, and their residences in another; also that the character of
the residential districts varies according to the wealth and culture
of their inhabitants or the nationality and occupation to which they
belong. The city is a coalition of semidetached groups, each of which
has a unity of its own. The necessities of work draw all the people
together down-town along the lines of streets and railways; now and
then the different classes are shaken together in elevators and
subways; but when they are free to follow their own volition they flow
apart. Those who are on terms of intimacy live in a neighboring
street; the grocer from whom they buy is at the corner; the school
where their children go is within a few blocks; the theatre they
patronize or the church they attend is not far away; the physician
they employ lives in the neighborhood. Except the few who get about
easily in their own conveyances and have a wide acquaintance, city
dwellers have all but their business interests in the district in
which they live, and which is seldom over a square mile in extent.

Some municipalities are coming to see that each district is a
neighborhood in itself and needs all the democratic institutions of a
neighborhood. Among these belongs the assembly hall for free speech.
It may well become a centre for a variety of social purposes, but it
is fundamentally important that it provide a forum for public
discussion. As the rich man has his club where he may meet the
globetrotter or the leader of public affairs distinguished in his own
country, and as the woman's club of high-minded women has its own
lecturers and celebrities of all kinds, so the working man and his
wife have a right to come into contact with stimulating personalities
who will talk to them and to whom they can talk back.

300. =Forum for Public Discussion.=--Such democratic gatherings fall
into two classes. There is the public lecture or address, after which
an opportunity for questions and public discussion is given, and there
is the neighborhood forum or town meeting, at which a question of
general interest is taken up and debated in regular parliamentary
fashion. In a number of cities both plans have been adopted. On a
Sunday afternoon or evening, or at a convenient time on another
evening of the week, a popular speaker addresses the audience on a
theme of social interest, after it has been entertained for a half
hour with music; following the address a brief intermission