asserts its power over the
individual.

Along with the influence of the group mind goes the influence of what
may be called the electrical atmosphere of the city. The newcomer from
the country is very conscious of it; to the old resident it becomes
second nature. City life is noisy. The whole industrial system is
athrob with energy. The purring of machinery, the rattle and roar of
traffic, the clack and toot of the automobile, the clanging of bells,
and the chatter of human tongues create a babel that confuses and
tires the unsophisticated ear and brain. They become accustomed to the
sounds after a time, but the noise registers itself continually on the
sensitive nervous system, and many a man and woman breaks at last
under the strain. Another element that adds to the nervous strain is
haste. Life in the city is a stern chase after money and pleasure.
Everybody hurries from morning until night, for everything moves on
schedule, and twenty-four hours seem not long enough to do the world's
work and enjoy the world's fun. Noise and hurry furnish a mental
tension that charges the urban atmosphere with excitement. Purveyors
of news and amusement have learned to cater to the love of excitement.
The newspaper editor hunts continually for sensations, and sometimes
does not scruple to twist sober fact into stirring fiction. The
book-stall and the circulating library supply the novel and the cheap
magazine to give smack to the jaded palate that cannot relish good
literature. The theatre panders to the appetite for a thrill.

In these circumstances lie the possibilities of moral shock. In the
city there is freedom from the old restraint that the country
community imposed. In the city the countryman finds that he can do as
he pleases without the neighbors shaking their heads over him. In the
absence of such restraint and with the social contact of new friends
he may rapidly lower his moral standards as he changes his manners and
his mental habits. It does not take long to shuffle off the old ways;
it does not take much push or pull to make the unsophisticated boy or
girl lose balance and drift toward lower ideals than those with which
they came. Not a few find it hard to keep the moral poise in the
whirlpool of mental distraction. It is these effects of the urban
environment that help to explain the social derelicts that abound in
the cities. It is the weakness of human nature, along with the
economic pressure, that accounts for