans must be housed; of cours ■. but the writer 

 thinks there are everywhere to be found streets 

 which it would be a positive kindn ss to demolish, 

 and in these congested areas the new buildings with 

 their asphalt court and common stairway might 

 arise. In these new rabbit-warrens each room will 

 have its price as in the old ruins, and the spots of 

 greener)- would still remain. But the writer goes 

 further, and doubts whether the conditions of living 

 are much improved in these new " sanitary " blocks 

 of dwellings. 



A clerk of works who was showing the writer over 

 a new block, remarked to him that he would be sorrv 

 to bring up a child in such a place. He said: — 



Just faiic.r what it will be wlieii it is nacked full, ami 

 men stand here after a Ions: day's work looking down 

 aa we are looking down, and the smell of the refuse comes 

 up to them like incense on a hot summer night! Only 

 think of it! It is all very well to say if the people were 

 clean there would be no smells; they are not clean, and 

 you cannot make them clean. 



And the rooms are small at the beat, and the children 

 will play here on rainy days with the women lianging 

 round, and the sun never shines into one half of t.lie 

 room.s. It you have to put so many human beings in a 

 certain limit of space at a certain limit of price, it is no 

 use to trouble about south aspects. 



The cry for garden cities is in itself a healthy sign, but 

 what puzzles me is that anyone should liave ever wished 

 to destroy such a garden city as this once was to build 

 such a place as this. I admit the overcrowding under 

 the old system was terrible, but we are applying the 

 wrong sort of remedy. 



WHO WILL RID US OF THESE TYRANTS ? 



Here there can be none of the refining influence of 



a little garden or even window-boxes. But there is 



little possibility of our getting rid of our tyrants. 



The writer says in conclusion : - 



To pen,^li8e the cutting down of a single tree for the 

 next thirty years or so; to forbid the erection of any 

 building, unless upon ground that has already been used 

 ror that purpose, would be to enact laws, so wi.se, so 

 good, so excellent, that we fear no Parliament would ever 

 be found to pass them; to see that only ill-built and in. 

 sanitary hou.ses were pulled down, a method so sensible 

 that no authorities would countenance it. 



Y'et the evil is so gieat that it needs a drastic remedy, 

 but even if one were found, who would dare to apply it? 

 Only in Utopia would it be possible to hang a certain 

 number of county councillors, builders, and contractors, 

 that they might serve aa an object-lesson to others. 



THE WAGNERIAN DRAMA. 



Under iht:^ titiu of "The Apostasy of a Wag- 

 nerian," Mr. E. A. Baughan, the interestuig musical 

 and dramatic critic, has a short article in the 

 Foriiiigliilv Review for July, on the Wagnerian 

 Music-Drama. 



He says the orchestra in Wagner's hands became 

 a temptation which Wagner could not withstand — 

 The oK'l:estra enabled Wagner to discourse at length 

 upon the dramatic ideas and situations, to point a. moral 

 here, and to emphasise an emotion there. . . . From 

 the '■ RiuE;- ■' onwards, the dramati'^ personos no longer carried 

 the dramii but were borne along by the egotistic comments 

 of the dramatist. 



Moreover, Wagner did not stop to ■ consider the 

 right proportion between voice and orchestra: — 



The orchestra (continues Mr. Baughan) has no real place 

 in the drama at all. The weaving up of the voice with 

 the orchestra is directly opposed to drama. It means that 

 tlie voice will have no independent life of it^s own. If 

 you attempt to sing one of Wagner's big scenes without 

 the orchestral comment you will find that the expression 

 ia absolutely incomplete. Add the orchestra, and you ob- 

 tain the frenzied excitement which Wagnerians consider 

 perlect art. 



And Wagner did not improve an essentially false con- 

 ception of the proper position of the voice in music-drama 

 by writing the bulk of his orchestral music as if it were 

 an independent symphonic poem, for he thus created a 

 Procrustean bed on which the expression of the dramatis 

 persomr liad to be stretched to fit the expression of the 

 composer himself 



The very etYect of bigness, of titanic emotions expressed 

 by singers and orchestra, is not really artistic- It is an- 

 other proof of the composer's egotism. . . . Opera must 

 retrace its steps. It must aim at making its drama con- 

 dition the style of its music, and the dramatis penona 

 must no longer be merged in the orchestral background. 



PRACTICAL TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



In the July number of MacnuUaii's Magazine Mr. 

 A. C. Passmore has a sensible article on Technical 

 Education, in which, while he agrees that technical 

 education on a good sound teaching basis is the 

 special need of the age, he laments the difficulty of 

 finding teachers and technical committees with the 

 necessary energy and skill to bring the ideal to a 

 happy accomplishment. The instructor teaches 

 his pupils according to the books and courses 

 mapped out, but, adds the writer: — 



Does he ever attempt to teach wherein lies the succesa 

 of one method or system, or the failure of the other, to 

 produce a desired result.' Does he ever attempt, Vfhen 

 teaching the tlieory of a eubject, to apply theory in the 

 simplest and most practical mannerp 



Does he encaurag:e tlie pupils to throw conventional 

 methods to the winds of heaven .and to think for them- 

 selves, to constantly study new methods, to derive sug- 

 gestions from things that come casually under their 

 vision, and to select those that are best fitted for tlieir 

 use and adoption? 



The whole tendency of modern education, he ex- 

 plains, is to train the memory, often at the expense 

 of the power to think, whereas it is only bv observa- 

 tion and by experiment that facts can be deter- 

 mined. The present system of technical education 

 is too narrow and too bookish. Examinations should 

 test the candidate's ability to apply his knowledge 

 practically. 



