Civics: as Applied Sociology

by Sir Patrick Geddes

From the physiography of the city we pass to its history ...

In this part of his subject he has, as we all know, many precursors and fellow-workers. The remarkable series, entitled "Historic Towns," instituted by Prof. Freeman, is known to most. The study of towns was the life and soul of Mr. Green's historic labours. Eloquent and powerful pictures of the great cities of the world fill the greater part of Mr. Harrison's well-known volume, "The Meaning of History"; and the student of universal history (a few of these, it may be hoped, are still left) finds them very stimulating and helpful. The special note of Prof. Geddes' method is that he does not limit himself to the greater cities, but also, and perhaps by preference, deals with the smaller, and with their physical environment; and, above all, that he attempts not merely to observe closely and thoroughly, but to generalise as the result of his observation. In biology, the study of any single organism, however minute and accurate, could reveal no laws (i.e., no general facts) of structure or function. As for instance, many forms of heart must be examined before the laws governing blood-circulation could be revealed; so here. Countless, indeed, are the forms of cities; even limiting our field of observation to those that have grown up in the last century they are numerous enough. Their differences and analogies would doubtless repay analysis, always supposing that we are clear how far the modern town, as contrasted with the mediaeval or Graeco-Roman city, can usefully be treated as "an integrate." This raises large questions of nation, of groups of nations, finally of Humanity, which cannot here be touched.

Meantime, from the teacher's standpoint, there can be no question at all, among those who look upon education as something more than a commercial asset, as to the utility of looking on every old town, with the neighbourhood around it, as a condensed record, here and there perfect, elsewhere lamentably blotted, yet still a record, of the history of our race. Historic memories survive in our villages far more widely than is thought. The descendants of the man who found the body of Rufus in the New Forest still live hard by. The builder whom the first William set to build Corfe Castle was Stephen Mowlem; and the Dorsetshire firm of Mowlem still pave London causeways. A poor woman in a remote hamlet, untouched by tourist or guide-book, has shown me the ash-tree under which Monmouth was seized after Sedgemoor; a Suffolk peasant, equally innocent of book-knowledge, has pointed Out "Bloody Mary's lane," through which that bugbear of Protestants passed three hundred years before on her way to Framlingham. The abbey immortalised in Carlyle's "Past and Present," and still the wonder of Eastern England, is surrounded now by the same villages that Jocelyn tells us of. The town named after St. Alban, with its memories of Cassivellaun and Julius Caesar, of an old Roman city, of the Diocletian persecution, of the great King Offa, founder of the abbey that was to become at once a school of historical research, and our best epitome of mediaeval architecture—all this, with the monument of the author of the "Novum Organum" crowning the whole—sums up for us sixteen centuries of history.

Professor Geddes for more than twenty years has adopted this method of teaching sociology in the open air; "in the field," as geologists would say....

This is much more than the study and the description of buildings and places of historical interest. His aim is first to study the way in which a city grows, always having due regard to its physical environment; secondly, by comparing like with like, as a naturalist compares the individuals of a species, or the species of a genus, to throw light on the laws which govern civic development, and thus to help forward and direct civic action.

All this is set forth with greater fulness in the Report which Professor Geddes has been asked to write for the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust. The purpose of the Report (printed, but not yet published) was to suggest the way in which the revenue of the Trust, amounting to £25,000, should be spent for the benefit of this ancient and historic town. The scheme, with its many pictures, real and ideal, of workshops, parks, culture-institutes—physical, artistic, and historical—will deeply interest even those who reject much of it as Utopian. But it is at least a Utopia specially adapted to a given place and time, one in which every feature of landscape and history is made the most of, one in which a beginning can be made at once, leaving room for further developments as occasion may serve. Moreover, it is penetrated through and through with the Republican ideal of bringing the highest truth within the reach of all.

Comte has pointed out, in the fifth chapter of his "General View of Positivism," and elsewhere, that it is not enough to enunciate sound principles of social renovation unless they can be rendered visible and palpable. "The principal function of art," he says, "is to construct types on the basis furnished by Science.... However perfectly the first principles of social renovation may be elaborated by thinkers, they will still not be sufficiently definite for the practical results.... But, at the point where Philosophy must always leave a void, Art steps in, and stimulates to practical action.... Hence, in the future, systematic formation of Utopias will become habitual; on the distinct understanding that as in every other branch of art, the ideal shall be kept in subordination to the real."

Now, the Dunfermline Report is an admirable example of art thus allied with science for social service. It is an ideal picture, strictly adherent to local colour and conditions, of an ancient city prolonging its vitality into the present and future by providing a very high form of training for its citizens, a training not of intellect only, but of the senses, of manual dexterity, of imagination, of Republican sympathy—a training in which "laborious inacquaintance with dead languages," infusing into the few touched by it a tincture of caste and militarism, gives way to comprehensive study of the evolution of Man, preparing the whole, and not a section merely, of the new generation for social service.

Such a Utopia as this may be looked upon as fulfilling the true social function of Art; standing midway between theory and practice; inspired by thought, and stimulating action. Only the social artist has to look to it that his thoughts be not merely true but adequate, lest he degenerate into a mere decorator. How far will a series of "regional surveys," like those of Mr. Booth in London and Mr. Rowntree in York, carry us! Not so far, I fear, as Professor Geddes seems to hope. Cities in our modern life are organs inseparable from a larger whole, the nation; and before the life of cities can be much changed, we have to ask ourselves, What is the national life? What is its ethical and religious standard? What is its practice as to the acquisition and distribution of wealth? And, again, What is to be the intercourse of nations? Is it to be war or peace?

Mr. Carnegie has given half a million for the benefit of a town of 30,000 inhabitants. Magnificent as the donation is, it is not too much; not nearly enough, indeed, for the full realisation of Professor Geddes' scheme. Still, wisely used, it might accomplish great results. What we have recently sunk in the work of suppressing two free States in South Africa would have made it possible to do for three hundred towns what has been done for Dunfermline. Half of what we are now spending on our army and navy would enable us to endow thirty more of such towns annually.