Our new little plan met with criticism, not
to say disapproval, from Mr. Davidson, who, as nearly as I can
remember, called it "one of those unnatural attempts to
understand life through cooperative living."
It was in vain we asserted that the collective living was not an
essential part of the plan, that we would always scrupulously pay
our own expenses, and that at any moment we might decide to
scatter through the neighborhood and to live in separate
tenements; he still contended that the fascination for most of
those volunteering residence would lie in the collective living
aspect of the Settlement. His contention was, of course,
essentially sound; there is a constant tendency for the residents
to "lose themselves in the cave of their own companionship," as
the Toynbee Hall phrase goes, but on the other hand, it is
doubtless true that the very companionship, the give and take of
colleagues, is what tends to keep the Settlement normal and in
touch with "the world of things as they are." I am happy to say
that we never resented this nor any other difference of opinion,
and that fifteen years later Professor Davidson handsomely
acknowledged that the advantages of a group far outweighed the
weaknesses he had early pointed out. He was at that later moment
sharing with a group of young men, on the East Side of New York,
his ripest conclusions in philosophy and was much touched by
their intelligent interest and absorbed devotion.
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