ABSTRACT
Even when we fly into Singapore it is the harbour, and its hundreds of ships and boats, that dominate the scene. Thanks to many islands, and not being exposed to the surf of a rolling ocean, it is all open, and most of the ships ride out in the roads. Only the sampans and lighters hide like a myriad of beetles in the cleft of the rather absurd little Singapore River. A city is a living and growing organism, but not without its delicate side. It frequently needs more room in which to exercise its economic muscles. It is subject to fatigue, shortness of breath, hardening and blockage of the arteries, and occasionally to apoplexy. The mind of the Renaissance was not a pilgrim mind, but a sedentary city mind, like that of the ancients. Boston is a moral and intellectual nursery always busy applying first principles to trifles.
