Yet with all respect to each and all these classifications and methods, indeed with cordially acknowledge personal obligation and indebtedness to them from first to last, no one of these seems fully satisfactory for the present purpose; and it is therefore needful to go into the matter afresh for ourselves, though utilising these as fully as we can.
E—THE CITY-COMPLEX AND ITS USUAL ANALYSIS
In the everyday world, in the city as we find it, what is the working classification of ideas, the method of thought of its citizens? That the citizens no more think of themselves as using any particular sociological method than did M. Jourdain of talking prose does not really matter, save that it makes our observation, both of them and it, easier and more trustworthy.
They are speaking and thinking for the most part of People and of Affairs; much less of places. In the category of People, we observe that individuals, self and others, and this in interest, perhaps even more than in interests, commonly take precedence of groups. Institutions and Government are, however, of general interest, the state being much more prominent than is the church; the press, for many, acting as the modern substitute for the latter. In the world of Affairs, commerce takes precedence of industry, while sport runs hard upon both. War, largely viewed by its distant spectators as the most vivid form of sport, also bulks largely. Peace is not viewed as a positive ideal, but essentially as a passive state, at best, of non-war, more generally of latent war. Central among places are the bank, the market (in its financial forms before the material ones). Second to these stand the mines then the factories, etc.; and around these the fixed or floating fortresses of defence. Of homes, that of the individual alone is seriously considered, at most those of his friends, his "set," his peers, but too rarely even of the street, much less the neighbourhood, at least for their own sake, as distinguished from their reaction upon individual and family status or comfort.
This set of views is obviously not easy of precise analysis of exact classification. In broad outline, however, a summary may be made, and even tabulated as follows:—
THE EVERYDAY TOWN AND ITS ACTIVITIES.
| PEOPLE | AFFAIRS | PLACES | |||
| (a)INDIVIDUALS (Self and others). | (a)COMMERCEINDUSTRY, etc. SPORT. | (a)MARKET, BANK, etc.FACTORY, MINE, etc. | (b)GOVERNMENT(S) Temporal and Spiritual (State and Church). | (b) WARand Peace (Latent War). | (b) FORT,FIELD, etc. |
Next note how from the everyday world of action, there arises a corresponding thought-world also. This has, of course, no less numerous and varied elements, with its resultantly complex local colour; But a selection will suffice, of which the headings may be printed below those of the preceding scheme, to denote how to the objective elements there are subjective elements corresponding—literal reflections upon the pools of memory—the slowly flowing stream of tradition. Thus the extended diagram, its objective elements expressed in yet more general terms, may now be read anew (noting that mirror images are fully reversed).
| PEOPLE | AFFAIRS | PLACES | |
| "TOWN" | (a) INDIVIDUALS | (a) OCCUPATIONS | (a) WORK-PLACES |
| (b) INSTITUTIONS | (b) WAR | (b) WAR-PLACES | |
| "SCHOOLS" | (b)HISTORY ("Constitutional") | (b)STATISTICS AND HISTORY ("Military") | (b)GEOGRAPHY |
| (a)BIOGRAPHY | (a)ECONOMICS | (a)TOPOGRAPHY |
Here then we have that general relation of the town life and its "schools," alike of thought and of education, which must now be fully investigated.