en, capable of watching all the streams of tendency--all
the developments of civic life, bringing their judgment to bear on its
progress, and urging the public to move in the right direction, a great
service might be rendered. At least once a year, these little groups of
men might meet together at some general conference, and, by the exchange
of their opinions and by the mutual helpfulness of intellectual
intercourse, raise up and perfect civic ideals which would be a boon to
this country. We suffer at present, I think, from the too great
particularisation of our efforts. We get one man devoting himself
exclusively to a blind asylum, another seeming to take no interest in
anything but a deaf-and-dumb institute or the like, and yet another
devoting himself to charity organisation. It is all excellent work, but
the difficulty is to get broad, comprehensive views taken of the common
good. To reduce poverty and to check physical degeneracy, there must be
an effort continuously made to [Page: 116] raise the tone of the
environment in which we live. The home and the city need to be made
wholesome and beautiful, and the people need to be encouraged to enlarge
their minds by contact with nature, and by the study of all that is
elevating and that increases the sum of social responsibility.

MR. E.S. WEYMOUTH said:

He found it somewhat difficult to see what was to be the practical
outcome of civics if studied in the way proposed. Would Professor Geddes
consider it the duty of any Londoner, who wished to study sociology
practically, to map out London, and also the surrounding districts, with
special reference to the Thames River Basin, as appeared to be suggested
in both Professor Geddes' papers? Looking at civics in its practical or
ethical aspect, he was bound to confess that, though he had acquired a
tolerable knowledge of the geography of the Thames Basin, he did not
feel it helped him materially towards becoming a better citizen of
London. Would Professor Geddes wish them to study, first, London with
its wealth side by side with its squalor and filth, and then proceed to
study another large town, where the same phenomena presented themselves?
What gain would there be in that proportionate to the labour entailed?
In his own case, so disheartened had he felt by observing that all their
efforts, public and private, for the improvement of their civic
conditions seemed to end in raising considerably the rents of the ground
lan