Excerpt from Civic Biology: A Textbook of Problems, Local and National, That Can Be Solved Only by Civic Cooperation
Discovery is pushing forward in every direction as never before in the history of the world, and still it would seem that enough is already known to make living well-nigh ideal and the world almost a paradise, if only enough people knew. In how many of our civic units does every citizen know enough to conserve effectively the valuable bird life, the trees, the soil, and water on his own premises, to exterminate the rats and English sparrows, the flies, mosquitoes, and San Jose scale, the hookworms, diphtheria, and tuberculosis germs? If every individual citizen knows enough to do these things, in how many communities do all the people know enough to cooperate, - to work together with efforts so timed and planned that the good work of one, or of all but one, shall not be rendered vain by the failure of someone else to do his part?
The tides and currents, storms and floods, of living nature are too vast and powerful to be held within any dikes less secure than those built by the common, united effort of the whole community. The measure of our present need is seen in the wastage and loss that is streaming through our ineffectual defenses, - the probably not less than five hundred thousand valuable lives sacrificed annually to the currents of preventable disease, along with the several billions of dollars' worth of foods and other property swept away by rats, insects, weeds, and fungi. How much higher must the cost of living soar before we begin to awake from the dream that we are a scientific and efficient people?
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