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The growth of cities : A discourse delivered before the New York Geographical Society, on the evening of March 15th, 1855 / by Henry P. Tappan
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has retained the original character more exclusively than St,Petersburgh, which may still be said to be divided betweenthe court and the army. On the other hand, Alexandria,which at first supplanted Tyre as the mistress of commerce,became also a famous seat of learning; Berlin stands nowunrivalled for its institutions of learning and the arts; andWashington is receiving a new character from the presenceof the Smithsonian Institution .

The sacerdotal cities have always be'en the seats of learningand the arts. The merit of being learned men cannot bedenied to the priesthood; and the temples of the deities, withtheir adornments, have always claimed the highest efforts ofthe arts. The temple of Zion, and the wisdom and magni-ficence of Solomon, made the Holy City the glory of theBast. Delphi, called by the Greeks the Havel of theEarth, incalculably enriched by offerings made at the shrineof the oracle, and with its temples, and statues, its gay reli-gious rites, and all its advantages* of situation and naturalbeauty, became the embodiment of a dream of luxury andelegance. Heliopolis, the city of the sun, now known asBalbec, in its still perfect and marvellous columns, and thebroken masses which strew the ground, reads to us a historyof architectural beauty, and of cultivated life, which makesthe traveller wonder at the surrounding desert. And Rome ,for centuries a sacerdotal city, with its glorious temple ofSt. Peter, with its three hundred churches, and its palacesfilled with frescoes, statues, and paintings, attests the powerof the religious element in the growth of cities.

But whatever be the other elements of growth, there aretwo which must always be present more or less, and theseare manufactures and commerce. They, of course, mustalways exist to a sufficient extent to bring in, or to create,and to distribute whatever is necessary to meet the wants ofthe inhabitants. But they do not exist to a sufficient extentif they do not afford full employment to the laboring classes.The offerings at the shrines, as in Delphi, the plunder ofprovinces, as in ancient Rome , and the visits of Pilgrims, as inRome of the Middle Ages, may supplant the necessity of in-dustry ; but this always inevitably leads to a luxurious andbesotted or to a seditious populace. Whatever be the pre-dominant character of the city, it cannot be a city of a health-