Civics: as Applied Sociology by Patrick Geddes
page 10 of 142 (07%)
page 10 of 142 (07%)
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sociological development it may renew its educational attractiveness
when its improving hygiene has lessened its medical advantages. Setting down now these phases of historical development in tabular form, we have a diagram such as the following:-- ANCIENT | RECENT | CONTEMPORARY | INCIPIENT ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Primitive | Matri- | Patri- | Greek | Mediaeval | Renaissance | Revolution | Empire | Finance | ? ? ? | archal | archal | and | | | | | | | | | Roman | | | | | | which, were it placed erect, we might now compare to the increasing [Page: 110] nodes of a growing stem, or rather say the layers of a coral reef, in which each generation constructs its characteristic stony skeleton as a contribution to the growing yet dying and wearying whole. I have elaborated this example of the panoramic aspect of Old Edinburgh as a widely familiar instance of the method of literal survey with which social and civic studies may so conveniently begin; and I press the value of extending these even to the utmost elaborateness of photographic survey: in my view, indeed, a sociological society has at least as much use for a collection of maps, plans and photographs as of statistics, indeed scarcely less than one of books. Of course, in all this I am but recalling what every tourist in some measure knows; yet his impressions and recollections can become an orderly politography, only as he sees each city in terms of its characteristic social formations, and as he utilises the best examples from each phase towards building up a complete picture of the greatest products of civic |
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