Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/486

 466 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

And one other reason should prompt us. We are putting great forces to work on the beautifying of our cities, on efforts to raise public and private taste, and on elevating our civic pride, while the city-body proper is still in the upper stages of barbar- ism if we may make use of Lewis Morgan's classification. It may require some courage to stir up conditions out of which so many great private fortunes are built, but without this courage it will be useless to expect lasting results of our work, for the cause is such that only heroic means can save it.

To be honest, what is it that makes a great city so interest- ing, so alluring, and so apt to keep a soul in its bondage ? It is not the improvement of the surrounding country or selected spots within, however important these may be as a fitting or flattering frame for the city proper ; but it is the varied pulsating life, the many expressions of the unification of a million souls into a single personification, the visible, tangible, and audible embodi- ment of the social idea, named a city.

And where do we find these expressions ? We find them in the places where the city is solving her transportation problem. We see the array of locomotives leaving the roundhouses filled with coal and water and with experienced hands on the throttle ; some to make a sixty-miles-an-hour run, drawing the many citizens to their places of work ; some to draw a thou- sand tons of articles to another market and fetch back a like amount for ours. We see the busy steamers enter and leave the harbor, load and unload their cargoes. We see the throng at the board of trade and at our quasi-markets. We see the long rows of intricate machinery in the shops, led by skilled hands, turn out wonderful articles. We see from the top of our sky- scraper in one direction the clear blue sky over the thousand chimney-pots set in green of our gardens and home yards, over which doves and pigeons may be circling in the air; in another direction an endless mass of black smoke-spots dotted with white whiffs of steam and flashes from the skylights glistening in the sun. Here the eight hours of strenuous life in the business whirl ; there sixteen hours of rest, home life, and education. We see and comprehend that we can as little be without the one as the