Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/691

 MUNICIPAL ART 677

living, still the question forces itself into our minds how it may, or by any possibility can, as a development from existing con- ditions, be made to take any real hold upon the life of the people in general. With our present squalor and vulgarity in the surroundings of the poor, and luxury and shall we say with others? vulgarity in those of many of the rich, any vital growth would seem well-nigh hopeless. Who can conceive of art taking root in the pain and ugliness of the lives of many people in our great cities? They scarcely have a glimmering of what real beauty and harmony are. Then we meet the dis- couraging fact that, owing to one cause or another, the rampant sway of the so-called practical, of so-called utility, of machine methods of production, man-machine and others, so large a num- ber of the better-educated, better-cultured, "lack part of the human senses," and are "anti-artistic."

Yet, let us consider, what if some of the lost beauty, or even decency, of the earth be found again ? What if we should have a city free from smoke and filth ; with well-made streets ; with houses at least not ugly and dilapidated ; with no hideous posters, and with trees abounding on every hand ? Surely these conditions would at least prepare a soil in which con- ceptions of beauty could grow. Then if, further, public build- ings, squares, river banks, bridges, be made genuinely beautiful ; and if the works of art be so widely distributed that every inhabitant of a city shall find at least one within his daily range, can anyone doubt that all must be educated to some degree ; that higher standards of beauty in man's productions, and conduct as well will become general; that the effect will be seen in the improvement of private dwellings, and their sur- roundings, and all they contain ; and what is far more important, that of which the first is a means to an end that with the ugliness will depart much of the pain and the gloom in the lives of the one class, and the selfishness and insipidity in the lives of the others ?

There is another argument for civic art its pecuniary value ; and, doubtless, this will prove a stronger one with many than its lofty mission as a source of high ideals and enjoyment and of