CHAP. I proportion of criminals who are mentally defective is no doubt many times larger than that in the population at large.

Proportion of Congen.

in the

United
States

The number of feeble-minded in the United States is not reckital Defect oned at less than 375,000, while a much greater host carry the taint in their germ plasm and, if they mate with their own type, may transmit it to their descendants. The insane and demented are estimated to number at least 350,000. Epileptics are figured by some at 150,000. Counting in all the well-marked types of congenital defect perhaps one person in a hundred is so poor in natural equipment as to present a problem.

Much Depends on

opment of a Technique of Mental

Measure

ment

The measurement of mental differences is yet in its infancy. the Devel. Its technique is, however, rapidly developing and before long we may be able to ascertain with a fair degree of accuracy the natural mental capacity of any individual. When that time comes it may be possible to gauge the comparative brain power of races and of hybrids, to discriminate at immigration stations between the desirables and the undesirables, to discover what youth are worthy of being aided to a higher education, to find for each profession the grade of capacity requisite for success in it, or to sort out of a body of employees the ones available for responsibility and direction. Society will then be able to locate its stock of superior ability, to discover whether much of it is running to waste, to see whether it is reproducing itself, to find when and why a community becomes impoverished in respect to ability, and to trace the routes and causes of the migrations of the capable.

CHAPTER II

CITY AND COUNTRY

AT the birth of the American nation one hundred and thirty

years ago, its largest city had but forty-two thousand inhabtants, while only one person in thirty lived in the six towns of more than eight thousand population each. Now there cannot be fewer than eight hundred such places in which dwell at least two-fifths of all Americans. Nearly one-half of us live in places of over 2,500 inhabitants, a tenth in villages, and hardly more than two-fifths in the open country. So many of the coming genera

CHAP. II

swift Urof the

banization

American

Population

POPULATION IN PLACES OF 8,000 INHABITANTS OR More at Each

CENSUS: 1790-1910.

on are growing up in cities that it will not be long ere the natinal soul is urban.

ing of the

Acceler

Up to thirty years ago there was an agricultural frontier which The EndThe overflow Frontier acted as a brake on the forces of urbanization. from the long-settled regions split into two streams, one flowing ates the to the rising cities, while the other spread out upon free land. Process The opportunity to create farm homes in the public domain saved hundreds of thousands every decade from the reaching tentacles

CHAP. II of our great cities. Now that settlement is completed the ambitious farm youth without large capital has only the option of becoming a tenant farmer or going to the city.

The City

ward Drift a World

Phenome

non

From 1850 to

The indraught to the cities is not peculiar to the United States. "London is probably two thousand years old, and yet four-fifths of its growth was added during the past century. 1890 Berlin grew more rapidly than New York. Paris is now five times as large as it was in 1800. Rome has increased 50 per cent. since 1890. St. Petersburg has increased fivefold in a hundred years. Odessa is a thousand years old, but nineteen-twentieths of its population were added during the nineteenth century. Bombay grew from 150,000 to 821,000 from 1800 to 1890. Tokio increased nearly 800,000 during the last twenty years of the century; while Osaka was nearly four times as large in 1903 as in 1872, and Cairo has more than doubled since 1850. Thus in Europe, Asia and Africa we find that a redistribution of population is taking place. The movement from country to city is a world phenomenon." 1

Despite the denunciations of cities by philosophers and the idealizations of the country by the poets, the cityward flow continues because its causes are fundamental.

It Is

Caused by

sion of

CAUSES OF URBAN GROWTH

1. The application of mechanical power to transportation has the Expan- so cheapened carriage that interchanges of goods have waxed Commerce like Jonah's gourd. Ever greater is the proportion of our consumables brought to us from beyond the hundred-mile zone, from beyond the thousand-mile zone, from overseas, from the ends of the earth. Gulf Streams of traffic pour between regions, countries and climates. Wherever there is a break in transportation, i.e., wherever cargoes shift between wagon and rail, land and water, canal and river, river and sea, and wherever traffic brooks gather into a river or a traffic river is split among canals, there a city springs up. These swelling streams of commerce permit an ever larger contingent to make a living from handling, storing, exchanging and forwarding a mass of goods which grows faster than the population, faster than the total product, and which must make an ever-longer journey in order to reach the consumer.

2. Two generations ago the typical farm family produced for 1 Josiah Strong, "The Challenge of the City," p. 18.

CHAP. II

The

Growth of

the Fac

tory Sys

ture

itself a large part of the manufactured goods it consumed. The women of the house, busy with hand card, spinning wheel and kom, worked up into clothing the fleeces of the farm flock of sheep. Rag" carpets covered the floor and home-made quilts tom and comforters the beds. The hide of the beef killed for family Manufac consumption as well as those of a calf or two were taken to the tannery and after six months brought home and worked up into foot gear, sometimes by the men of the family but more often by a traveling shoemaker. In the smoke house were curing hams and bacon, while from the ashes in the leech was drained the lye which, boiled with refuse fat, furnished soft soap for the family. Candles were moulded from the tallow of the slaughtered beef. The orchard supplied fruit, cider and vinegar. "Sweetening came from the " sugar bush" or the patch of sorgum cane. Farm machinery did not exist, and the wooden parts of the farm implements were made on the place, the iron parts being furnished by a cross-roads blacksmith.

Since this period we have seen a development of machine industry which has concentrated in towns at least five-sixths of the making industries which formerly supplied the wants of the farm family. Nor can we foresee that any rural handiwork except the manufacture of food products for consumption by the family is likely to escape the reach of the power-driven machine. In some regions, perhaps, specialization has gone too far. As a result of girls' canning clubs, sewing clubs and the like, the people of the grain-growing regions in particular will become less dependent on the city for their food and clothing. Nevertheless, it appears unEkely that there will be left outside the towns many who do not give their entire effort and attention to some purely extractive industry like agriculture, mining, or lumbering.

3. The introduction of power-driven machinery on the farm diminishes the number of hands required in agriculture and releases a part of the rural population for some other pursuit.

of the

of Living

4 The very abundance of modern production gives the city The Rise more to do. The poor lay out most of their income on country Standard product. As they prosper, more of their every gain in purchasing power goes to support town industry rather than rural industry. This is because, the better the ware, the more of its value lies in the workmanship and the less in the material. More of the price of the fine shoe goes for elaboration than of the

CHAP. II price of the brogan. So is it if you compare pastry with bread, the business suit with blue jeans, porcelain with crockery. The coarser goods stand for extraction, the finer goods for elaboration. Hence, as people live better, their consumption calls more for elaborative industry and less for extractive industry, i.e., for the labor of city rather than of country.2

The Development of Government Serv.

ice

5. Thanks to the host of new duties assumed by government, the public service grows rapidly and the proceeds of taxation contribute more and more to the maintenance of city dwellers. Few, indeed, are the public servants who live in the open country.

6. Generally people must reside where they get their living. Nevertheless, social, æsthetic and educational advantages have a bearing upon the local distribution of population. Both city and country are becoming more desirable places to live, but which improves faster? In our time the city has gained electric street railways, electric lights, asphalt pavements, rubber tires, pure water, parks, playgrounds, public baths, social centers, housing regulation, palatial free high schools and municipal universities. The open country has gained better roads, the oiled highway in places, the automobile, rural mail delivery, the telephone, in some homes acetylene gas and running water and in a few places the the Coun- consolidated school and the community house. On the whole, town life has gained more attractions than country life, and the town's lead in attractiveness constantly broadens.

The Amell

oration of

City Life, and the Diminished Social

Prestige of

try

Excess of

Males in the Rural Population

7. Once the country was a magnet for the wealthy because feudal tradition had haloed the life of the country gentleman. The townsman retiring rich withdrew with his dependents and servants to a mansion on an estate. This exodus of the leisured to the country offset a little the rush of the ambitious in the other direction. But, the world over, the rôle of country gentleman appeals less, while the passion of the wealthy for city excitements, amusements, and dissipations seems to grow.

MAKE-UP OF THE CITY POPULATION

The make-up of the urban element is by no means the same as that of the rural element. With us agriculture is so male that

2 Of course, if population increases more rapidly than goods, particularly foods, as appears to be the case in this country during recent years, not so much of the national income can be devoted to manufactured goods and extractive industries will become relatively more important.