It is not easy to express adequately in a single English word the concept implied in the German Grossstadt. It does not mean only metropolis or great city, not necessarily city at all; even a town may have the qualities of a Grossstadt. But if wre have not the word we certainly have the reality. All the great centres of industry, w'here men are gathered together in masses in order to provide for their livelihood and to keep going the great machine of modern civilisation can be described as Grossstädten. In the concrete it is London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle; and even the smaller towns in the industrialised areas share in its spirit, the mining centres of South Yorkshire, the cotton towns of Lancashire, and the dirty villages of County Durham (one of which was described by Edward VIII, then Prince of Wales, as the worst in England).

These centres are either sprung out of a transformed countryside or men have come to them from quiet, orderly lives in the country. In either case they present a peculiar problem, which is part of the greater problem of man in the present age. The man of the great city (using this as the nearest equivalent of the German word) is a definite type, quite distinct from the countryman, and requires a distinctive approach on the part of those who are interested in his soul’s welfare.

How to make that approach has been the subject of a number of German brochures and even large books which have appeared in recent years.