Science and Citizenship 



belong, in the eyes of the comparative psycho- 

 logist, to the folklore of the country. In short, 

 they are pre-scientific. In England, the legal 

 definition of a City is, as every one knows, a 

 place which is or has been the seat of a bishopric. 

 In other words, a City is essentially a cathedral 

 city. To this we must return later, merely noting 

 it now as for the sociologist a great "pointer 

 fact," in the phrase of Tylor. In the United 

 States of America, the conception of a City is, 

 in appearance at least, of a more material kind. 

 In that country there is no lack of resources 

 of observation, for it is a place where a crop 

 of new cities is grown annually. The process of 

 city making may be seen as a matter of almost 

 daily observation in new and rapidly developing 

 states of the Union, like Oklahoma and Alaska. 



VI 



There is perhaps no more representative type 

 of American civilisation, and also, therefore, of the 

 dominant phase of the contemporary western 

 world, than the American railway engineer. He 

 is the true Viking of the times, and is already on 

 the way to plant his forges, and open his lines 

 of communication all round the margin of the 

 Pacific Ocean. What is the conception of a city 

 in the mind of the American engineer ? Direct 

 items of evidence may be gathered from almost 

 any of the innumerable reports on new railway 

 enterprises, which are common documents, not 



233 



