Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/751

 SCIENCE AND CITIZENSHIP 735

to the old church and castle towers that survive, with their stair- way and their observing platform, access is generally made diffi- cult or impossible to obtain. We lock them up, and if that does not guard them against the curiosity of the citizen and tourist alike, there are other well-known modes of generating indiffer- ence. There is the custom of charging an entrance fee, which represents a considerable slice out of the worker's day. And if all these precautions shall fail, there is the final and frequent re- course of losing the key. Assuredly the gods first blind those whom they wish to destroy.

The Imperial Institute in London, which commemorates the jubilee of Queen Victoria, is adorned with a handsome and com- modious tower of many stories. In each story there is a large chamber. A visitor in the early days of the institute asked per- mision to enter and ascend the tower. The officer in charge was complaisant and offered to conduct the visitor over the tower. The key could not be found, and the visitor said he would return another day. On his next visit he was told that the key had been found, but it was not considered advisable to use it, for the struc- ture of the tower was defective! Is any further explanation needed of the admitted failure of the institute in the first decade of its existence? Happily it has now been reorganized and has en- tered on a more useful phase.

XI. In order to see our cities as they really are, we must first of all see them in geographical perspective; and in order to do this, we must recover the use of existing towers. We must also begin building new ones designed and equipped to aid us in seeing with the eye of the geographer. In the scientific vision, the first element is the vision of the geographer. Or, putting it in another way, in the complex chord which we call science, the first note is a geographical one. This vision of the geographer, what is it? Whence comes it? How may we ordinary citizens acquire it? What use would it be to us if we did acquire it ?

Our school initiation into geography acquaints us with a certain scheme of form and color symbolism which we call a map. The impression which intimate familiarity with the maps of our child-