for my native town of Dunfermline.  My friend Mr. Carnegie, whose native town it also is, I believe intends to show by an object lesson what can be done for all cities.  Prof.  Geddes is helping him in this work with his suggestions.  I hope they will be carried out.  In America there are several very beautiful cities.  No one can ever forget Washington, which is truly a garden city.  No money is spared in America to beautify and healthify (excuse the barbarism) the habitations 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 of the body.  One of his chief duties is to watch and prevent the deterioration of the eyesight, to promote the development of the lungs, to prevent spinal deviation.  The second part of his business is to watch over the character of the child, and only the third part is to ram knowledge into the poor little mind.  And wherever you go over the world you will find something in the course of being done in civics, as I understand the subject.  I thank Prof.  Geddes for what he is doing for Dunfermline, and hope he will understand “progress” without requiring to define it.