No discussion of the preliminaries and fundamentals of Civics can omit
some consideration of the vast and ever growing literature of cities.
But how are we to utilise this? How continue it? How co-ordinate it with
the needed independent and first-hand survey of city by city? And how
apply this whole knowledge of past and present towards civic action?
The answer must plainly be a concrete one. Every city [Page: 116]
however small, has already a copious literature of its topography and
history in the past; one, in fact, so ample that its mere bibliography
may readily fill a goodly volume,[1] to which the specialist will long
be adding fresh entries. This mass of literature may next be viewed as
the material for a comprehensive monograph, well enriched with maps and
illustrations, such as many cities can boast; and this again may be
condensed into a guide-book. Guide-books have long been excellent in
their descriptive and historical detail, and are becoming increasingly
interpretative also, especially since Mr. Grant Allen transferred his
evolutionary insight and his expository clearness from natural to civic
history.
[1] e.g., Erskine Beveridge, LL.D., Bibliography of
Dunfermline.--_Dunfermline, 1902._ 8vo.
After this general and preliminary survey of geographic environment and
historic development, there nowadays begins to appear the material of a
complementary and contemporary volume, the Social Survey proper. Towards
this, statistical materials are partly to be found amid parliamentary
and municipal reports and returns, economic journals and the like, but a
fresh and first-hand survey in detail is obviously necessary. In this
class of literature, Mr. Booth's monumental Survey of London, followed
by others, such as Mr. Rowntree's of York, have already been so widely
stimulating and suggestive that it may safely be predicted that before
many years the Social Survey of any given city will be as easily and
naturally obtainable as is at present its guide-book; and the
rationalised census of the present condition of its people, their
occupation and real wages, their family budget and culture-level, should
be as readily ascertainable from the one, as their antecedents
understood or their monuments visited by help of the other.
But these two volumes--"The City: Past and Present,"--are not enough. Is
not a third volume imaginable and possible, that of the opening Civic
Future? Having taken full note of places as they were and are, of things
as they have come about, and of people as they are--of their
occupations, families, and institutions, their ideas and ideals--may we
not to some extent discern, then patiently plan out, at length boldly
suggest, something of [Page: 117] their actual or potential development?
And may not, must not, such discernment, such planning, while primarily,
of course, for the immediate future, also take account of the remoter
and higher issues which a city's indefinitely long life and
correspondingly needed foresight and statesmanship involve? Such a
volume would thus differ widely from the traditional and contemporary
"literature of Utopias" in being regional instead of non-regional,
indeed ir-regional and so realisable, instead of being unrealisable and
unattainable altogether. The theme of such a volume would thus be to
indicate the practicable alternatives, and to select and to define from
these the lines of development of the legitimate _Eu-topia_ possible in
the given city, and characteristic of it; obviously, therefore, a very
different thing from a vague _Ou-topia_, concretely realisable nowhere.
Such abstract counsels of perfection as the descriptions of the ideal
city, from Augustine through More or Campanella and Bacon to Morris,
have been consolatory to many, to others inspiring. Still, a Utopia is
one thing, a plan for our city improvement is another.
Some concrete, if still fragmentary, materials towards such a volume
are, of course, to be found in all municipal offices, though scattered
between the offices of the city engineer and health officer, the
architect and park superintendent; while the private architect and
landscape gardener, the artist, sometimes even the municipal voters and
their representatives, may all have ideas of their own. But though our
cities are still as a whole planless, their growth as yet little better
than a mere casual accretion and agglomeration, if not a spreading
blight, American and German cities are now increasingly affording
examples of comprehensive design of extension and of internal
improvement. As a specific example of such an attempt towards the
improvement of a British city, one not indeed comprehending all aspects
of its life, but detailed and reasoned so far as it goes, and expressing
that continuity of past and present into future which has been above
argued for, I am permitted by the courtesy of the Carnegie Dunfermline
Trust to lay on the Society's library table an early copy of a recent
study of practicable possibilities in a city typically suitable for
consideration from the present standpoint, since presenting within a
moderate and readily intelligible [Page: 118] scale a very marked
combination of historic interests, and of contemporary and growing
activity, both industrial and cultural, with hopeful civic outlook.
That co-adjustment of social survey and social service which has been
above argued for as the essential idea of civics as applied sociology is
thus no abstract principle, but a concrete and practicable method. Yet
it is one not lacking in generality of application. For what we have
reached is really the conception of an _Encyclopædia Civica_, to which
each city should contribute the Trilogy of its Past, its Present, and
its Future. Better far, as life transcends books, we may see, and yet
more, forsee, the growth of civic consciousness and conscience, the
awakening of citizenship towards civic renascence. All this the
production of such volumes would at one imply and inspire--life ever
producing its appropriate expression in literature, and literature
reacting upon the ennoblement of life.
Apart altogether from what may be the quality and defects of particular
volumes, such as those cited as examples of each part of such a proposed
civic trilogy, one as yet nowhere complete, the very conception of such
a possible threefold series may be of some service. For this would
present a continuous whole, at once sociological and civic--the views
and the resources of the scholar and the educationist with their
treasures of historic culture, of the man of action with his mastery of
immediate affairs, of the thinker with his vision of the opening future,
now all co-ordinated by help of the design of the artist, and thence to
be gradually realised in the growing heritage of the city, the enlarging
life of the citizen.
NOTE--As an example of the concrete application to a particular city, of
the sociological methods and principles indicated in the above paper,
Prof. Geddes exhibited an illustrated volume embodying the results of
his studies and designs towards the improvement of Dunfermline, under
the Trust recently established by Mr. Carnegie. This has since been
published:
P. GEDDES. City Development. Park Gardens and Culture Institutes; a
Report to the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust. With 138 illustrations.
Edinburgh, etc.. 1904.
[Page: 119] DISCUSSION
The Chairman (MR. CHARLES BOOTH) in opening the discussion said:
The paper we have just heard read is one of the most complete and
charming papers on a great and interesting subject I have ever heard. I
think you will all agree in this, and I hope the discussion which
follows will emphasise and, if that is possible, add to the wealth of
ideas that this paper contains.
MR EBENEZER HOWARD (Founder of the Garden City Association) said:
I have read and re-read--in the proof forwarded to me--Professor Geddes'
wonderfully luminous and picturesque paper with much interest. He has
given us a graphic description of the geographic process which leads to
the development of the city. We see vividly the gradual stages by which
the city grows and swells, with the descent of the population from the
hillsides into the valleys, even as the river which flows through the
city is fed continually by the streams which flow down to it. But is
there not this essential difference between the gathering waters of
heaven, as they pour into the great city, and the gathering tide of
population, which follows the path of the waters? The waters flow
through the city on, on toward the mighty ocean, and are then gradually
gathered upward into the soft embraces of the clouds and wafted back
again to the hills, whence they flow down once more to the valleys. But
the living stream of men, women, and children flows from the
country-side and leaves it more and more bare of active, vigorous,
healthy life: it does not, like the waters, "return again to cover the
earth," but moves ever on to the great city, and from thence, at least
for the great majority, there is no chance of more than, at best, a very
short stay in the country. No: the tide flows resistlessly [Page: 120]
onward to make more crowded our overcrowded tenements, to enlarge our
overgrown cities, to cause suburb to spread beyond suburb, to submerge
more and more the beautiful fields and hilly slopes which used to lie
near the busy life of the people, to make the atmosphere more foul, and
the task of the social reformer more and yet more difficult.
But surely there must be a way, could we but discover it, of imitating
the skill and bountifulness of Nature, by creating channels through
which some of our population shall be attracted back to the fields; so
that there shall be a stream of population pouring from the city into
the country, till a healthy balance is restored, and we have solved the
twin problems of rural depopulation and of the overcrowded, overgrown
city.
This brings me to the second branch of Prof. Geddes' paper, the
historical. The Professor reminds us how vestiges of one civilisation
lie super-imposed upon another, like geological strata, and asks.
"Understanding the present as the development of the past, are we not
preparing also to understand the future as the development of the
present?" Following this line of thought, I venture to suggest that
while the age in which we live is the age of the great,
closely-compacted, overcrowded city, there are already signs, for those
who can read them, of a coming change so great and so momentous that the
twentieth century will be known as the period of the great exodus, the
return to the land, the period when by a great and conscious effort a
new fabric of civilisation shall be reared by those who knew how to
apply the knowledge gained by "Social Survey to Social Service." What
are the signs? What words can we place under the head of "Incipient" in
Prof. Geddes' diagram? I would suggest, for one of Prof. Geddes'
interrogation marks might be substituted "Decentralisation of
Industry"--as a great, but yet incipient movement, represented by Port
Sunlight, Bournville, Garden City. For there are now many agencies at
work making for industrial decentralisation. Industries are being driven
out of the great towns by the excessive rents and rates which have to be
paid there--by the difficulty of obtaining adequate space for the modern
factory, a one-storey building; and for the homes of our workers, which
must be vastly different to what they now are if England is to maintain
her place among the nations. And while factories are being driven from
the city, they are also being attracted to the country by its
newly-discovered potentialities. Thus Messrs. Lever Brothers, crowded
out of Warrington, established an entirely new town on a new site at
Port Sunlight; and, because the site was new and raw, it was therefore
possible for Mr. Lever to plan his little town with a single eye to the
best and most desirable conditions, alike from an industrial and a
health and housing point of view. And the same is true of Bournville.
Bournville is one of the most beautiful villages in the world, largely
again because of the potentialities of a new site acquired for the
definite purpose of building thereon a village in which overcrowding
shall be deliberately and permanently prevented, [Page: 121] and in
which work inside the factory may be varied by work in the garden. Now
that these successful experiments have been carried out in this country,
is it not time that the idea of establishing new industries on new
sites, and of surrounding those industries with healthy homes, should be
carried forward on a larger scale, with wider and more concerted
aims--carried forward, too, in such a manner as to make it possible for
the small manufacturer to take part in a movement which has proved to be
so beneficial alike to employer and employed? It is out of this thought
that the Garden City idea has grown, an idea now in course of being
fulfilled. Three thousand eight hundred acres of land, or nearly ten
times the area of Bournville or Port Sunlight, have been acquired in
Hertfordshire, two miles west of the town of Hitchin, and on the branch
line of railway between that town and Cambridge. State aid has not been
sought; that would indeed be weary work. But a company has been formed,
through the untiring efforts of the Garden City Association; plans for
the town have been carefully prepared, plans which, of course, have
regard to the contours of the land (which were first taken, showing
every change of level of five feet), to the preservation of its natural
beauties--its trees and the picturesque villages of Norton and Willian;
to the necessity for railway sidings and railway station, now, thanks to
the Great Northern Railway, already provided; to the making of roads of
easy gradient and of suitable width, affording access to different parts
of the estate, actual work on which is progressing; the careful guarding
from contamination of our water supply, already proved to be abundant;
the provision of a reservoir of suitable elevation, now in course of
construction; a system of drainage, about to be started with; the
provision of parks and playgrounds within the town, as well as a wide
belt of agricultural land around it; sites for homes for 30,000 persons,
with good sized gardens. About six cottages have already been built, not
by the Company but by private enterprise, while many others are just
about to be started upon; the setting apart of sites for schools,
churches, and other public buildings, while plans are in preparation for
lighting the town, as well as for providing it with motive power.
The programme which I have sketched out is certainly not too bold or
comprehensive for the British race. If a hundredth part of the
organising skill which the Japanese and the Russians are showing in the
great war now in progress were shown by ourselves as citizens in our
great civil war against disease and dirt, poverty and overcrowding, we
could not only build many new cities on the best models, but could also
bring our old towns into line with the new and better order. Prof.
Geddes wishes well, I know, to the Garden City Association, a
propagandist body, and to its first child, the Garden City Company; and
I am sure you will all unite with me in the hope that the best and most
lasting success may crown the generous gift of Mr. Carnegie of £500,000
to the City of Dunfermline, and reward the efforts of the Trustees and
of Prof. Geddes to make, by the application of modern [Page: 122] skill,
science and art, the ancient city of Dunfermline a centre of sweetness
and light, stimulating us all to higher and yet higher efforts to secure
civic, national and imperial well-being.
MR. C.H. GRINLING said:
Like most of the audience, doubtless, he came not to speak but to draw
ever fresh inspiration from Prof. Geddes. But there was one aspect of
the subject he would like to bring out and emphasise. He referred to the
sociological institute, which, under the name of the Outlook Tower, had
grown up in connection with the School of Sociology which Prof. Geddes
had founded and developed in Edinburgh. That institute was at once an
organisation for teaching and for research, for social education, and
for civic action. It was, in fact, a concrete and working application of
the principle indicated in the paper as the very foundation of
Civics--"social survey for social service." And, seeing that the Outlook
Tower was an institution designed in every respect for application to
any given locality, he urged the Sociological Society to advocate its
general extension, so that no region should be without its own
sociological institute or Outlook Tower.
If one individual could accomplish so much, what could not be
accomplished by the sociologists of our day who would concentrate
themselves, each on his own locality, not necessarily to do the work,
but to give the inspiration which would call out the work of collecting
just that material which Prof. Geddes suggested all through his paper
was one of the great needs of our time? And so one hoped that papers of
this kind would not merely lead to discussion, but to workers
accumulating results of this kind, giving the inspiration to others, and
thus laying up treasures for the sociologists of the future for their
interpretation. Thus, the Sociological Society should be not only the
one scientific society in constant touch with all the leading brains
over the country, but it should be an inspiration, as Prof. Geddes has
himself been, to groups of workers everywhere for just the kind of work
which the Sociological Society has been founded to develop.
MR. J.M. ROBERTSON said:
I would first add my tribute to this extremely interesting and
stimulating paper. It recalled confabulations I had with Prof. Geddes,
many years ago, when he was first formulating in Edinburgh those ideas
which have since become so widely known. I would like, however, to
suggest a few criticisms. The paper is, broadly speaking, an application
of the view of a biologist to Sociology. It is not so much an
application of Darwin's view as that of Von Baer. Prof. Geddes has
characterised his paper as one of elementary preliminaries, but he has
really contributed a paper that [Page: 123] would form part of a
preliminary study in a series of studies in Sociology. The paper does
not quite bear out its title: "Civics: as Applied Sociology." The
application has not begun. The somewhat disparaging remarks on
encyclopædias of general knowledge, further, might well be applied to
the scheme of an encyclopædia of the natural history of every city and
every village as an original centre. This atomism will not help
Sociology. Had he to master all that, the sociologist's life would be a
burden not to be borne, and we would never get to applied sociology at
all. There is a danger, too, in following this line, of fastening
attention on one stage of evolution and leaving it there. The true
principle is that evolution is eternal and continuous; and I think harm
may be done, possibly, when you take, say, the phenomenon of the
communication of general knowledge in schools and call it a derivation
from the French _Encyclopedie_. Why leave it there? Where did that come
from? If you are going to trace the simple evolution of civic forms, if
you are to trace how they have come about, it will not do to stick at a
given point. This is a survival of that. That is a survival of something
else. The French _Encyclopedie_ will have to be traced back to the
encyclopædia of the mediaeval period; and even to the still earlier
period of Isidore of Seville. Then again, there is a danger, I think,
analogous to the danger met with in early botany--the danger of
confusing a resemblance with a relationship. It is extremely interesting
to speculate that the Place de l'Etoile is an evolution from the plan of
the game-forest, with its shooting avenues radiating from a centre, but
it would be difficult to show that there is any historical connection.
The thing is not proved.
Of course, the vital question is not this tracing of evolution. The
question is: Is "Civics" to be only the study of forms? If so, Sociology
is a dead science, and will effect little practical good until it is
vivified by such suggestions as Mr. Crane has put in his paper. Mr.
Walter Crane brought in a vital question when he said: "How are you
going to modify the values of your civic life unless you grapple with
political problems?" I am not forgetting that Prof. Geddes promises to
deal in another paper with the civics of the future; but I insist that
it will have to grapple with political questions. As he says, a city is
not a place, but "a drama in time." The question for the sociological
student of history is: How has this inequality of wealth and of service
arisen, and how is it to be prevented in the future? That is the problem
we have to study if we wish to make sociology a vital interest. A
definition of progress is really the first step in sociology. Prof.
Geddes' next paper should give us a definition of progress, and it is
better that we begin to fight over a definition of progress, in order to
get a dynamic agreement, than that we should multiply the archaeological
study of many towns. I admit that it is very interesting. In travelling
in South Africa, I often tried to gather how communities began; what,
for example, was the nucleus of this or that village. It was surprising
how very few had an idea of any nucleus at all. I deprecate the idea,
however, that [Page: 124] we are all to amass an enormous accumulation
of such researches. Mr. Booth's single compilation for London is a study
for years; but Mr. Booth's admirable investigation of the difficulties
of life among the poor of London does not of itself give any new impulse
to the solution of the problem of London. It merely gives exact
knowledge in place of general knowledge. The problem of sociology arose
on the general knowledge. I fear lest the work of sociology should run
to an extension of this admirable study instead of to the stimulation of
action taken on that particular knowledge, or on more general knowledge.
We all knew there was plenty of poverty, and how it was caused. We all
had Ideals as to how it was to be got rid of in the future; but the
question is: Is the collection of detail or the prescription of social
method the kind of activity that the Sociological Society is to take up?
SIR THOMAS BARCLAY said:
I am not sure that I agree with Mr. Robertson that it is desirable to
define either "progress" or "civilisation." On the whole, their chances
lie rather in the great variety of ideas of what constitutes them than
in any hard-and-fast notion of their meaning. They are generalisations
of what is, rather than an object towards which effort should tend. But
neither do I agree with Prof. Geddes' restriction of "civics" to the
mere outward part of municipal effort. In America the word "civics" is
applied to the rights and duties of citizens, and I should like to see
Prof. Geddes include in Civics the connection between citizen life and
the outward improvement of cities. I am sure, however, Professor Geddes,
as a practical man, will deal rather with realities than theoretical
views on the subject for which he has done so much himself. Edinburgh
owes more than many are willing to admit to Prof. Geddes. I think Ramsay
Lodge one of the greatest embellishments of the Castle Hill in
Edinburgh. I hope he will now be successful in doing something still
more admirable for my native town of Dunfermline. My friend Mr.
Carnegie, whose native town it also is, I believe intends to show by an
object lesson what can be done for all cities. Prof. Geddes is helping
him in this work with his suggestions. I hope they will be carried out.
In America there are several very beautiful cities. No one can ever
forget Washington, which is truly a garden city. No money is spared in
America to beautify and healthify (excuse the barbarism) the habitations
of the thousands. A beautiful city is an investment for health,
intellect, imagination. Genius all the world over is associated,
wherever it has been connected with cities, with beautiful cities. To
grow up among things of beauty ennobles the population. But I should
like to see Prof. Geddes extend his projects for Dunfermline to the
population itself. Most of you know what Mr. Henderson did to utilise
the Edinburgh [Page: 125] police in the care of children. The future of
the country depends upon them. The subject is too serious to continue to
be left to the haphazard mercies of indifferent parents. Every child
born is an agent for good or for evil among the community, and the
community cannot afford to neglect how it is brought up, the
circumstances in which it has its being, the environment from which it
derives its character and tendencies. Necessity may be the mother of
invention, but need of food and insufficient clothing develop in the
child an inventiveness that is not for the good of the community. It
seems a matter of too great an importance to be left even to private
initiative, as was done under Mr. Henderson's regime in Edinburgh; but
everywhere else, or nearly so, very little is done by even private
initiative for the protection of the children against their vicious
environment. In short, I do not think that civics, in the sense in which
my friend Prof. Geddes treats it, is a complete subject at all. Civics,
to my mind, includes everything that relates to the citizen. Everywhere
something is being done in one direction or another to make them
capable, prosperous, and happy. In America happiness is taught in the
schools. Every schoolmaster's and schoolmistress's first duty is to set
an example of a happy frame of mind; smiling and laughing are
encouraged, and it is not thought that the glum face is at all necessary
for the serious business of life. In fact, the glum face is a
disqualification; is associated with failure, and bad luck and
ill-nature. In Germany the schoolmaster is in the first place a trainer
of the body. One of his chief duties is to watch and prevent the
deterioration of the eyesight, to promote the development of the lungs,
to prevent spinal deviation. The second part of his business is to watch
over the character of the child, and only the third part is to ram
knowledge into the poor little mind. And wherever you go over the world
you will find something in the course of being done in civics, as I
understand the subject. I thank Prof. Geddes for what he is doing for
Dunfermline, and hope he will understand "progress" without requiring to
define it.