Cook: Biology in Hiinian I'rog'ress 



255 



title methods, so that the hest con(h- 

 tions and treatment may be ])rovided, 

 to faciHtate the i)ro(kiction of food 

 and industrial raw materials, luit 

 liuman biolog'y is an undeveloped 

 liranch of the seience. Little consid- 

 eration is i^iven to the effects of the 

 human environments, exce])t to avoid 

 the Hmits of starvation or disease. To 

 raise a g-ood crop of corn or cotton we 

 know that the best seed must be se- 

 lected and that the most favorable cul- 

 tural conditions must be maintained, 

 Init the need of similar precautions in 

 human development is neoiected, even 

 in the educational systems of ad- 

 vanced nations. 



The efifects of urban environment 

 are like those of ])arasitism among 

 ])lants and animals, which biologists 

 treat as a degenerative condition. 

 Compared with free-living- types, para- 

 sites are inactive, inept, and infertile. 

 In man}' different groups where para- 

 sitic habits have been adopted the 

 general result is the same. Many 

 organs and functions that in free-liv- 

 ing groups are highly developed be- 

 come weakened or are lost entirely 

 among sedentary parasites. Cities are 

 jiarasitic not only in being supported 

 from the outside, but the arts of self- 

 supporting existence are lost, as with 

 other parasites. 



The difference is not merely that the 

 farmer works in the open air while the 

 city cousin works in a shop or an 

 ofifice. The physical conditions may 

 be important, but many other fea- 

 tures must be considered in comparing 

 the environments and determining 

 their effects. Contacts with nature 

 are enforced by the conditions of rural 

 life. The change of seasons, the di- 

 versity of crops and weeds, and the 

 care of different kinds of domestic ani- 

 mals, to say nothing of the wild flow- 

 ers, birds and insects, make the life of 

 the farm utterly different from the life 

 of the city. The farmer's work is not 

 a simple routine, but endlessly varied 



^ Cook, O. F. Definitions of Two Primitive Social States 

 Academy of Sciences, Vol. II, No. 5, March 4, 1912. 



and recpiiring a continuous exercise of 

 judgment to decide what nuist be done 

 first, and to fit the different tasks to- 

 gether to the best advantage. An 

 active farmer takes a vastly more 

 complex, exacting and continuous re- 

 sponsibility than the urban worker 

 who does the same thing every day, 

 and has no res])onsibility when "off 

 duty." The mind of the urban worker 

 is formed by the uniform reactions of 

 machinery rather than by the varied 

 contacts with nature or with living 

 things. "We take our industrial and 

 commercial standards from the ma- 

 chine," as one writer says, and chiefly 

 ior the reason stated by Inge, that the 

 urban worker is "a man whose life is 

 ])assed in surroundings entirely created 

 by machinery." The contacts would 

 not be so restricted, if urbanism were 

 not carried to excess. 



The Basis of a Permanent Civilization 



It is a mistake to supnose that civil- 

 ization is a matter of cities alone. 

 Agriculture is the constructive stage 

 of civilization, urbanism the stage of 

 deterioration and decline. The condi- 

 tions that permitted the development 

 of the arts and social adjustments to 

 the point where cities of non-produc- 

 ers could be su])ported, were the con- 

 ditions of primitive agricultural life, 

 with families living separately upon 

 the land and children associating with 

 their parents so that the experience 

 of the successive generations was ac- 

 cumulated. Many primitive peoples 

 went prematiu'ely into urbanism by 

 living in communal dwellings or 

 crowded settlements and restricted 

 their possibilities of development, be- 

 cause the children of such communi- 

 ties herd together and have less asso- 

 ciation with their parents." 



The failure of ability to develop 

 under the urban condition is seen in 

 the waste of youth that each genera- 

 tion laments. Ability in the country 

 may not be developed, but is likely to 



Journal of Washington 



