SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 



X 



PRESENT CONDITIONS 



THE mass of unobtrusive civic services constantly rendered 

 in Glasgow by its good citizens. The tendency of social 

 reformers to overlook the good elements in civic life, and 

 to rely on denunciation, and on revolutionary methods of 

 reform. 



To improve civic life we must understand it, and to 

 understand it we must recognize its positive value ; for 

 nothing is constituted by its own shortcomings. To reform 

 society we must make more of the forces of social welfare 

 already at work ; and to make more of these forces the 

 obligations of citizenship must be felt more deeply and 

 widely. 



Evidences of a slack spirit of citizenship : the subscribers 

 to good causes, and the workers on the committees in charge 

 of social enterprises are comparatively few in number ; the 

 pulse of social life beats low in the breasts of many men who, 

 in private and business life, are upright and generous, and 

 they have a low estimate of their civic obligations. 



Reasons why business men in particular should earnestly 

 care and take trouble for the affairs of the city. A contrast 

 between the methods employed by practical men in con- 

 ducting their own affairs, and those too often followed in 

 the local and imperial parliaments. The relative indifference 

 to the affairs of the city and the State due to the want of 

 realizing the value of our social inheritance, and the conditions 

 under which alone it can be maintained unimpaired. 



R 



