vironment, to be brought about by our own endeavours. Therefore, the
city can be shaped and made by us. What, then, is the exact value to be
given to the seemingly contradictory doctrines that the individual is
the product of the city and also that the city is the product of the
citizen? The establishing of some fixed relation between--or the
adjusting of the relations of--these two causes of social progress would
be, I think, interesting to the philosopher, and useful to the
economist. The problem is [Page: 115] without doubt a difficult one, but
its solution would be of great value. I do not venture to offer any
answer to the question I raise--I merely state it.

MR. A.W. STILL said:

We have been passing through a period in which the city has created a
type of man so wholly absorbed in the promotion of his own individual
interests that he tends almost entirely to forget the social obligations
which ought to make the greatest appeal to him. We may take some hope
from what Professor Geddes has said, that the time is coming when we
shall bring the force of our own characters to bear on our environment,
and endeavour to break away from conditions which have made us the
slaves of environment. I know the lovely little garden city of
Bourneville intimately, and some of the experiments in other quarters.
But in the common expansion of cities, I have seen that as the people
get away from one set of slums, they are creating new areas which will
become as degraded and abominable as those which are left behind. It has
always seemed to me that there is room for good work by some committee,
or some body of men, who would be voluntary guardians of the city's
well-being, who would make it their business to acquire all that
knowledge which Professor Geddes has just put before us in terms so
enchanting, and would use all the ability that they possess in order to
lead the minds of the community towards the cultivation of the best and
highest ideals in civic life. I do not think it need be regarded as
impossible that, from an association of this kind, such a movement as I
have mentioned should spring. I conceive the possibility of each group
developing into a trust, capable of acting in the interests of the city
in years to come, exercising a mighty influence, being relied upon for
guidance, and administering great funds for the common good. If we could
get in each of our populous centres a dozen thoroughly intelligent
broad-minded m