Thus the City of Halifax has been galvanized into life through the testing experience of a great catastrophe. She has undergone a civic transformation, such as could hardly otherwise have happened in fifty years. She has caught the spirit of the social age. This spirit after all means only that the community is just a family on a larger scale, and the interests of each member are interwoven with those of all. But merely to catch the spirit will not suffice. It must be cherished through an inevitable period of reaction and passivity, and then carried on still further into the relations of capital and labor, into the realm of socialized recreation and into those multiform spheres of social insurance whither all true social policies lead. All these converging lines taken not singly but together constitute a very real basis of faith in the city's future, and of hope for permanent changes for the better. Perhaps this attitude cannot be more fittingly expressed than in the words of Carstens: The Halifax disaster will leave a permanent mark upon the city for at least a generation, because so many of the living have been blinded or maimed for life. But it is possible that the disaster may leave a mark of another sort, for it is confidently believed by those who took part in the relief work during the first few weeks that Halifax will gain as well as lose. The sturdy qualities of its citizens will bring 'beauty out of ashes.' But it is rather for social than for material progress that the sociologist will seek and Carstens continues: It may reasonably be expected that through this Calvary, there may be developed a program for the care, training and education of the sightless as good if not better than any now existing, that medical social service will be permanently grafted upon the hospital and out-patient service of the community, and that the staff of teachers of the stricken city, by direct contact with the intimate problems of the families of the children they have in their class-rooms may acquire a broader view of their work. If there should result no other benefits, and there are likely to be many, as for example city-planning, housing and health, the death and suffering at Halifax will not have been in vain, will not have been all loss.[177] [177] Carstens, C. C., "From the Ashes of Halifax," _Survey_, vol. xxxix, no. 13, p. 61. CHAPTER IX CONCLUSION