A SANITARY OUTLOOK 363 



The rule seems to be that the mental development of children is 

 hastened by city life, but soon stops short. Up till thirteen or four- 

 teen they are precocious and then come to a standstill. " At its best," 

 says Dr. Stanley Hall, in his work on Adolescence, " metropolitan life 

 is hard on childhood and especially so on pubescents, and children who 

 can not pass those years in the country are robbed of a right of child- 

 hood that should be inalienable, and are exposed to many deleterious 

 influences which jeopardize both health and morals." 



City life at its best is bad for children, involving as it does early 

 puberty, exciting distraction, superficiality of knowledge, insufficient 

 repose, and the want of the soothing influences that the country affords, 

 and at its worst when it means a tight squeeze in squalid dwellings, 

 poor food, foul air, foul language, contact with vice, and manifold 

 temptations, it is utterly demoralizing. The chief constable of Glas- 

 gow who had to report an increase of juvenile crime in that city, not- 

 withstanding the most strenuous efforts of the police to prevent it, 

 informed the Royal Commission on Physical Training that juvenile 

 depravity was regulated to a large extent by the home influence on the 

 child, the period between twelve and fourteen being that when the 

 mind is most susceptible to influence for good or evil. " Amongst the 

 lower class in the city," said Mr. Eoss, " of course one finds the children 

 most depraved, the parents or guardians in many cases being criminals 

 of the lowest possible standard. Street trading is undoubtedly a curse 

 to this class of children. It has been proved again and again that the 

 street gamin is second to none in vice and wickedness of every con- 

 ceivable kind, in fact, he reduces the commission of a crime to a fine 

 art. If, however, he is taken from his evil surroundings and placed 

 in an industrial school or reformatory he, in the majority of cases, 

 turns out a success in life." 



The facts and figures I have been quoting represent the city as an 

 instrument of physical, intellectual and moral degradation. They 

 represent it as sucking in the crude vigor and vitality of the country, 

 sophisticating and enfeebling them by its rigorous competition, and 

 ultimately turning them into inefficiency. It seems obvious that if 

 the city goes on growing at the nineteenth-century rate, and under 

 nineteenth-century conditions, it will dry up the reservoirs of strength 

 in the population, and leave an immense proletariat of inferior quality 

 and without commanders. 



But the shield we have been examining has another side. Big cities 

 are with us and are likely to. remain. They have sprung up in obedi- 

 ence to economic laws, and they contribute to wealth, for production 

 increases with increasing concentration of population, and wealth re- 

 dounds to the advantage of the whole country. They favor specializa- 

 tion and enable every man to make the best of any talent or skill he 



