Science in Public Affairs 

 XI 



In order to see our cities as they really are, 

 we must first of all see them in geographical per- 

 spective ; and in order to do this we must recover 

 the use of existing towers. We must also begin 

 building new ones, designed and equipped to aid 

 us in seeing with the eye of the geographer. In 

 the scientific vision the first element is the vision 

 of the geographer ; or, putting it in another way, 

 in the complex chord which we call science the 

 first note is a geographical one. This vision of 

 the geographer, what is it ? Whence comes it ? 

 How may we ordinary citizens acquire it ? What 

 use would it be to us if we did acquire it ? 



Our school initiation into geography acquaints 

 us with a certain scheme of form and colour 

 symbolism which we call a map. The impres- 

 sion which intimate familiarity with the maps of 

 our childhood leaves on the mind is apt to be a 

 picture of the country called France, which is 

 little more than an octagonal red patch, of Spain 

 a square brown patch, of Scandinavia an oblong 

 green patch, of the Rhine a blue line running 

 from a dark patch called Switzerland, to a blue 

 patch called the German Ocean. The experience 

 of reading, observation, and travel doubtless supple- 

 ments and corrects these crude pictorial impres- 

 sions ; and, in proportion to the fulness of such 

 later experience, we approximate more nearly to 

 the vision of the geographer, who sees our globe 

 as it really is, has been, and is becoming, in space 



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