FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60  
61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   >>   >|  
like America, Professor Geddes' programme is inadequate because of its failure to recognise that a city under these conditions is formed by a rapid and contemporaneous movement of population, and not by the lapse of time. [Page: 136] The first permanent white settler came to Chicago precisely one hundred years ago, and the city has a population at present of about two and a quarter millions. It is here not a question of slow historic development but of the rapid drifting towards a certain point, of a population from all quarters of the globe, and the ethnological standpoint therefore becomes of more importance than the historical. PROFESSOR GEDDES' reply I am sincerely glad to be able to express myself in substantial agreement with the majority of my critics, only asking them in turn to recognise that this is but the first half of my subject--an outline of civics as in the first place a matter of science, a geographic and historic survey of past conditions, a corresponding census of present ones--here discussed and insisted on as affording the needful base for their demands upon civics as an art, that of effective social service. In this respect various critics have in fact anticipated large elements of this future portion of my paper, so that in general views, at least, critics and writer are not so far apart as would appear were the preceding pages submitted as a comprehensive outline of the subject, instead of as its scientific introduction merely. Of criticisms strictly applicable to this paper as it stands, there are really very few. I am confident that the chairman must be quite alone in too modestly applying to his great work that description of London itself, with which the paper (Section A, pp. 104-107) opens, since his volumes offer really our first effective clue to the labyrinth, and his method of intensive and specialised regional survey, the intensest searchlight yet brought to bear upon it. Taking, however, a concrete point of criticism, such as that of the monumental planning of modern Paris as derived from forest rides, the critic need only walk through any French forest, or even to consult a Baedeker, or other guide-book, with its maps of any historic dwelling and its surroundings, from Chantilly or Fontainebleau to minor ones, to see that this plan, originally devised for the pleasure, success and safety [Page: 137] of the hunt, and later adapted to domination and defence, became next apprec
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60  
61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

critics

 

population

 

historic

 

present

 
civics
 

forest

 

outline

 

survey

 

subject

 

effective


conditions

 

recognise

 

description

 
Section
 
London
 
volumes
 

method

 

intensive

 

specialised

 

regional


labyrinth

 

strictly

 

criticisms

 
applicable
 

inadequate

 

stands

 
comprehensive
 
scientific
 

introduction

 
programme

modestly
 

applying

 
Geddes
 

confident

 
chairman
 

intensest

 

searchlight

 
Fontainebleau
 

originally

 

Chantilly


surroundings

 
dwelling
 

devised

 

pleasure

 
defence
 

domination

 

apprec

 

adapted

 
success
 

safety