Digging to the Roots of a Dying Tree 35 



deal to be said in favor of the neighborly relationship 

 that prevails in the countryside as compared with the 

 conditions of city life where a family scarcely knows the 

 people in the next house or the next apartment, while 

 those in the next block are as alien as the people of 

 San Francisco or London to the people of New York. 



As we found with religion, the case is only clear as it 

 pertains to organized effort. If the city answered more 

 generously to Mr. Hoover's clarion call on behalf of the 

 starving children of Europe, and contributed more 

 largely to the needs of famine-stricken China, it was not 

 because its population is inherently more charitable, 

 but because it is far more readily "get-at-able" ; hence, 

 more responsive to the "drive." But — - 



What is the effect of such an influence upon the city 

 people? Do they, as a class, acquire the habit of giving 

 freely? Do they thereby become more tender toward 

 suffering humanity? They hear great speakers appeal- 

 ing to their sympathies and exhorting them to noble 

 performance ; they absorb the same spirit through their 

 daily newspapers; they breathe an atmosphere of or- 

 ganized mercy for the unfortunate; they are sur- 

 rounded by public institutions that make every helpful 

 provision for the weaker members of society. Do they 

 thereby develop the quality of human kindness? And 

 when the same potent influences are directed into pa- 

 triotic channels, do city people respond with increased 

 love of country? On the other hand, does the lack of 

 such intensive cultivation tend to reduce benevolent and 

 patriotic impulses in rural districts? 



This branch of our inquiry is purely speculative; in 

 the nature of the case, it provides no statistics. The 



