Civics: as Applied Sociology Part 3

written, it is not surely fanciful to expect that, with education universal, almost every dweller in our old towns will acquire some sort of that feeling with which a member of an ancient family looks upon its ancestral house or lands--will, even without much reading, have some sort of notion of his predecessors and a certain pride in his members.h.i.+p of an ancient community. If he has not the good fortune to be a De Vere, a De Bohun, a Howard, Mowbray or Cavendish, he may perhaps be a citizen of a town which flourished when some of these families were unknown.

Such pride, or, as the lecturer preferred to term it, such "growth of civic consciousness and conscience, the awakening of citizens.h.i.+p towards civic renascence," will be the best security for a worthy city of the future....

Professor Geddes glanced at the opening civic future, "the remoter and higher issues which a city's indefinitely long life and correspondingly needed foresight and statesmans.h.i.+p involve," the possibilities which may be easily realised if only there be true civic pride, foresight, and unflagging pursuit of a reasonable ideal.... It remains to be seen what our cities will become when for some generations the same spirit of pride and reverence shown by old families as to their possessions has presided over all civic changes and developments.... Ruskin somewhere points out the mediaeval love of cities, unwholesome, dirty, and forbidding though they were. He did not teach his generation that that affection might with more reason attach to the modern city if its people knew what it had been and steadily strove to make it better, if there was in every large community patriotism and a polity.

DR. J.H. BRIDGES in _The Positivist Review_ (Sept., 1904), said: Under the t.i.tle, "Civics, as applied Sociology," Prof. Geddes read on July 18th a very interesting paper before the Sociological Society. The importance of the subject will be contested by none. The method adopted in handling it, being in many ways original, invites remark ...

What is wanted is first a survey of the facts to be dealt with--a regional survey. This point of view has next to be correlated with corresponding practical experience acquired by practical civic life, but "aiming at a larger and more orderly conception of civic action."....

Students of Comte will not forget his well-known maxim, _Savoir pour prevoir, afin de pourvoir_.

What is to be the area of survey? Prof. Geddes decides that the City may be taken "as the integrate of study." Whether any modern towns, and, if so, what, may be taken as integrates in the sense which would undoubtedly apply to ancient Athens or to mediaeval Florence, may be questioned; but it is too soon to interrupt our author.... Every one who heard the lecturer must have been fascinated by his picture of a river system which he takes for his unit of study; the high mountain tracts, the pastoral hillsides, the hamlets and villages in the valleys, the market town where the valleys meet, the convergence of the larger valleys into a county town, finally, the great city where the river meets the sea. The lecturer went on to advocate the systematic study of some of the princ.i.p.al river-basins of the world for the purpose of examining the laws which govern the grouping of cities. All would agree that much instruction might be derived from such [Page: 141] a survey, provided two dangers be avoided. One is the exaggeration of the influence of the environment on the social organism, an error into which the Le Play school have sometimes fallen; as when, for instance, it was sought to explain Chinese civilisation by the rice-plant. The other danger, which needs much care and thought to avoid, is the acc.u.mulation of such a ma.s.s of irrelevant detail as renders (perhaps sometimes it is intended to render) all generalisation impossible. Thinking men are at last beginning to regard the acc.u.mulation of memoirs as one of the princ.i.p.al obstacles to scientific progress. On the pretext of "more evidence," conclusions are adjourned, not merely _sine die_, but _sine spe diei_. Yet so long as man is man, he must, and will, have conclusions; be they final or otherwise.

From the physiography of the city we pa.s.s to its history ...

In this part of his subject he has, as we all know, many precursors and fellow-workers. The remarkable series, ent.i.tled "Historic Towns,"

inst.i.tuted by Prof. Freeman, is known to most. The study of towns was the life and soul of Mr. Green's historic labours. Eloquent and powerful pictures of the great cities of the world fill the greater part of Mr.

Harrison's well-known volume, "The Meaning of History"; and the student of universal history (a few of these, it may be hoped, are still left) finds them very stimulating and helpful. The special note of Prof.

Geddes' method is that he does not limit himself to the greater cities, but also, and perhaps by preference, deals with the smaller, and with their physical environment; and, above all, that he attempts not merely to observe closely and thoroughly, but to generalise as the result of his observation. In biology, the study of any single organism, however minute and accurate, could reveal no laws (i.e., no general facts) of structure or function. As for instance, many forms of heart must be examined before the laws governing blood-circulation could be revealed; so here. Countless, indeed, are the forms of cities; even limiting our field of observation to those that have grown up in the last century they are numerous enough. Their differences and a.n.a.logies would doubtless repay a.n.a.lysis, always supposing that we are clear how far the modern town, as contrasted with the mediaeval or Graeco-Roman city, can usefully be treated as "an integrate." This raises large questions of nation, of groups of nations, finally of Humanity, which cannot here be touched.

Meantime, from the teacher's standpoint, there can be no question at all, among those who look upon education as something more than a commercial a.s.set, as to the utility of looking on every old town, with the neighbourhood around it, as a condensed record, here and there perfect, elsewhere lamentably blotted, yet still a record, of the history of our race. Historic memories survive in our villages far more widely than is thought. The descendants of the man who found the body of Rufus in the New Forest still live hard by. The builder whom the first William set to build Corfe Castle was Stephen Mowlem; and the Dorsets.h.i.+re firm of Mowlem still pave London causeways. A poor woman in a remote hamlet, untouched by tourist or guide-book, has shown me the ash-tree under which Monmouth was seized after Sedgemoor; a Suffolk peasant, equally innocent of book-knowledge, has pointed Out "b.l.o.o.d.y Mary's lane," through which that bugbear of Protestants pa.s.sed three hundred years before on her way to Framlingham. The abbey immortalised in Carlyle's "Past and Present," and still the wonder of Eastern England, is surrounded now by the same villages that Jocelyn tells us of. The town named after St. Alban, with its memories of Ca.s.sivellaun and Julius Caesar, of an old Roman city, of the Diocletian persecution, of the great King Offa, founder of the abbey that was to become [Page: 142] at once a school of historical research, and our best epitome of mediaeval architecture--all this, with the monument of the author of the "Novum Organum" crowning the whole--sums up for us sixteen centuries of history.

Professor Geddes for more than twenty years has adopted this method of teaching sociology in the open air; "in the field," as geologists would say....

This is much more than the study and the description of buildings and places of historical interest. His aim is first to study the way in which a city grows, always having due regard to its physical environment; secondly, by comparing like with like, as a naturalist compares the individuals of a species, or the species of a genus, to throw light on the laws which govern civic development, and thus to help forward and direct civic action.

All this is set forth with greater fulness in the Report which Professor Geddes has been asked to write for the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust. The purpose of the Report (printed, but not yet published) was to suggest the way in which the revenue of the Trust, amounting to 25,000, should be spent for the benefit of this ancient and historic town. The scheme, with its many pictures, real and ideal, of workshops, parks, culture-inst.i.tutes--physical, artistic, and historical--will deeply interest even those who reject much of it as Utopian. But it is at least a Utopia specially adapted to a given place and time, one in which every feature of landscape and history is made the most of, one in which a beginning can be made at once, leaving room for further developments as occasion may serve. Moreover, it is penetrated through and through with the Republican ideal of bringing the highest truth within the reach of all.

Comte has pointed out, in the fifth chapter of his "General View of Positivism," and elsewhere, that it is not enough to enunciate sound principles of social renovation unless they can be rendered visible and palpable. "The princ.i.p.al function of art," he says, "is to construct types on the basis furnished by Science.... However perfectly the first principles of social renovation may be elaborated by thinkers, they will still not be sufficiently definite for the practical results.... But, at the point where Philosophy must always leave a void, Art steps in, and stimulates to practical action.... Hence, in the future, systematic formation of Utopias will become habitual; on the distinct understanding that as in every other branch of art, the ideal shall be kept in subordination to the real."

Now, the Dunfermline Report is an admirable example of art thus allied with science for social service. It is an ideal picture, strictly adherent to local colour and conditions, of an ancient city prolonging its vitality into the present and future by providing a very high form of training for its citizens, a training not of intellect only, but of the senses, of manual dexterity, of imagination, of Republican sympathy--a training in which "laborious inacquaintance with dead languages," infusing into the few touched by it a tincture of caste and militarism, gives way to comprehensive study of the evolution of Man, preparing the whole, and not a section merely, of the new generation for social service.

Such a Utopia as this may be looked upon as fulfilling the true social function of Art; standing midway between theory and practice; inspired by thought, and stimulating action. Only the social artist has to look to it that his thoughts be not merely true but adequate, lest he degenerate into a mere decorator. How far will a series of "regional surveys," like those of [Page: 143] Mr. Booth in London and Mr. Rowntree in York, carry us! Not so far, I fear, as Professor Geddes seems to hope. Cities in our modern life are organs inseparable from a larger whole, the nation; and before the life of cities can be much changed, we have to ask ourselves, What is the national life? What is its ethical and religious standard? What is its practice as to the acquisition and distribution of wealth? And, again, What is to be the intercourse of nations? Is it to be war or peace?

Mr. Carnegie has given half a million for the benefit of a town of 30,000 inhabitants. Magnificent as the donation is, it is not too much; not nearly enough, indeed, for the full realisation of Professor Geddes'

scheme. Still, wisely used, it might accomplish great results. What we have recently sunk in the work of suppressing two free States in South Africa would have made it possible to do for three hundred towns what has been done for Dunfermline. Half of what we are now spending on our army and navy would enable us to endow thirty more of such towns annually.

Mr. ISRAEL ZANGWILL in _To-day_ (Aug. 10, 1904), said: The Sociological Society is forging ahead at American speed; the professors jostle one another, and Geddes treads on the heels of Galton. After "Eugenics," or the Science of Good Births, comes "Civics," or the Science of Cities. In the former Mr. Galton was developing an idea which was in the air, and in Wells. In the latter Professor Geddes has struck out a more novel line, and a still more novel nomenclature. Politography, Politogenics, and Eu-Politogenics, likewise Hebraomorphic and Latinomorphic and Eutopia--quite an opposite idea from Utopia--such are some of the additions to the dictionary which the science of Civics carries in its train. They are all excellent words--with the double-barrelled exception--and still more excellent concepts. But I fancy the general idea of them all could be conveyed to the man in the street under the covering of "the human sh.e.l.l." This sh.e.l.l of ours is the city. It is the protective crust we have built round ourselves. In a smaller sense our house is our sh.e.l.l, but in a larger sense each house is only a lobe of the complex and contorted whole. Geography shapes our sh.e.l.ls from without, and the spirit of our particular community shapes it from within. History tells us how it has been shaped in the past, Art tells us how it should be shaped in the future. Professor Geddes, in fact, envisages our civic sh.e.l.l as becomes a brilliant biologist, who also happens to be a man of historic imagination, ethical impulses, and aesthetic perceptions. For the human sh.e.l.l is not merely geometrical and architectural, like those of apian or beaverish communities; it holds and expresses all those differences by which we are exalted above the bee or the beaver. It is coloured with our emotions and ideals, and contorted with all the spirals of our history. And all these manifestations of humanity may be studied as systematically as those of the lower orders of creation, which have till recently monopolised the privilege of pin and label. The old lady who admired the benevolence of Providence in always placing rivers by the side of large towns was only expressing in an exaggerated way the general failure to think of Civics scientifically. The geographers, in whom may be found the bases of the science, have always pointed out that the river system is the essential unit for investigation. From source to sea goes the line of evolution.

And yet even the peasant hamlet at the source depends, as [Page: 144]

Professor Geddes reminds us, on the hinterland of pasture, forest, and chase; and the hunter is the germ of the soldier and the aristocrat. The whole region contributes to the ultimate city, as the whole river to the ultimate sea. The Professor says, justly enough, that we should try to recover the elemental or naturalist point of view, even for the greatest cities. He sees London as "fundamentally an agglomeration of villages with their surviving patches of common around a mediaeval seaport." This is accurate vision; but when he discerns "even in the utmost magnificence of Paris, say, its Place de l'Etoile, its spread of boulevards, but the hunter's tryst by the fallen tree, with its radiating forest rides, each literally straight," I cannot help suspecting the over-ingenuity of a prolific intellect. The view of London as a growth from embryos, and the view of Paris as the outcome of atavistic instinct, belong to different planes of scientific thinking.

That Haussmann in reconstructing Paris was merely an unconscious hunter and woodlander, building as automatically as a bee, is a fantastic hypothesis; since cities, if they are to be built on a plan at all, cannot avoid some unifying geometrical pattern; and there are not very many possibilities.... In the department of Eu-Politogenics we shall be confronted with the problem of consciously overriding what evolution has unconsciously evolved, and building towards a fairer future. No doubt much of our creation will be imitation, and Professor Geddes is particularly suggestive in bidding us, at least, to be aware which of the tangled strands of influence we desire to follow; but a measure of artistic free-will remains. With the development of a corporate conscience we should be able to turn out far more satisfactory sh.e.l.ls than many that have blundered into being. "Garden City" is only a particular application of the science of Civics....

Eu-Politogenics concerns itself, however, with more than the mere configuration of our human sh.e.l.l. Its colour and the music it holds are considerations no less important. But they are too important to touch at the f.a.g-end of an article. Professor Geddes must, however, be congratulated on a stimulating paper, and upon his discovery of Eutopia.

For Eutopia (unlike Utopia, which is really Ou-topia, or no place) is merely your own place perfected. And the duty of working towards its perfection lies directly upon _you_. "Civics--as applied sociology"

comes to show you the way.

CIVICS: AS CONCRETE AND APPLIED SOCIOLOGY, PART II

BY PROFESSOR GEDDES

Read before the Sociological Society at a Meeting in the School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), Clare Market, W.C., on Monday, January 23rd, 1905, the Rt. Hon. CHARLES BOOTH, F.R.S., in the Chair.

A--INTRODUCTION: THE NEED OF CIVIC SURVEYS

To the previous discussion of this subject[2] the first portion of this present t.i.tle, "Civics as Concrete Sociology," would have been more suitable than the second, (that of "Civics as Applied Sociology") actually used. For its aim was essentially to plead for the concrete survey and study of cities, their observation and interpretation on lines essentially similar to those of the natural sciences. Since Comte's demonstration of the necessity of the preliminary sciences to social studies, and Spencer's development of this, still more since the evolution theory has become generally recognised, no one disputes the applicability of biology to [Page: 58] sociology. Many are, indeed, vigorously applying the conceptions of life in evolution, in geographical distribution and environment, in health and disease, to the interpretations of the problems of the times; while with the contemporary rise of eugenics to the first plane of interest, both social and scientific, these lines of thought, bio-social and bio-geographic, must needs be increasingly utilised and developed.

[2] "Sociological Papers," Vol 1., pp. 103-118.

But Comte and Spencer, with most other biologically-minded sociologists have been more at home among biological generalisations and theories than among the facts they arise from, and hence it is ever needful to maintain and extend a first-hand contact with these. I seek, therefore, to press home the idea that just as the biologist must earn his generalisations through direct and first-hand acquaintance with nature, so now must the sociologist work for his generalisations through a period of kindred observation and a.n.a.lysis, both geographic and historical; his "general laws" thus appearing anew as the abstract of regional facts, after due comparison of these as between region and region.

May not much of the comparative sterility of post-Comtean (or at any rate post-Spencerian) sociology, which is so commonly reproached to us, and to which the difficult formation and slow growth of sociological societies and schools is largely due, be thus explained? Is it not the case that many able and persuasive writers, not only knowing the results, but logically using the generalisations of Comte or Spencer, as of old of Smith or now-a-days of List in the economic field, are yet comparatively sterile of fresh contributions to thought, and still more to action? In fact, must we not apply to much of the literature of recent sociology, just as to traditional economics, the criticism of Comte's well-known law of three states, and inquire if such writers, while apparently upon the plane of generalised science, are not really in large measure at least arrested upon Comte's "metaphysical stage,"

Mill's "abstractional" one?

Conversely, the revival of sociological interest in this country at present is obviously very largely derived from fresh and freshening work like that of Mr Francis Galton and of the Right Hon. Charles Booth especially. For here in Mr. Galton's biometrics and eugenics is a return to nature, a keen scrutiny of human beings, which is really an orderly fruition of that of the same author's "Art of Travel." Similarly, Mr.

Booth's "Survey of London" is as truly a return to nature as was Darwin's Voyage, or his yet more far-reaching studies in his garden and farmyard at home. [Page: 59] Is it not the main support of the subtle theorisings and far-stretched polemic of Prof. Weismann that he can plague his adversaries with the small but literal and concrete mice and hydroids and water fleas with which his theories began? And is it not for a certain lack of such concrete matter of observation that the vast systematisations of M. de Greef, or M. de Roberty, or the original and ingenious readings of Prof. Simon Patten leave us too often unconvinced, even if not sometimes without sufficiently definite understanding of their meaning? The simplest of naturalists must feel that Comte or Spencer, despite the frequently able use of the generalisations of biology, themselves somewhat lacked the first-hand observation of the city and community around them, and suffered thereby; this part of their work obviously not being on a level with the historic interpretations of the one or the psychological productivity of the other. And if, without warlike intent, I may yet strike a conspicuous s.h.i.+eld or two within these friendly lists, is it not this one element of concrete observation and ill.u.s.tration which is sometimes lacking to give its full effect to the encyclopaedic learning and the sympathetic insight of one of our recent papers, to the historic and poetic interpretations of another, or to the masterly logic of a third?

Before the polemics of our educationists, the voluminous argumentation and casuistic subtlety of our professors of economics and ethics, yet more before the profound speculations of the epistemologists, the mere naturalist observer can but feel abashed like the truant before his schoolmasters; yet he is also not without a certain deep inward conviction, born of experience, that his outdoor world is yet more real, more vast, and more instructive than is theirs. And this impression becomes strengthened, nay verified and established, when he sees that the initiative thinkers from whom these claim to descend, have had in each and every case no merely academic record, but also a first-hand experience, an impulse and message from life and nature. Hence the contributions of Locke, of Comenius, and of Rousseau. Hence the Physiocrats found economics in peasant life; and thus too Adam Smith renewed their science, with due academic logic, doubtless, but from his experience of Glasgow and Kirkcaldy manufactures and trade. Even the idealist Berkeley owed much of his theory to his iridescent tar-water; while surely the greater ethicists are those who have not only been dialecticians, but moral forces in the world of men.

In such ways, then, I would justify the thesis that civics is no abstract study, but fundamentally a matter of concrete and descriptive sociology--perhaps the greatest field of this. Next, that such orderly study is in line with the preliminary sciences, and with the general doctrine of evolution from simple to complex; and finally with the general inquiry into the influence of geographical conditions on social development. [Page: 60] In short, the student of civics must be first of all an observer of cities; and, if so, of their origins and developments, from the small and simple beginnings of which the tiniest hamlet is but an arrested germ. The productive sociologist should thus be of all investigators a wandering student _par excellence_; in the first place, as far as possible, a literal tourist and traveller--and this although like the homely Gilbert White or the world voyaging Darwin, he may do his best work around his own home.

B--INITIAL METHODS OF CONCRETE SURVEY

Hence our civic studies began (vol. 1, p. 105) with the survey of a valley region inhabited by its characteristic types--hunter and shepherd, peasant and fisher--each on his own level, each evolving or degenerating within his own region. Hence the concrete picture of such a typical valley section with its types of occupation cannot be brought too clearly before our minds.[3]

[3] Fig. 1.

What now of the causes of progress or decay? Are not these first of all the qualities and defects inherent in that particular social formation?--though we must also consider how these different types act and react, how they combine with, transform, subjugate, ruin or replace each other in region after region. We thus re-interpret the vicissitudes of history in more general terms, those of the differentiation, progress or degeneracy of each occupational and social type, and the ascending and descending oscillations of these types. In short, these occupational struggles underlie and largely interpret even the conflict of races, upon which Mr. Stuart-Glennie and other sociologists have so ably insisted. The fundamental importance of these initial factors of region and occupation to all studies of races and types, of communities and inst.i.tutions, of customs and laws, indeed of language and literature, of religion and art, even of ideals and individualities, must be my excuse if I seem to insist, in season and out of season, upon [Page: 61] the services of Le Play as one of the main founders of sociology; and this not only _(a)_ on account of his monographic surveys of modern industrial life--those "Monographies Sociales" from which our current economic studies of the condition of the worker, of the family budget, etc., descend--but _(b)_ yet more on account of his vital reconstruction of anthropology (albeit still far from adequately realised by most anthropologists) through his renewed insistence upon the elemental rustic origins of industry, family types, and social organisation alike, from these simplest reactions of man in his struggle for existence in varied and varying environment.

It does not suffice to recognise, with many economists, hunting, pastoral and agricultural formations, as states _preliminary_ to our present industrial and commercial, imperial, and financial order of civilisation. This view, still too commonly surviving, is rather of hindrance than help; what we need is to see our existing civilisation as the complex struggle and resultant of all these types and their developments to-day. So far, therefore, from leaving, as at present, these simple occupational types to the anthropologist, or at best giving him some scant hospitality within our city museum, we are learning to see how it is at one time the eager miner, or the conservative shepherd, or at another the adventurous fisher or hunter who comes concretely upon the first plane of national, imperial or international politics, and who awakens new strife among these. We not only begin to see, but the soldier frankly tells us, how the current sports of youth, and the unprecedented militarism of the past century, are alike profoundly connected with the hunting world. Hence the hope of peace lies not only, as most at present think in the civilised and civilising development of international law, or of culture intercourse, excellent though these are, but also in a fuller and complete return to nature than has been this recent and persistent obsession of our governing cla.s.ses with the hunter world almost alone; in short, in adding the gentler, yet wider, experiences of the naturalist, the sterner experiences of other occupations also. Nor does such elementary recognition of these main social formations content us; their local differentiations must be noted and compared--a comprehensive regional survey, therefore, which does justice to each local variety of these great types; speaking henceforth of no mere abstract "hunter," but of the specific hunting types of each climate, and distinguis.h.i.+ng these as clearly as do our own milder sportsmen of deer-forest and the turnip field from themselves and from each other. After such needed surveys in detail, we may, indeed must, compare and generalise them.

Similarly for the pasture, the forest. Every tourist in this country is struck by the contrast of Swiss towns and cities with our own, and notes [Page: 62] too that on the Swiss pasture he finds a horde of cattle, while in Scotland or Yorks.h.i.+re he left a flock of sheep. And not only the tourist, but the historian or the economist too often fail to see how Galas.h.i.+els or Bradford are developments of the wool hamlet, now familiar to many in R.L. Stevenson's native Swanston. Again, not only Swiss wealth, but Swiss character and inst.i.tutions, go back essentially to the high pasture and the well-filled byre. That this rich Swiss cow-pasture rests on limestone, and the poor Scottish sheep-grazing upon comparatively unmouldering and impermeable gneiss, is no mere matter of geologist's detail; it affords in each case the literal and concrete foundation-stone of the subsequent evolution of each region and population, and this not only in material and economic development, but even in higher and subtler outcomes, aesthetic, intellectual and moral.[4] It is for such reasons that one must labour and re-labour this geographic and determinist aspect of sociology, and this for no merely scientific reason, but also for practical ones. Nowhere perhaps have more good and generous souls considered how to better the condition of their people than in Swiss, or Irish, or Scottish valleys; yet it is one main reason of the continual failure of all such movements, and of such minds in the wider world as well, that they do not first acquaint themselves with the realities of nature and labour sufficiently to appreciate that the fundamental--I do not say the supreme--question is: what can be got out of limestone, and what can be got out of gneiss?

Hence the rare educative value of such a concrete sociological diagram and model as was the Swiss Village at the Paris Exposition of 1900, for here geographic and economic knowledge and insight were expressed with artistic skill and sympathy as perhaps never before. Only as similar object-lessons are worked out for other countries, can we adequately learn, much less popularly teach, how from nature comes "rustics," and from this comes civics. But civics and rustics make up the field of politics; they are the concrete of which politics become the abstract--commonly the too remotely abstract.

[4] For a fuller justification of this thesis as regards Switzerland, see the writer's "International Exhibitions," in _International Monthly_, October, 1900.

For final ill.u.s.tration, let us descend to the sea-level. There again, taking the fisher, each regional type must be traced in his contribution to his town. Take for instance the salmon fisher of Norway, the whaler of Dundee, the herring-fisher of Yarmouth, the cod-fisher of Newfoundland, the coral fisher of the aegean; each is a definite varietal type, one developing or at least tending to develop characteristic normal family relations, and corresponding social outcomes in inst.i.tutions; in which again the appropriate qualities and defects must be expressed, even as is the quality and twist of the hemp in the strength of the cable, or as is the chemistry and the microscopic structure of the alloy in the efficiency of the great gun. [Page: 63]

Our neighbouring learned societies and museums geographical, geological and the rest, are thus avowedly and consciously so many winter shelters in which respective groups of regional surveyors tell their tales and compare their observations, in which they meet to compare their generalisations from their own observations made in the field with those made by others. So it must increasingly be for this youngest of societies. We may, we should, know best our Thames valley, our London basin, our London survey; but the progress of our science implies as increasingly varied and thorough an inquiry into rustic and civic regions and occupations and resultants throughout the whole world present and past, as does the corresponding world survey with our geologic neighbours.

I plead then for a sociological survey, rustic and civic, region by region, and insist in the first place upon the same itinerant field methods of notebook and camera, even for museum collections and the rest, as those of the natural sciences. The dreary manuals which have too long discredited those sciences in our schools, are now giving place to a new and fascinating literature of first-hand nature study.

Similarly, those too abstract manuals of civics which are at present employed in schools[5] must be replaced by concrete and regional ones, their abstract counsels of political or personal perfection thus also giving place to a corresponding regional idealism which may then be supplemented from other regions as far as needs demand and circ.u.mstances allow.

[5] For a fuller review of these, compare the writer's "City Development," in _Contemporary Review_, October, 1904.

C--GEOGRAPHICAL DETERMINISM AND ITS DIFFICULTIES