of the thousands. A beautiful city is an investment for health,
intellect, imagination. Genius all the world over is associated,
wherever it has been connected with cities, with beautiful cities. To
grow up among things of beauty ennobles the population. But I should
like to see Prof. Geddes extend his projects for Dunfermline to the
population itself. Most of you know what Mr. Henderson did to utilise
the Edinburgh [Page: 125] police in the care of children. The future of
the country depends upon them. The subject is too serious to continue to
be left to the haphazard mercies of indifferent parents. Every child
born is an agent for good or for evil among the community, and the
community cannot afford to neglect how it is brought up, the
circumstances in which it has its being, the environment from which it
derives its character and tendencies. Necessity may be the mother of
invention, but need of food and insufficient clothing develop in the
child an inventiveness that is not for the good of the community. It
seems a matter of too great an importance to be left even to private
initiative, as was done under Mr. Henderson's regime in Edinburgh; but
everywhere else, or nearly so, very little is done by even private
initiative for the protection of the children against their vicious
environment. In short, I do not think that civics, in the sense in which
my friend Prof. Geddes treats it, is a complete subject at all. Civics,
to my mind, includes everything that relates to the citizen. Everywhere
something is being done in one direction or another to make them
capable, prosperous, and happy. In America happiness is taught in the
schools. Every schoolmaster's and schoolmistress's first duty is to set
an example of a happy frame of mind; smiling and laughing are
encouraged, and it is not thought that the glum face is at all necessary
for the serious business of life. In fact, the glum face is a
disqualification; is associated with failure, and bad luck and
ill-nature. In Germany the schoolmaster is in the first place a trainer