36 City Homes on Country Lanes 



unquestioned fact that the city is the more liberal con- 

 tributor to popular funds of all kinds would be true, 

 if for no other reason, because wealth is concentrated 

 in urban centers. It is quite certain, however, that 

 there is nothing on the surface to indicate that the 

 cityward tendency is unfortunate for society from this 

 point of view. 



The question of social solidarity almost answers 

 itself. If anything, the fabric of urban life is rather 

 too solid as a whole, and more so in its group segrega- 

 tion. If it is desirable, as often it is, to evoke the sense 

 of community interest and develop community action it 

 is more readily accomplished in the town of 2,500 and 

 up than in scattered rural districts. 



Who think more clearly on public and social ques- 

 tions, city or country people? And which environment 

 is more favorable to initiative and ability to carry out 

 convictions? These questions, while not precisely 

 similar, run on parallel lines. Both turn largely on 

 mental alertness and range of information. If town 

 folk live, on the whole, a larger and fuller life, coming 

 more closely into contact with public questions and 

 economic phenomena, is it not in them rather than in 

 rural folk that we should logically expect the greater 

 manifestation of intellectual activity, the clearer vision 

 of social progress, the freer play of human feeling, the 

 readier welcome to innovating thought of every kind? 

 A study of new progressive movements in all depart- 

 ments, — if records were available, as they are not — 

 would almost certainly show that they came, as a rule, 

 out of the ferine til of city life. 



As to individual initiative and the power to carry 



