em. The individual reacts socially
"with a great and discriminating sensitiveness" to his environment, just
as he reacts physically to his stimuli to conserve pleasure and avoid
pain.

The fundamental sources of stimuli are, of course, common to all forms
of social grouping, but one difference between rural and urban life
expresses itself in the greater difficulty of obtaining under rural
conditions certain definite stimulations from the environment. This fact
is assumed both by those who hold the popular belief that most great men
are country-born and by those who accept the thesis of Ward that
"fecundity in eminent persons seems then to be intimately connected
with cities."[9] The city may be called an environment of greater
quantitative stimulations than the country. The city furnishes forceful,
varied, and artificial stimuli; the country affords an environment of
stimuli in comparison less strong and more uniform. Minds that crave
external, quantitative stimuli for pleasing experiences are naturally
attracted by the city and repelled by the monotony of the country. On
the other hand, those who find their supreme mental satisfactions in
their interpretation or appreciation of the significant expression of
the beauty and lawfulness of nature discover what may be called an
environment of qualitative stimulations. The city appeals, therefore, to
those who with passive attitude need quantitative, external experiences;
the country is a splendid opportunity for those who are fitted to create
their mental satisfactions from the active working over of stimuli that
appear commonplace to the uninterpreting mind. If Coney Island, with its
noise and manufactured stimulations, is representative of the city,
White's "Natural History of Selborne" is a characteristic product of the
wealth of the country to the mind gifted with penetrating skill.

Doubtless this difference between rural and urban is nothing new, and
from the beginning of civilization there have been the country-minded
and the city-minded. In our modern life, however, there is much that
increases the difference and much that stimulates the movement of the
city-minded from the country. Present-day life with its complexity and
its rapidity of change makes it difficult for one to get time to develop
the active mind that makes appreciation possible. Our children
precociously obtain adult experiences of quantitative character in an
age of the automobile and moving picture