One Man's Vision: The Story of the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust (review)

118Bulletin of Friends Historical Association interesting." Teachers in Friends' schools today both in the United States ana England will no doubt appreciate the last sentence. Wigton has produced its fair quota of men and women who have distinguished themselves in both the arts and sciences. The members of the Wigton Old Scholars Association, in publishing this history of their old school, have not only performed a service to their Alma Mater but have added a precious volume to the history of Friends' education everywhere. Germantown Friends SchoolMARY RHODES One Man's Vision: The Story of the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1955. 149 pages. $2.50. "I hope that the Institutions to which contributions are made from these Trusts may be living bodies free to adapt themselves to the everchanging necessities of the nation and of the religious society of which I am a member. . . . Realising not only that 'new occasions teach new duties' but that 'time makes ancient good uncouth,' I have given to the Trustees and Directors of these foundations very wide powers and very few directions of a mandatory nature as to their exercise." (The italics are not in the original.) These words of Joseph Rowntree strike the keynote of the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust. This volume is essentially a "case story" of a housing trust or foundation and of its community, the village of New Earswick, near York, England, during their first fifty years, from 1904 to 1954. The volume is written with objectivity, dignity, and restraint, and almost with a touch of the impersonality of a government report, by L. E. Waddilove, the Executive Officer of the Trust. The format is most attractive, the text is copiously illustrated, and some of the colored pictures are of idyllic beauty. Joseph Rowntree (1836-1925), a Quaker business man of York, the father of John Wilhelm and Seebohm Rowntree, established three foundations —separately created for legal reasons. The assets of the Village Trust were valued at about £62,000 in 1904 and at about £953,000 at the end of 1953. The Trust was concerned, as the publisher's notice suggests, to provide housing in which people "of modest means might live in homes that were not only healthy but beautiful." The tenants were to pay rents giving a commercial return on the capital invested; nothing in the venture was to bear "the stamp of charity." The story of some of the housing developments and of the relations to public acts and authorities are a bit technical for an American reader, though even here one may appreciate some of the creative architectural contributions of Sir Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker. More exciting are the glimpses of the growth of a living, democratic community: the sturdy Village Council, and how the Council and the Trustees occasionally labored with each other; the provision of the "Folk Hall," the playing fields and other community "amenities" (a delightfully versatile British term); "homely" care for a group of infirm aged persons; the village nursery; education and scholarships; a mobile rural clinic; and a concern for older people and "problem families." Two of the most interesting aspects of this account Book Reviews119 are: first, the pattern of relationships between the Trust and the public authorities, with the sound tendency for the foundation to relinquish services as government was willing and able to take them over; and second, the sense of movement, exploration, thoughtful seeking, and slow but sure building on the part of the Trustees. Granted a society in which large fortunes make possible the creation of foundations by private gifts, the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust is the antithesis of the "dead hand of charity." On the contrary, it seems to express the living, breathing spirit of creative philanthropy at its best. School of Social WorkARTHUR DUNHAM University of Michigan ...