iv CIVIC BIOLOGY 



(or, rather, disorganized), who knows whether his next- 

 door neighbors know what to do in solving common civic 

 problems ? From the way they do and live he may conclude 

 that they do not know, but they may all be passing the same 

 judgment upon him. So, instead of each one doing his civic 

 part, and knowing that the rest are doing theirs, we are 

 caught at every turn in the do-less net of " what 's-the-use- 

 ness." A would gladly protect his birds, but not to feed 

 Mrs. B's cats. C could easily exterminate his own flies, but 

 they continually swarm over from D's filthy premises. And 

 so it goes for the thousand and one civic problems, at every 

 turn the deadly question, " What 's the use ? " How can we 

 extricate ourselves from this net? 



Cooperative good will is the essential idea in civic biology, 

 as it is in the progress of civilization itself. This means that 

 civic biology consists of all those problems whose solution 

 requires cooperative effort. In the nature of the case we 

 cannot control many of the forces of living nature by any 

 amount of uncoordinated individual effort, any more than we 

 can turn back the ocean tides by haphazard sweeping with 

 brooms. The problem of civic biology, therefore, is to make 

 it possible for everyone to know what these forces are, for 

 good or for ill, and to understand how to do his part for his 

 own good and for that of the community. Cooperative build- 

 ing of the defenses offers our only hope of success, and our 

 education needs to be so organized that every citizen shall 

 know enough to stop a breach the instant he sees it. 



Acknowledgments in the text accompany pictures and 

 other contributions, except in the following cases : The figures 

 of ticks, in, Plate IV, are rearranged from those published 

 by the United States Department of Agriculture and the 

 United States Public Health Service. The upper view in the 

 frontispiece is taken from a photograph looking northward 



