SCIENCE AND CITY SUBURBS 



BY MRS. S. A. BARNETT 



THE scientific spirit is dominant. Men and 

 women who have had no training in 

 science, and have but little interest in its dis- 

 coveries, have changed their methods of thought, 

 and the source of the change is the pre- 

 valence of the scientific spirit. They do not 

 recognise the "rock from which they are hewn," 

 or what it is that has altered their point of 

 view; they only know that they are no longer 

 content to accept conditions as right because they 

 exist, or disposed to believe that laws govern the 

 material world, while chance only rules the social 

 and moral phenomena of life. In practice people 

 are more disposed to seek out causes for events 

 and to take steps to direct their issues. 



This spirit has influenced philanthropy. Many 

 years ago it was deemed sufficient that those who 

 had this world's goods should feel pitiful towards 

 those who had them not, and that a generous 

 heart could be safely left to its own instinct to " do 

 good." Around this opinion, happily now dying, 

 if not yet wholly killed by the scientific spirit, lie 

 the bodies and souls of the thousands of men and 

 women who have been helped to their destruction 



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