Excerpt from The Functions of a City: An Oration Before the City Authorities of Boston, on the Fourth of July, 1868 In becoming a city, Boston shares in a characteristic movement of the period. Our age has been called the Age of Great Cities, and there is as good reason for this name as for any other which it bears. For the cities of the time are not only greater, taken together, than' those of former times, but more numerous, more widely spread, and above all, more active in the work which in all ages falls chiefly to them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.