WAM/JMLiBMJ!^^ 
 
 WHAT SOCIOLOGY HAS TO CONTRIBUTE 
 TO THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION 
 
 JOSEPH T. WILLIAMS 
 
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 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOaOLOGY 
 
 A series of seven reprints from Education^ March to 
 
 December, 1921, indicating the contributions 
 
 of sociologists to the science of education 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH T. WILLIAMS, Ph. D., (Columbia) 
 
 SALEM, MASS. 
 
 Newcomb & Gauss, Prin^sbrs 
 
 1921
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 For several years it has been my work to teach both Sociology and 
 the Principles of Education to prospective teachers among college stu- 
 dents. As material for the latter course I have found myself drawing 
 increasingly from the writings of the sociologists. What our sociol- 
 ogists have to contribute to the science of education has not been 
 adequately recognized. To promote this recognition for the ends it 
 may serve has been the purpose of these seven articles. Of course, 
 the publications of the six authors considered do not exhaust what 
 sociology has to contribute to education, nor do these sketches by any 
 means exliaust the six. This is but a preliminary study. I am indebted 
 to the Editor of Education for bringing this material to the attention 
 of the teaching profession. 
 
 JOSEPH T. WILLIAMS. 
 
 Drury College, 
 
 Springfield, Mo. 
 
 Dec. 15, 1921.
 
 SPU.F 
 URL 
 
 SYNOPSIS 
 
 Chapter I. Although no longer new, Ward's contribution has had 
 great influence on recent soeiologj'. Unceasingly Ward urged education 
 as the sole means of social progress. He shows education to be man's 
 supreme method and opportunity if he would control his social destiny. 
 He repudiated Galton's contention of the irrepressibility of genius. Most 
 often genius remains undiscovered. Society is to be enriched by drawing 
 forth the latent qualities of the masses. The universal diffusion of , 
 scientific knowledge furnishes the means to this end. Page 1. 
 
 Chapter II. The organic conception of mind underlies the social phi- 
 losophy of Cooley. In it alone we discover the true relation between the 
 individual and his group. Any society or social group implies a union 
 by means of a common consciousness. A school group is an illustration 
 of organized mind. The pupil shares in a common consciousness which 
 determines him and to which he also contributes. Family, playground, 
 and school groups are the main determinants of the growing personality 
 of the child. Apparently the character of one's group memberships is 
 the essential thing in one's education. Definition of a universitJ^ 
 
 Page 11. 
 
 Chapter III. A search for the means of social progress is the task 
 undertaken by Todd. In a lengthy definition, progress is seen to be a 
 complex of many factors, all centering about human well-being as their 
 aim. A prerequisite consideration in any program of progress is the 
 character of human nature, that is, of the self. Fortunatety, human 
 nature is found to be plastic and adaptable, rich in variety and possi- 
 bility. One has many possible "selves" ; which of them shall dominate 
 is mainly a matter of the social environment. A type of personality 
 which is not exploitive, nor even adaptive, but contrihutice, is essential 
 to progress. It will be secured only by a comprehensive system of social 
 education, which is therefore the means to progress. Page 21. 
 
 Chapter IV. Ellwood writes from the viewpoint of social psychology. 
 The social life is essentially psychic and sociology is essentially a 
 psychic science. Social life is therefore to be interpreted in such terms 
 as instinct, acquired habit, mental attitude, suggestion, values, senti- 
 ment, ideas, emotion, intelligence. It is likewise such psychic data with 
 which education is concerned. In fact, the human social process itself 
 is essentially an educative process, a consideration which is basal to the 
 construction of an educational sociologj'. Education is found to be the 
 ultimate method of social organization and of social progress. Good 
 citizenship requires that the social studies be central in the school. 
 
 Page 32.
 
 IV SYNOPSIS 
 
 Cliapter V. Numerous phases of education are touched upon by Eoss. 
 Of these the following are given special attention: (a) The effects of 
 social cont-acts upon the growth of the individual: (b) Social environ- 
 ment as a factor in the character of persons and peoples; (c) The place 
 of recreation and of art in life; (d) Eugenics and the education of 
 women; (e) Arguments for teaching the social sciences; (f) Relation 
 of the school to the government; (g) Education as protection against 
 mob mind. Page 43. 
 
 Chapter VI. Education assumes a large place in the sociology of 
 Hayes. Let us consider his treatment of social control. Through its 
 agencies of control, the developed society is able to direct consciously 
 and rationally the social process. Bxit society will work for a rational 
 goal only if control is united with enlightenment. Enlightened control 
 depends upon the prevalence of a type of personality characterized by 
 certain social traits. The desired type of personality, the definition of 
 which is elaborated by Hayes, must be a product of education. Reasons 
 for the belief that much greater co-operation in the social life is 
 attainable. Page 56. 
 
 Chapter Nil. Our sociologists urge ideas which we associate with 
 enlightened democracy : e. g., a belief in the latencies of the masses, 
 recognition of the worth of the common man, a leadership always to 
 be tested by the service ideal. Society being dynamic is capable of con- 
 tinued leorganization consistent with the growth and expression of the 
 humaTi self as a social being. Education is the method of progress. 
 
 Sociology may be expected to supjjly education with aims both ulti- 
 mate and immediate, therefore with that larger vision it lacks. Educa- 
 tional sociology will build on the fundamental concepts of sociology as 
 a basis; it will study the educational effects of numerous agencies in 
 the social environment ; it will define the character and ends of school 
 activities in reference to social aims. Page 70.
 
 Education in Recent Sociology 
 
 I 
 
 f""""'"""""""""'|DUCATIONAL Sociology is a part of the field of 
 I «-« I applied sociology. A literature of educational 
 I p^ I sociology is rapidly developing. To be worth 
 I I while it needs the foundation of a solid soci- 
 
 ^jiniiiiiiiiiDiiHniHHK^ ology. The opinions of men who are primarily soci- 
 I I ologists, and the educational bearing of their 
 
 I I writinsfs, have significance for students in this field, 
 
 feuch IS the purpose oi the present discussion. We 
 are interested in the views of these men not as individuals but as 
 sociologists. We want to know the place of education as they see 
 it in the whole movement of society. We are concerned with their 
 educational conclusions as parts or outgrowths of their sociological 
 systems. 
 
 Our present study will be limited to the writings of six repre- 
 sentative American sociologists: Lester F. Ward,, Charles H. 
 Cooley, Arthur J. Todd, Charles A. Ellwood, Edward A. Ross 
 and Edward Cary Hayes. Each of these will be the subject of 
 one article, and a seventh will deal with a summary and some sug- 
 gestions for an educational sociology. While Ward's contribution 
 is no longer new, it has had much influence on more recent writings 
 along this line. 
 
 Lesteb E. Waed. 
 
 In 1883 Ward published, in two volumes. Dynamic Sociology. It 
 remains his greatest work although followed by other significant 
 volumes, especially Psychic Factors in Civilization, 1893, Out- 
 lines of Sociology, 1898, Pure Sociology, 1903, and Applied So- 
 ciology, 1906. His educational views are expressed at most length
 
 2 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 in the second volume of Dynamic Sociology and in Applied Soci- 
 ology. But his copious references to education and constant as- 
 sertion that it alone is the means to human progress are found 
 throughout his sociological writings covering a period of thirty 
 years. That faith in education as the social panacea remained 
 undimmed until the close of his life is evident in a number of 
 letters and addresses published near the end of "Glimpses of the 
 Cosmos," an autobiography of his literary career, in six volumes. 
 In volume six of the series is printed an address called "Education 
 and Progress," which is a partial summary and reiteration of his 
 educational doctrine. It was given at Oxford in 1909. 
 
 The sociologist, like the poet, lives in a house by the side of the 
 road as the race of men go by. What we call sociology is a study 
 of the social procession. It has to do with a human group that is 
 moving. Is it a progressive movement in the direction of a de- 
 sired goal, or mere drift ? Does social evolution necessarily bring 
 higlier conditions of life; in other words, is progress inevitable? 
 Is the pessimism expressed recently in a cosmopolitan daily, "The 
 world is like a squirrel in a revolving cage, going nowhere with 
 great rapidity," justified of the social process in general ? How 
 significant is the human will in the process ? How far can we 
 hope to determine our social destiny 'i These are problems for the 
 sociologist. 
 
 Volume one of Dynamic Sociology has to do with the evolution 
 of the physical world and with man as the product of natural 
 forces. Man's consciousness was at first a negligible factor in his 
 evolution. But the evolutionary process in producing the mind of 
 man, capable of unlimited adaptation, marked him off as distinct 
 and superior to the rest of nature. Man has become conscious of 
 the movement of which he is a part. He looks about and finds 
 it is possible within limits to understand and direct the process. 
 The human will, therefore, enters as a factor, and the process be- 
 comes at least in part self-directive. This is a matter of the utmost 
 importance. Man's social destiny is in his own keeping. Ward
 
 EDUCATION IN EECENT SOCIOLOGY 3 
 
 urges unceasingly the possibilities to come from the conscious 
 direction of social processes, and the superiority of conscious over 
 unconscious control, a point of view of great significance in the 
 history of thought. From this point we have to consider the place 
 of man's knowledge and of his conscious effort in the social process. 
 
 Ward concluded that the end of life is happiness, that such is 
 what men individually and collectively seek. He was unquestion- 
 ably influenced by the ethics of Utilitarianism. But with Ward 
 it is less a matter of the individual happiness quest than in the 
 earlier utilitarian writings. He is concerned with the collective 
 organization of happiness, happiness for all by combined social 
 effort. 
 
 The problem throughout volume two of Dynamic Sociology con- 
 cerns what the author calls conation, which may be defined as 
 striving, or more particularly, intelligent striving. We have al- 
 ready seen that man strives after happiness. But any direct pur- 
 suit of happiness is barren of results. There is a series of more 
 immediate ends necessary as means to collective happiness, the 
 ultimate goal. Happiness is reached by a series of steps each lead- 
 ing directly to the next. These are Education, Knowledge, 
 Opinion, Action, Progress and Happiness. Education is therefore 
 the initial means in the organization of happiness. The formula 
 might be abbreviated to read : Education is essential to the spread 
 of knowledge and therefore to the creation of that dynamic public 
 opinion which alone can result in progress in the direction of or- 
 ganized happiness. As Professor Ellwood puts it: "Ward saw 
 clearly that the social life of man is of a nature of a developing 
 social mind; that to control action we must control opinions, be- 
 liefs, ideas and standards." 
 
 Education is then the basal condition of progress. Not only is 
 education the initial step, but with it accomplished all the other 
 steps follow automatically. Ward's subliine ^^th in education as 
 the means to social welfare is shown in a passage in Applied Soci- 
 ology. Four of the terms of the series leading to the organization 
 of happiness, he says, are practically beyond the reach of social 
 action, and "only in the first term, Education, do we find anything 
 tangible, anything upon which society can directly lay hold and 
 exert its power to change, modify and improve. But it was also
 
 4 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 fouiul tliat the entire series of means are so related and dependent, 
 each upon the immediately antecedent one, that whatever affects 
 any one affects all above it, so that it is not necessary to apply 
 force to any of the intermediate terms, as the force applied to the 
 most remote term is communicated automatically through the entire 
 series and ultimately cxj^ends itself without loss in transmission 
 upon the end itself. The rude comparison made of a row of 
 bricks stood on end, of which it is only necessary to touch the 
 first one to see them all fall in succession, is a perfect illustration 
 of the process and one within the comprehension of all."^ Let fall 
 the brick of education and humanity may be expected to move 
 on in happy procession. 
 
 Education is the sole means to economic reform. Ward dis- 
 played impatience with projected social and economic reforms 
 not preceded by educational changes. Social reform other than by 
 educational means is a chimera. "There can be no equality and no 
 justice, not to speak of equity, so long as society is composed of 
 members equally endowed by nature, only a few of whom possess 
 the social heritage of truth and ideas resulting from the laborious 
 investigations and profound meditations of all past ages, while 
 the great mass are shut out from the light that human achieve- 
 ment has shed upon the world. The equalization of opportunity 
 means the equalization of intelligence, and not until this is at- 
 tained is there any virtue or any hope in schemes for the equaliza- 
 tion of the material resources of society."^ Earlier passages ex- 
 press the same idea. ''It is high time for socialists to perceive 
 that as a rule they are working at the roof instead of the founda- 
 tion of the structure they desire to erect. The distribution of 
 knowledge underlies all social reform. So long as capital and 
 labor are the respective symbols of intelligence and ignorance the 
 present inequity in the distribution of wealth must continue."^ 
 
 The world's intellectual heritage belongs to all men. "Ward 
 makes the strongest plea for a general diffusion of knowledge. 
 "In the administration of the social estate the first and principal 
 
 1 Applied Sociology, p. 280. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 281. 
 
 3 Dynamic Sociology, II, p. 59S.
 
 EDUCATION IN EECENT SOCIOLOGY 5 
 
 task is to hunt up all the heirs and to give each his share. But 
 every member of society is equally the heir to the entire social 
 heritage, and as we have already seen, all may possess it without 
 depriving any of any part of it. And as the social heritage con- 
 sists of the knowledge that has been brought into the world, this 
 task is nothing less than the diffusion of all knowledge among all 
 men."^ 
 
 All knowledge among all men sounds like the old doctrine of 
 pansophism; but it is not that because it has reference, not to 
 complete knowledge of the universe, but to the intellectual in- 
 heritance already enjoyed by the fortunate. It includes the 
 sciences of astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology and 
 sociolog}', under which, says Ward may be grouped all the facts 
 and phenomena in the universe known to the mind of man. All 
 persons are not supposed to attain equal knowledge of the details 
 of these several sciences, but all should become acquainted with 
 their general truths. 
 
 What the world especially needs, says Ward, is a new faith in 
 the power of scientific education, a faith as deep and powerful 
 as that inspired by religious creeds in the past. Likewise we 
 need to understand that the ends of progress are certainly at- 
 tainable, through the utilization of the material and social forces 
 which exist in nature. 
 
 Does genius always become known ? Is it not rather subject 
 to opportunity, and therefore is it not probable that the genius 
 which remains latent is vaster in amount by far than that which 
 becomes known ? Ward opposed vigorously the conclusions ex- 
 pressed by Francis Galton in his studies of hereditary genius. 
 According to Galton genius is very certain to assert itself. It 
 tends to be irrepressible. In this view environment is a negligible 
 factor in the assertion of genius. Like murder genius "will out." 
 Moreover, says Galton, when any man attains a high reputation it 
 is excellent proof that he has high native ability. 
 
 Ward did not deny the worth of the evidence which Galton 
 submitted to prove that genius may be hereditary. But he urged 
 
 4 Applied Sociology, p. 307.
 
 6 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 that Gallon was mistaken in his collateral thesis that actual genius 
 is the only genius. Hidden among the people is an amount of 
 genius far greater than that familiar to the world. It remains 
 latent. Genius is not irrepressible. It requires opportunity to 
 bring it out. Ward admits that human achievement has been the 
 work of a very small number of individuals, but, "How many 
 such minds there may be at any given time it is impossible to 
 determine because those that are kno\vn to exist are only such as 
 have been permitted by environment to assert themselves. Great 
 men then are the mentally endowed who have had a chance to 
 use their talents. There is reason to believe too that this is only 
 a small percentage of those who possess talents."^ The treasures 
 of the earth are segregated and exist only in rare spots, while the 
 treasures of human genius are somewhat uniformly distributed 
 and there is no region which, if properly worked, will not yield 
 them."2 
 
 Ward is undoubtedly correct in criticising the manner of Gal- 
 ton's conclusions. Galton did mistake the high position of public 
 functionaries for superior ability, and like coins took them at their 
 stamped rather than at their intrinsic value. From Galton's well 
 known study of the Judges of England, to whom as eminent 
 office holders he reputed genius, Ward deduces that their "great- 
 ness" is due almost wholly to their positions. Reflection upon the 
 subtle analysis required to distinguish hereditary elements from 
 environmental effects shows the naviete of Galton's method. 
 
 That those who manifest talent are but a small percentage of 
 those who might do so, and that human genius is somewhat evenly 
 distributed among all classes is not a mere assumption with Ward. 
 He submits proof. Chapter IX which comprises nearly one third 
 of the contents of Applied Sociology contains an elaborate and 
 detailed study of the effects of environment in producing dis- 
 tinguished men. It is based on investigations by Odin, Candolle, 
 Jacoby, Galton and others. The percentage of the eminent in a 
 given area is shown to be affected by density of population, near- 
 ness to cultural centers, and other educational and economic ele- 
 
 1 Applied Sociology, p. 133, 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 237.
 
 KDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 7 
 
 ments present as environmental factors. The investigation is 
 centered in France but it includes also England, Germany, Italy 
 and Spain. We have space here only for conclusions. Ward's 
 conclusion is that ninety-eight per cent of the men of talent of 
 France, and only slightly less in the four other countries, were 
 provided in their youth with ample educational facilities. And 
 only about two per cent of those who became eminent succeeded in 
 struggling up to distinction after a limited or wholly neglected 
 early education. 
 
 And again in discussing the resources of society, the "unworked 
 mines" of talent among the masses. Ward concludes that only ten 
 per cent of these resources have been developed. Another 
 ten per cent are somewhat developed. There remains eighty 
 per cent as yet almost wholly undeveloped. The task of 
 applied sociology is to show how the latent four-fifths of mankind 
 can be turned to account in the work of civilization. Ward in- 
 sists that talent and genius are distributed throughout the ranks 
 of the uneducated in the same numerical proportion as among the 
 "city bom, the opulent, the nobility, and ^e academicians," and 
 also that a well organized system of education would increase 
 fecundity in "dynamic agents of society" or social leaders, at least 
 one hundred fold. 
 
 If it is claimed that the above calculation is not based upon 
 American conditions it is easy to reply that in America even few- 
 er men of distinction have emerged. While we have had a large 
 crop of so called "self made" men, the average of these is after all 
 not very well made, and usually fails in appreciation of higher 
 humanitarian values. 
 
 Genius however is relative. From Ward's lengthy discussion of 
 distinguished men it should not be inferred that he was obsessed 
 with the superman idea, as Galton appears to have been. Quite 
 the contrary. Genius he held to be entirely relative. There are 
 gradations in everything and likewise in genius. There are 
 aU conceivable degrees of genius. A dweller on our central 
 plains hears only of a few great mountains in the West. 
 He learns the names of the high peaks in the geography texts. 
 The fact is, there are whole ranges of mountaii;s almost us high,
 
 8 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 and many more of lesser height but of the same compositon and 
 shape. For many purposes the latter may be the more valuable. 
 So it is with human ability. 
 
 Ward's principle of ''intellectual egalitarianism," a term he in- 
 vented, was the theme of his Oxford address, 1909. He main- 
 tained that there is no difference in the native capacity of man- 
 kind so far as social classes are concerned, that the brain power 
 is the same at the various levels, and that even the lowest serfs and 
 slaves have had the same potential powers and faculties as those 
 who have controlled and exploited them. Inequality among in- 
 dividual minds he readily conceded, but maintained that much 
 of this inequality is but apparent and is best interpreted by the 
 term "intellectual individuality." 
 
 Criticisms of Ward's views are easy to make. Perhaps he un- 
 derestimated the interdependence of institutions. He may not 
 have appreciated well enough the organic conception of society, 
 and so failed to see the reciprocal relation of forces operative in 
 the social process. An illustration of this is his professed non-in- 
 terest in social and economic reforms unless preceded by education 
 as the initial step. It may be argued that direct attempts at 
 social, economic and political reforms may themselves be the very 
 best means of educating the people in such matters. And with 
 social reforms secured, the task of education itself is easier. Still 
 his conclusion is in the main correct. Stability in social reform 
 is certainly dependent on changes in ideas, standards and values. 
 The experience of Boards of Health in our large cities furnishes 
 an illustration of this kind. They have usually been invested with 
 large powers which they found impossible to use unless preceded 
 by extensive educational propaganda. 
 
 A second criticism is in the narrovmess of his definition of 
 education. He considered the problem of education to be the 
 universal distribution of the extant knowledge of the world. It is 
 so stated in Dynamic Sociology and accepted unchanged in later 
 works. Social participation as an educational factor is lacking. 
 We do not believe today that mere diffusion of knowledge assures
 
 EDUCATION IN IJECENT SOCIOLOGY 9 
 
 effective citizenship. And what is the kind of knowledge to be 
 distributed ? Although Ward included sociology as one of the 
 six sciences in his hierarchy, there is little emphasis upon appreci- 
 ation of social knowledge as we have begun to use the term. For 
 instance, he defined Progress as "success in harmonizing natural 
 phenomena with human advantage," and Dynamic Opinion as 
 "correct views of man's relation to the universe." Ward's em- 
 phasis upon the mastery of nature is in fact a reflection of nine- 
 teenth century natural science. While we admit that man's con- 
 quest of nature and his knowledge of natural phenomena have re- 
 acted powerfully upon human affairs, nevertheless the problems 
 of applied sociology have to do less with the relations of man to 
 the universe than with the relations of man to man. 
 
 On the other hand it may be urged in favor of Ward's position 
 that in nature he included social forces. But in contrast to the 
 physical environment they represent a division of nature over 
 which man has attained little control, due in part to their com- 
 plexity and obscurity. "He has made the winds, waters, fire, 
 steam and electricity do his bidding . . . One field alone re- 
 mains unsubdued. One class of natural forces still remains the 
 play of chance, and from it instead of aid, he is constantly re- 
 ceiving the most serious checks. This field is that of the social 
 forces, of whose nature man seems to possess no knowledge, whose 
 very existence he ignores, and which he consequently is powerless 
 to control."^ This may explain Ward's lack of emphasis upon 
 social education. Knowledge of a social character was not at hand 
 to be taught. He certainly did recognize the need of social science 
 in human affairs. He urged that legislators, administr'ators, 
 judges and all dealing practically and directly with social forces 
 be students of sociology and also seek the assistance of the social 
 expert in their work. But he admitted with regret that there was 
 scarcely to be found a book on sociology that would afford useful 
 principles for their guidance; in fact that the study of society 
 was still where physics and chemistry were in the fifteenth century. 
 
 In conclusion some outstanding contributions will be briefly 
 summarized. Ward's emphasis upon the vast possibilities which 
 
 1 Dynamic Sociology, I, p. 36.
 
 10 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 lie in a conscious rational direction of human affairs, upon the 
 superiority of conscious over unconscious control of the social 
 process, was mentioned as a striking addition to the history of 
 thought. 
 
 That education is the main agency for the realization of social 
 ideals is a conception which of course does not begin with Lester 
 F. Ward. It is at least as old as Plato's Kepublic. It was asserted 
 by Turgot in the middle of the eighteenth century. But none have 
 expounded the doctrine with more ardent mastery than Ward. 
 Education is shown to be man's supreme method and opportunity 
 if he would control his social destiny. Tie therefore struck an im- 
 portant note in the new science of sociology. If education is the 
 vital factor in the social process, as Ward maintained, the soci- 
 ologists may well make it the object of profound consideration. 
 The researches of the specialist into social problems and processes 
 contribute greatly to defining the teacher's work. Their aid in the 
 development of scientific education will be immense. And Ward is 
 unquestionably correct in his thesis. Our optimism concerning 
 the future of the race lies wholly in education. It lies in fact in 
 the successful working of an educational scheme far more compre- 
 hensive than any thing so far contemplated. 
 
 ISTone have emphasized more than Ward the latent qualities 
 of human nature and the latent abilities of the masses. While in 
 enlightened countries there may be only a completely "submerged 
 tenth," he says, there is also only a completely emerged tenth, 
 and there is no valid reason why the other partly emerged 
 eight-tenths should not completely emerge. What if a very much 
 larger portion of the material means of the world were applied to 
 develop these "unworked mines" of society ? What if it became the 
 main interest of men individually and collectively to elicit the 
 latent qualities of all human minds in the direction of a common 
 fund of good ? The possible results are dazzling to the imagina- 
 tion. The conditions imposed upon the human race do not pre- 
 clude the attainment of an ideal order of society. The City of 
 God may be realized increasingly. The problem is that of elicit- 
 ing the latent, and of organizing it.
 
 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 11 
 
 II 
 
 Charles H. Cooley. 
 
 |imHnmiiaiiiniiiiitit| q understand the social writings of Professor Cooley 
 
 I it is important at the outset to grasp clearly the 
 
 I organic conception of mind. Any one perceives 
 
 I without difficulty the interworking of parts in a 
 
 $]iiMiiiiiiiiaiiiiiiiiiiiicl complex machine, or understands at least vaguely 
 
 I I the reciprocal action of organs in an animal body. 
 
 I I He derives thereby an elementary meaning of 
 
 •i>3iiiuiiimiaHiiiiiiHiii>i> i.'Qpgjjj^jg " -Qy^i applied to mind the student finds 
 
 the conception harder to grasp. "Mind," we are told, in the open- 
 ing sentence of Social Organization, "is an organic whole, made up 
 of co-operating individualities in somewhat the same way that 
 the music of an orchestra is made up of divergent but related 
 sounds." And just as we do not divide the music of individual 
 instruments from that of the whole, so we cannot divide mind into 
 individual and social. I have my own thoughts, yes, but they 
 have flown in upon me from many sources, from ancestors, from 
 distant sages, from associates both near and remote. The social 
 mind is a complex the parts of which are related by organization 
 and reciprocal influences, but by no means are all of them in 
 agreement. The organization is evident in the simplest inter- 
 course and as well in the widest and most complex relations. If 
 one cannot see this organization, says Cooley, a definition would 
 be useless. 
 
 Any one who observes the small child knows how, as his con- 
 sciousness emerges, he identifies himself with a group. He thinks 
 in terms of "we," "our" and "us" quite as early as he thinks of his 
 separate self. "Self and society are twin born, we know one as 
 immediately as we know the other, and the notion of a separate 
 and independent ego is an illusion." A caution is necessary at 
 this point. When the average person thinks of society, what prob- 
 
 Professor Cooley has published three books, Human Nature and the 
 Social Order, Social Organization, and Social Process, which supply the 
 data for this study.
 
 12 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 ably comes to his mind is an aggregate of material bodies, and the 
 individual is one of these bodies. But the sociologist means some- 
 thing very different. A mere aggregate never makes a society. 
 It would be ludicrous to speak of a society of trees in the forest. 
 We must rid ourselves entirely of a concept of society as an aggre- 
 gate of bodies. The primary condition of any society is mental 
 interaction. Of course, an aggregate of bodies is a necessary con- 
 dition of a human society, but that is not what constitutes it a 
 society, or the pebbles on the shore and chickens in the barnyard 
 would come under the definition. Society always means a group 
 united by a common consciousness and by reciprocal mental influ- 
 ences, and all human beings who comprise a group are so united. 
 
 The types of consciousness which unite a group are well shown 
 by Cooley in an illustration. He takes congenial family life as 
 an example, but application may be made to any group united by 
 common interests. There is first a public consciousness and this 
 includes those thoughts and feelings which hold the members to- 
 gether as a co-operative group ; secondly, in the mind of each per- 
 son is a vivid sense of the personal traits and modes of thought 
 and feeling of the other members; and again, there is each one's 
 consciousness of himself, which is largely indeed a direct reflec- 
 tion of the ideas about himself he attributes to the others, and 
 which is altogether a product of the social life. It is evident 
 then, that group consciousness is a combination of divergent ele- 
 ments held together in a more or less unified whole. 
 
 The school group furnishes an illustration of organized mind. 
 The school is a group of individuals representing similar interests 
 and desires. There is always evident, even in the lowest grade, 
 a public consciousness, comprising ideas, feelings and attitudes 
 tending to group solidarity and co-operation. There is in each 
 member a growing social consciousness as he enters more and more 
 into the concerns and the understanding of others. And there is 
 likewise a developing sense of himself, and this sense of himself 
 is unquestionably, as Professor Cooley says, a reflection of the 
 opinions he believes others to hold of him. The analysis of indi- 
 vidual and group mind shows the members of a group to be part
 
 EDtrOATIOISr IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 13 
 
 and parcel of eacli other, not flesh of each other's flesh, but mind 
 of each other's mind. This description applies perfectly to the 
 school. There are usually, of course, individuals who by influ- 
 ences of heredity or of other group memberships (and every child 
 is presumed to be a member of at least a family group) resist 
 more or less the dominant school group interests. But, as said 
 at the beginning, the group organization does not require complete 
 agreement; it does imply mental interaction and reciprocal 
 influences. 
 
 The reciprocal influences of the members of the school group 
 upon one another may be represented by the diagrams often used 
 in psychology text books illustrating the association of ideas. 
 From points representing ideas and images lines are extended to 
 many other points, back and forth in criss-cross fashion. From 
 the teacher and each child are radiated influences to all other 
 members of the group. It v^^ould not be over-fantastic to say that 
 a group of growing minds is like an association of stars, each 
 emitting light upon the others and all illumined in a common 
 light to which each contributes. There is this striking dif- 
 ference, that, without the others, or some others, each mind would 
 remain dark. Eeflections on the relations of the individual and 
 the group mind lead one to think that perhaps the most sig-nilicant 
 factor in the education of the immature person in school is the 
 character of his group memberships. 
 
 Cooley's chapters on Primary Groups and Ideals have become 
 well known. The meaning of a primary group is given as follows : 
 "By primary groups I mean those characterized by intimate, face- 
 to-face association and co-operation. They are primary in sev- 
 eral senses, but chiefly in that they are fundamental in forming 
 the social nature and ideals of the individual. The result of 
 intimate association, psychologically, is a certain fusion of indi- 
 vidualities in a common whole, so that one's very self, for many 
 purposes at least, is the common life and purpose of the group. 
 Perhaps the simplest way of describing this wholeness is by say- 
 ing it is a 'we.' It involves the sort of sympathy and mutual 
 identification for which 'we' is the natural expression. One
 
 14 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 lives in the feeling of the whole and finds the chief aims of his 
 will in that feeling."^ As examples of the 'we' gi'oups, where per- 
 sons meet in face-to-face association, he mentions the family, the 
 playground and neighborhood groups, the gang, the village com- 
 munity, the self-governing Russian mir. 
 
 It is these primary groups that are the nurseries of human na- 
 ture. It is in them that the truly human qualities are acquired 
 and developed. It is there, too, that we must look for social ideals. 
 "Where do we get our notions of love, freedom, justice, and the 
 like, which we are ever applying to our social institutions ? iiot 
 from abstract philosophy, surely, but from actual life of simple 
 and widespread forms of society, like the family or the play-group. 
 In these relations mankind realizes itself, gratifies its primary 
 needs in a fairly satisfactory manner, and from the experience 
 forms standards of what it is to expect from more elaborate asso- 
 ciation."^ 
 
 What are the ideals sought in attempts to realize a democratic 
 state ? Such things, of course, as equality of opportunity, fair 
 dealing, fraternity, justice, fellow feeling, group loyalty. But 
 these are qualities of human nature which have their origin in 
 primary groups alone And as ideals of democracy they are kept 
 stable and fresh by constant renewal in the hearts of the people 
 associated in these groups. Another essential of democracy is the 
 feeling of group unity. We may call it loyalty. Royce identified 
 the moral life with loyalty. And Professor Cooley says, "The 
 ideal of moral unity I take to be the mother, as it were, of all 
 social ideals." It is again the primary groups that afford the 
 basis for loyalty. He who has learned to merge his personality 
 in the concerns of his immediate groups is thereby prepared for 
 loyalty in such larger associations as the state or mankind. 
 
 Social ideals and habits are developed in the school. Certainly 
 the conditions of the primary group surround the child there. He 
 participates in a common life, shares a common consciousness, and 
 he learns to adjust himself to his fellows. Unfortunately, the 
 schools do not use their opportunities to the extent they might. 
 Should it not be the larger purpose of the school to elicit feelings 
 
 1 Social Organization, p. 23.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 15 
 
 of unity and loyalty and social powers and virtues ? Cooley states 
 his view in the following lines : "The merging of himself in the 
 willing service of a greater whole raises man to the higher function 
 of human nature. We need to aim at this in all phases of our 
 life, but nowhere is it easier to attain or more fruitful of results 
 than in connection with the schools. Since the school environment 
 is comparatively easy to control, here is the place to create an ideal 
 formative group, or system of groups, which shall envelop the 
 individual and mould his growth, a model society by assimilation 
 to which he may become fit to leaven the rest of life. Here, 
 if anywhere, we can insure his learning loyalty, discipline, ser- 
 vice, personal address and democratic co-operation, all by willing 
 practice in the fellowship of his contemporaries. As a good 
 family is an ideal world in miniature, in respect of love and 
 brotherhood, so the school and playground should supply such a 
 world in respect of self-discipline and social organization. There 
 is nothing now taking place, it would seem, more promising of 
 great results than the development of groups which appeal to the 
 young on the social and active side of their natures and evoke a 
 community spirit."^ It is an idea of Cooley that every one who 
 has attended any kind of school should have an alma mater, a 
 place of learning associated with friendship, loyalty and ideals of 
 youth. Common schools in town and country might then play the 
 part in the life of the masses of the people that colleges do in that 
 of the privileged class, thereby providing many more continuous 
 groups, the bearers and transmitters of a high social spirit. 
 
 Fellowship in the school group is the most potent factor in 
 school life. The accepted notion of a school is a place where a 
 group of students master the studies which make up the curricu- 
 lum. While learning of this kind is essential, is not the more 
 significant factor the group itself and the relations of the group 
 members to one another ? The child finds himself one of a group 
 of persons, and through contact with these, including the teacher, 
 his personality emerges. The two things following are given by 
 Cooley as indispensable to a school: "First, an intimate relation 
 
 1 Social Process, p. 72.
 
 16 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 with a teacher who can arouse and guide the child's mental life, 
 and, second, a good group spirit among the children themselves, 
 in which he may share. The first meets the need we all have in 
 our formative years for a friend and confidant in whom we also 
 feel wisdom and authority ; and, I assume, we are not to rely upon 
 the child's finding such at home. The second, equal membership 
 in a group of our fellows, develops the democratic spirit of loyalty, 
 service, emulation, and discussion. These are the primary con- 
 ditions which the child as a human being requires for the growth 
 of his human nature ; and if I could be sure of them I should not 
 be exacting about the curriculum, conceiving the harm done by 
 mistakes in this to be small compared with that resulting from 
 defect in the social basis of the child's life. And it is the latter, 
 it seems to me, which, because of its inward and spiritual character, 
 not to be ascertained or tested in any definite way, we are most 
 likely to overlook."^ 
 
 Success and failure are often the result of social suggestion. 
 It is the reaction upon him of his group, including the teacher, 
 that determines for the child or youth his conception of himself as 
 a success or failure. The theory of teaching might profit by 
 incorporating the viewpoint in the chapter in ''Social Process" 
 on Degeneration and the Will. Success is a habit, so is failure. 
 Often each is entered upon accidentally. One's social experience 
 may be such as to break down his strength of will. "The process 
 known as 'losing your grip' is primarily a loss of self-respect and 
 self-confidence due to a series of failures. Imagined loss of the 
 respect of others enters largely into it, and it is hastened by the 
 inability to dress well and to keep clean, also by poor food, anxiety, 
 loss of sleep and physical deterioration." On the other hand, 
 ''The habit of accomplishment, and that alone, gives self-respect, 
 hope, and courage to face the eyes of men. The disheartened man 
 is no man, and if kept disheartened for a long time he is matter 
 for the scrap-heap. The healthy growth of the will requires diffi- 
 culty, to be sure, and even failure, but only such failure and diffi- 
 
 1 Social Process, p. 62.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY lY 
 
 culty as can be and are overcome in a sufficient proportion of cases 
 to keep confidence alive." ^ 
 
 The will may take a degenerate course. We need to guage the 
 abilities of people individually and not commit the error of hold- 
 ing them to things which they cnnnot do. The average man can- 
 not scramble over an eight-foot fence. Our typical school require- 
 ments are not adapted to all pupils. "Fail him out," is the school's 
 usual disposition of the unfit. We are Social Darwinists in prac- 
 tice, if not in theory. American colleges have pushed thousands 
 of students out at the end of the first year through mal-adaptation 
 to the foreign language requirements alone. Much of the enor- 
 mous elimination all along the educational ladder is due to failure 
 to succeed, a failure resulting to greater or less degree in impaired 
 will and self-respect. It is not contended here that students should 
 never be "failed" in their studies. In fact, the trial and error 
 method is still the best way of gauging abilities. But failure 
 should not be accented. The school should endeavor to discover the 
 peculiar abilities of each pupil, and with them as a base, start 
 him on the road to accomplishment. Every child above the mental 
 grade of imbecile has qualities that make success possible. Among 
 the habits to be acquired in the formative period of life, why not 
 give prominent place to the habit of success? 
 
 Ward found in happiness the aim of life. Were it necessary 
 to answer the question in respect to Cooley's philosophy, an answer 
 would be found in self-expression. "The main need of men is 
 life, self-expression, not luxury ; and if self-expression can be made 
 general, inequalities alone will excite but little resentment." In 
 fact, the ideal of human equality may be defined as a condition 
 in which every one has, in one way or another, a suitable field of 
 growth and self-expression. Every one has a desire, perhaps 
 latent, to be something, to express an individuality. "This is only 
 human nature and one way of stating nearly all our social troubles 
 is to say that individuality has not been properly understood and 
 evoked, has not had the right sort of opportunity. To find a re- 
 sponse in life, to discover that which is most inwardly you, is 
 
 1 Rocial Process, p. 173.
 
 18 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 wanted also iii the world without, that you can serve others in 
 realizing yourself ; this is what makes resolute and self-respecting 
 men and women of us, and what the school ought unfailingly to 
 afford. The people who drift and sag are those who have never 
 'found themselves,' "^ The art ideal, we are told, is one of joy- 
 ous self-expression. He whose life expresses his individuality lives 
 in the spirit of the artist. While most of us are obliged to seek 
 free play of individuality outside of working hours, there should 
 be something of self-expression and the spirit of art in all work. 
 And in other phases of life, too. Democracy itself is an art 
 wherein the common man finds expression in a varied, intelligent, 
 and joyous participation in the community life. 
 
 The following passage defines in a striking manner the function 
 and true spirit of a university. It is also an illustration of Cooley's 
 delightful literary style. "When I am raking and burning leaves, 
 as I have to in the fall and spring, I often light one little pile, 
 and, when it is well afire, I pick from it a burning leaf or two 
 on my rake and carry them to the next pile, which thus catches 
 their flame. It seems to me that this is what a university should 
 do for the higher life of our people. It should be on fire, and each 
 student who goes out should be a burning leaf to start the flame 
 in the community where he goes."^ 
 
 As we have seen, an organic conception of things is central in 
 Professor Cooley's social philosophy. "It is the aim of the organic 
 view to 'see things whole,' or at least as largely as our limitations 
 permit." The significance of the organic view is brought out best 
 by comparison with the types of particularism which have domi- 
 nated men's minds. A particularism is a partial view which is 
 mistaken for the whole; it is some one phase of the process which 
 is held to be supreme and to which all others are subsidiary. There 
 is no better illustration than the economic interpretation of his- 
 tory, a view natural to those who see through the economic window 
 only. While the true specialist sees beyond his own field, never- 
 theless, increase in specialization has emphasizd particularistic 
 views. "It should be the outcome of the organic view that we 
 
 1 Social Process p 61. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 392.
 
 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 19 
 
 embrace specialty with ardor, and yet recognize that it is partial 
 and tentative, needing from time to time to be reabsorbed and 
 reborn of the whole. The Babel of conflicting particularisms re- 
 sembles the condition of religious doctrine a century ago, when 
 every one took it for granted that there could be but one true 
 form of belief, and there were dozens of antagonistic systems 
 claiming to be this form. The organic conception, in any sphere, 
 requires that we pursue our differences in the sense of a larger 
 unity."^ 
 
 Education has been a field of conflicting particularisms. There 
 have been conflicts of the practical and the cultural, the narrowly 
 technical and the liberal, the egoistic and the social, drill and 
 reason, interest and effort, routine and initiative, the child and 
 the curriculum. In the organic view these are not antagonistic but 
 complementary. The ideal, prevalent among educational leaders 
 today, of subjecting all school processes to quantitative measure- 
 ment, takes on the character of a particularism by over emphasis. 
 While the measurement movement adds materially to the efliciency 
 of prevailing practices, it contributes little or nothing to the more 
 baffling problem of underlying purposes and aims. 
 
 A partial summary of the foregoing may be given as follows. 
 Only the organic view of mind gives us a correct idea of the rela- 
 tion between the individual and his group. The individual is an 
 organic part of his group; he is determined by it, but he also 
 determines it; hence each is the determinant of the other. Of 
 course, the individual is not wholly determined by any one group ; 
 he may be, and usually is, a member of many, including ideal 
 groups, the latter being products of his imagination. He is re- 
 lated to the groups in a contributory way, as he is also a resultant 
 of influences from them. We are the most influenced, especially 
 in the years of plastic childhood and youth, by stimuli from the 
 immediate environment; so the family, playground and school 
 groups are the main determinants of the child's growing person- 
 ality. The school affords unique opportunity for the formation 
 of an ideal group in which the child may learn to live, to con- 
 
 1 Social Process, p. 4».
 
 20 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 tribute, and to adapt himself, and the habits freely formed by 
 this adaptation tend to create an ideal world group. Evidently 
 the group relation itself is the essential factor in school life. The 
 school is a primary group where persons live together in a common 
 consciousness of interests and aims. It is, therefore, the oppor- 
 tune place for the development of feelings of loyalty and unity, 
 and likewise of those sentiments and ideals of justice and frater- 
 nity which are basal in a democratic state.
 
 EDUCATION IN EECENT SOClOLOaT 21 
 
 III. 
 
 ARTHUR J. TODD. 
 
 The data for this study are supplied mainly by Professor Todd's 
 "Theories of Social Progress." He published an earlier work, 
 "The Primitive Family as an Educational Agency," and a recent 
 one, "The Scientific Spirit and Social Work." The first men- 
 tioned is the most important of the three to social and educational 
 theory. 
 
 |iiiiiiiiiaiiaiiiMumi«| jj^-p jg gQcial progress ? How do we know when we 
 
 I ¥T[y I are progressing? How shall we judge of an event 
 
 I W I or social change to determine whether it makes for 
 
 I I progress or not ? Surely there must be standards or 
 
 ^iimiiiHiiiciiiinirniiici^ criteria to guide us. Many theories of progress 
 
 I I have been advanced, most of them narrow and par- 
 
 1 = ticularistic. What are the means of securing social 
 
 HK]iiiiiniiiiiaiiiiiiiiiiii(4> ■, ^ r • 11, 
 
 progress, and how far is progress dependent upon 
 
 rational human effort? The researches of the sociologist supply 
 
 answers to these questions. 
 
 Progress is recognized at once to be a complex, therefore not to 
 
 be interpreted in any one set of factors. Although difficult to 
 
 make, a definition is necessary, and the definition is reached by 
 
 negative steps. Population is hardly a criterion of progress; a 
 
 good type, rather than a large population, is the ideal of civilized 
 
 people. Health and increasing longevity contribute to social well 
 
 being, but they afford no standard of permanent progress. The 
 
 wealth of a country is no test of progress until we see what this 
 
 means in the life of the average man. Even improvement in morals 
 
 is no clear test of progress, because of the confusion of ethical 
 
 standards.
 
 22 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 It is not easy to do justice to a lengthy argument in a few sen- 
 tences. The following, however, indicates Todd's view point 
 It is not in mere change, nor in evolution, nor in achievement, that 
 progress is to be found. These become progress only when meas- 
 ured in terms of human welfare. And what is human welfare? 
 Evidently a diamond with many facets. Among the well marked 
 indices of progress we find "a higher level of material wants and 
 means of satisfying them; an expansion of the numbers of men, 
 their energies and their contacts; greater emphasis upon intellec- 
 tual values; wider participation in all material and intellectual 
 gains; therefore, wider concepts of truth, greater liberty, greater 
 order, and finally greater solidarity; for we are freest when love 
 and intelligence constrain us to identify ourselves with our fel- 
 lows. The humanitarian gain should express itself in the grow- 
 ing sentiment against war and slavery, in the conservation of 
 infant and adult life, prevention of such diseases as tuberculosis, 
 syphilis, and typhoid; in the desuetude of corporal and capital 
 punishment; in fact, in the radical change of front in our whole 
 penal machinery from retribution and terror to reformation and 
 prevention. Institutional progress seems to be indicated by a 
 general trend from force to rational persuasion. You may trace 
 this movement in government, in education, in religion, in the 
 family. Industrial progress should mean more real needs of more 
 people more adequately satisfied, with a surplus for further devel- 
 opment. Educational progress should mean generalizing social 
 achievement, increasing self-control, and decreasing social control 
 by repression."' 
 
 Progress, then, includes many things, all centering in human 
 well being. It involves a complex of material, intellectual, and 
 institutional elements flowering in a moral order of humanity. 
 But progress, we are reminded, is not written into the nature of 
 things; it comes, if at all, only as the fruitage of conscious and 
 persistent human effort. 
 
 Progress is concerned with human well being. The human 
 
 1 Theories of Social Progress, p. 118.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 23 
 
 individual is the center of the problem. Evidently there can be 
 no intelligent theory of social progress which fails to recognize 
 the essential attributes of human nature. What are these essen- 
 tial attributes? Is human nature of one element or many? Is 
 it static or dynamic, rigid in form or capable of ready change ? 
 Is it narrowly determined or expansive in variety and possibility ? 
 Defenders of existing social systems have commonly opposed inno- 
 vations as contrary to human nature, and in addition they have 
 alleged that human nature does not change. This view is rejected 
 by Todd as ignorance and willful cant. "We hold that human 
 nature is indefinitely, yes, infinitely modifiable. We assert that 
 it is not a fixed quantity or quality given in toto once and for all. 
 Men who argue for this fixity usually have some ulterior motive 
 or delude themselves. Such a concept of human nature is flung at 
 us or piled up into a barricade to obstruct essential reforms, where 
 reform means the loss of some opportunity to exploit. . . . But 
 the very crudest view of evolution must a priori admit that human 
 character is plastic and potentially progressive. . . . The true 
 evolutionist must believe that neither human nature nor man's 
 environment is a given fixed quantity. . . . Both are dynamic. 
 Man, and his environment along with him, are evolving. And 
 this process of 'creative evolution' is the true order of nature."^ 
 
 The above sentences are the key to the situation. They fur- 
 nish the ground for optimism and suggest a way of procedure. 
 Human nature is essentially active, it abounds in variety and pos- 
 sibility. It is in the latencies of human nature, in the plastic 
 character of man and his environment, and in his power of adap- 
 tation, that we are to find the materials for the construction of 
 the social edifice. 
 
 Social theory must rest upon an estimation of the human indi- 
 vidual. If we wish to know what new types of political, economic 
 and social organization are possible, we must, in order to answer 
 this question, examine more carefully into human nature and how 
 it develops. Upon analysis, the factor of central significance iu 
 
 1 Ibid
 
 24 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGt 
 
 human nature is found to be the "concept of self." "This is the 
 common center for self-regarding or altruistic motives or senti- 
 ments. It is the core of human life. What makes a man or what 
 determines his conduct, if it is not what he thinks of himself, 
 or what others think of him, or what he thinks others might think 
 of him, that is of his self? . . . We must insist sharply that our 
 problem is the nature of the self. . . . That it is of tremendous 
 practical interest will appear if we but suggest that on the proper 
 interpretation of self and self-building depends the working out of 
 such social problems as the moral imbecile, the criminal, the 
 apartment house, the ownership of houses of prostitution, the 
 rich malefactor, eugenics, municipal socialism or semi-socialism, 
 industrial peace, co-operative production."^ 
 
 The above statement is given at length, because the view is 
 fundamental to the whole discussion. Human nature is rich in 
 possibilities. Human nature is modifiable, and therefore adapt- 
 able to new conditions. Its modifiability is not like that of inert 
 clay in the hands of the modeler. The changes are mainly in the 
 self, in the concept of oneself as a person. One acquires new 
 views of himself; he gets confidence in his expanding powers, new 
 determinations; he establishes personal ideals and judges his 
 conduct with reference to them ; he resents actions either of him- 
 self or others which violate his self-esteem. In a wholly literal 
 sense he identifies himself more and more with other persons, 
 movements and causes, feeling himself one with them ; his concept 
 of self expands so as to include them. By consciousness of new 
 powers and masteries, by new contacts and loyalties, his sense of 
 self grows. Such is the manner of self-building. 
 
 Any metaphysical consideration of the self is rigorously excluded 
 from the argument. The discussion is kept on an objective plane. 
 The self is made up of experienced elements. It is evident that 
 the child begins life with no concept of himself ; it is attained 
 gradually and grows with the increase and unification of experi- 
 ence. The fact that a man is a succession of varying selves is, 
 of course, not new. The idea is presented in some detail in the 
 
 1 Theories of Social Progress, p. 6.
 
 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 25 
 
 first volume of James' Principles of Psychology. It is the basis 
 of Baldwin's dialectic of personal growth. But no one has pre- 
 sented so lucidly as Professor Todd the possibilities of this funda- 
 mental view of human nature for social progress. 
 
 Growth in the sense of self results from social stimuli. To a 
 great extent we are the makers of one another. The self is a social 
 product. While the mind of the new-born child is not a tabula 
 rasa, still the little that is written thereon is fragmentary and 
 indistinct. It is his social heredity that brings it out. The child 
 has a great variety of potential selves. Which of these are to be 
 dominant ones, what are to be his permanent habits, attitudes, and 
 modes of thought, is determined almost wholly by the social 
 heredity. Influences affecting the child's growth come almost 
 entirely from other persons, because it is pre-eminently the expe- 
 rience of others which furnish the material for his world. He 
 lives in a world of persons and only incidentally of things. His 
 growth is determined by suggestions which emanate from other 
 persons, and these suggestions cause him to constantly modify his 
 sense of himself. "We learn to know ourselves first of all in the 
 mirror of the world." 
 
 Of the many potential personalities of the growing child, what 
 determines which shall become actual ? The answer can only be, 
 social suggestion and elicitation. And these may be good or bad. 
 While the child brings with him no "vision splendid," as Words- 
 w^orth poetizes, he may attain a vision and an experience of life 
 that is splendid. On the other hand, it may be cramped and 
 sordid. "For the child of fortunate parents this vision is ordin- 
 arily one of a world of plenty, a world of love, devotion, service, 
 justice, co-operation. Unfortunately, to the child of the slum, the 
 child laborer, the child of vicious or ignoble parents, comes a 
 vision vastly different, of a world of misery, squalor, fatigue and 
 pain. The first child has been surrounded with comfort, care, 
 loving discipline, opportunities for education ; has been trained 
 to love and to serve. What shatters his romance world, his para-
 
 26 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 dise of love and service ? What disintegrates his sense of himself 
 as a server, as just, kindly, chivalrous ? Simply the rude impact 
 with other youths and men whose dominant idea, and therefore 
 whose predominant "self," is that of exploiting, shirking, getting 
 something for nothing, success at any price, brute competition for 
 existence. He is dashed upon the rocks of a false philosophy of 
 egoism, which sets man against man as mutually exclusive and 
 fundamentally locked in a death struggle for existence."^ 
 
 Some may argue that the point of view maintained here over- 
 emphasizes environmental influences to the neglect of heredity as 
 a factor in human character. To this we may reply: "That phy- 
 sical and mental elements have so combined to give the child be- 
 fore birth a certain mental 'set' or temperament, we may assume 
 as likely. But in the same breath we must assume, too, that this 
 set or temperament may be, and a thousand to one will be, over- 
 borne and modified by his social environment. Social suggestion 
 and habit (which Dr. Jordan calls the 'higher heredity') will dis- 
 solve hereditary granite. Heredity is its own undoing. For 
 while transmitting 'characters' it transmits also the impetus by 
 which the characters are modified or annulled."^ 
 
 What is the socially valuable type of self? The self is a prod- 
 uct of the social environment, in other words, of education. What 
 is the type of personality which contributes to progress? We 
 found that progress implied increasing attention to human well 
 being. Also that progress may be expected only as the result of 
 human effort expended in a conscious and rational manner. If 
 there is to be progress we need to produce a type of person whose 
 intelligent interest is centered in human well being and advance. 
 An effect contrary to this was produced by much of our nineteenth 
 century public school education, because it was individualistic 
 in character, aimed at personal success, and was the expression 
 of an egotistical political philosophy. The Macnamara man- 
 killers in California are mentioned as an example of the fruits of 
 this kind of education. Our education must produce a new type 
 
 1 Theories of Social Progress, p. 40. 
 
 2 Ibid p. 54.
 
 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 27 
 
 of person, one imbued from the earliest years with thoughts, feel- 
 ings and attitudes that make for service, a person trained in the 
 belief that the good of himself and his fellows are one, and that 
 in serving all he serves himself. "The method, so far as it can 
 be compressed into a single phrase, must be to develop in the 
 child's mind the dominating thought of himself as a contributing 
 personality and to project this dominant concept upon the plane 
 of imagination."^ The prevalence in society of the contributing 
 type of personality is the essential condition of progress, a condi- 
 tion to be reached by means of social education. Social educa- 
 tion is the basis of Professor Todd's theory of progress. It will 
 therefore be defined more fully in a later paragraph. 
 
 Every sociologist recognizes the paramount place of public 
 opinion as a factor in social advance. But it must be real opinion, 
 says Todd, which means that it must proceed from earnest thought 
 applied to problems. The weakness of public opinion as a social 
 force is due to prevailing ignorance. Can a nation that bases 
 its political life on an average sixth grade elementary school educa- 
 tion expect much sober, mature opinion? Two agencies are sug- 
 gested for creating sound public opinion, the press and the school. 
 Unfortunately, the average newspaper, run as a commercial ven- 
 ture, is biased. The school is the main hope for educating public 
 opinion. From the first grade through the college every student 
 must be taught "to criticize, to evaluate, to solve problems for 
 himself, that is to develop the self-winding capacity." What is 
 urged, then, is a method for training the critical judgment. If, 
 in addition, the curricula are freighted with materials that lead 
 the youth to think in community terms, we may expect the devel- 
 opment of a real public opinion instead of the emotional outbursts, 
 prejudices, and outworn dogmas which masquerade under that 
 
 name.^ 
 
 "Various interpretations of history have been advanced. Is the 
 most satisfactory explanation of historical events and sequences 
 to be found in an educational interpretation? The greater por- 
 
 1 Ibid, p. 79. 
 
 2 See chapter on Public Opinion, Tbeoriea of Social Progress.
 
 28 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 tion of the volume, "Theories of Social Progress," is given to con- 
 sideration of theories and explanations of progress put forward 
 by a great variety of thinkers and writers who are referred to as 
 the "Prophets of Progress." Consideration is given also to the 
 materialistic, biological, institutional and ideological factors on 
 which such theories have their foundation. To be explicit, what 
 bearings on progress have the following: geography, inventions, 
 money, capital, division of labor, industry, natural selection, 
 eugenics, racial types, war, migrations, property, government and 
 law, public opinion, religion, etc. The limitations of this article 
 preclude the discussion of this material. Allusion will be made 
 only to a trend of thought in evidence throughout the discussion 
 which suggests the idea of an educational interpretation of his- 
 tory. In other words, are changes in racial history due mainly 
 to change and grovrth in sentiments, ideas and standards, factors 
 subject to educational influence? Three brief references will 
 suffice to indicate this trend. 
 
 In answering the claims of the selectionists and social Dar- 
 winists we read : "I believe that in the task of creating humanity 
 through checking natural selection, more has been allotted to the 
 sentiments than to any other element in human nature. . . . 
 Human progress is a struggle of intelligence and selection of ideas. 
 The battle may not be to the strong but to the persistent, not to 
 the heavy brain but to the agile mind."^ While not always so 
 recognized, says Todd, education is fundamental to the whole 
 progress of social selection. And again, in commenting on the 
 claim sometimes made that tools and inventions indicate the main 
 avenue of progress, attention is called to the fact that an inven- 
 tion is useless unless the group is sufficiently intelligent to accept 
 and use it. In fact, the success of both material and institutional 
 inventions depends wholly upon the power of intellectual adapta- 
 tion which is typical of the group. Moreover, the invention "con- 
 tributes to progress only if accompanied by such a corresponding 
 gain in intellectual and moral vision that its services may be made 
 
 1 Tbeoriea of Social Progress, p. 246.
 
 EDUCATlOlSr TN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 20 
 
 to overbalance its social costs."^ Evidently such a corresponding 
 gain did not accompany the Krupp gun in Germany. 
 
 For a third reference, we take the industrial revolution in 
 Europe. It is traced to two factors, the rise of state solidarity 
 and the growth of trade in England and France during the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries. "And both were based on educa- 
 tion. It was precisely during this period, from the fifteenth to the 
 nineteenth century, that printing, literature, schools, and secular 
 as well as religious propaganda created unified bodies of thought, 
 public opinion, real organic social unities."^ Many other illustra- 
 tions could be given suggesting what I have called an educational 
 interpretation of history. 
 
 After an exhaustive enquiry into the means of human progress, 
 we find that the answer to the problem lies in an adequate organ- 
 ization of social education. IN'othing else can take the place of 
 this. It is important that we know what social education is. 
 Todd's definition of the term is given in part as follows : It is not 
 "synonymous with a sociological curriculum, nor with economic 
 or industrial training ; nor with 'cultural' or 'practical' education ; 
 nor with school subjects (for no one subject is inherently more 
 'social' than any other) ; nor for that matter with any sort of 
 mere learning as such. Nor is it tantamount to ethical culture, 
 unless we mean social morality or conduct in its widest sense. . . . 
 On the other hand, it does involve recognition that the individual 
 is ineluctably social ; that social mal-adjustment hinders individual 
 adjustment; that therefore social education must aim to prevent 
 social waste and to develop social capital in men and goods. More- 
 over, it means that its business is to create a favorable atmosphere 
 rather than precise solutions of social problems, to create in all 
 of us social intelligence, power, efficiency and interests. It recog- 
 nizes the school as a definite field of social relationships, where 
 social tools are forged for future social situations, an institution 
 which, however, scarcely so much fits for society, as really is 
 society — a co-operative and democratic society. In short, social 
 
 1 Theories of Social ProgresB, 184. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 220.
 
 30 EDUCATION IN EECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 education means conscious and definite training for certain spe- 
 cific types of social relationship. Social education for social prog- 
 ress, then, would use as means and end those types of social value 
 and relationship which appear most likely to contribute to progress. 
 Rightly conceived, it is a highly conscious instrument for select- 
 ing contributive rather than adaptive or dependent social types. 
 Hence it must be universal and stand for generalizing opportunity, 
 for distributing the products of human achievement in material 
 goods and knowledge, and for a friendly, voluntary type of asso- 
 ciation in place of a coercive, exploitative relationship. In a word, 
 social education aims to create social solidarity hy means of a social 
 type marked by service rather than exploitation."'^ 
 
 It is not easy to condense into a single formula the goal of 
 human progress. But the following brief definition of progress 
 is suggested. "It is the identification of personal interest with 
 social interest to an increasing degree." Such harmony will not 
 come at one swoop. It can come only as the fruit of continued 
 human effort. Humanity cannot dodge the final responsibility 
 for its fate. Man must work out his own salvation. Will he 
 succeed ? If he does, it will be by means of an increasing educa- 
 tional vision, and let us add, through the leadership of a force 
 of consecrated educators. "Let education become dynamic, let it 
 thrill with a vision of becoming the chariot horses and the chariot 
 in which society shall urge itself forward to a better day, and 
 men and women of first rank will arise and consecrate themselves 
 to making the vision full reality. "Without that vision 'educational 
 measurements,' movements to increase 'school efficiency,' reforms 
 of curricula, 'child study,' are but the clattering of machinery 
 grinding chaff; with it they become the tools for generating the 
 self-criticism and creative energies essential to the process of pro- 
 ducing an environment in which Social Man can flourish and rise 
 higher and higher above Man the Clod."- 
 
 This article is not intended as a book review. If it were, it 
 would be necessary to give more attention to the author's detailed 
 
 1 Theories of Social Progreis, p. 621. 
 3 Ibid
 
 EDtrCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 31 
 
 exposition and criticism of many historic theories of progress. 
 We are interested rather in the educational significance of Pro- 
 fessor Todd's sociology. Certain concepts and theses have stood 
 out as important for us. The argument may be briefly summar- 
 ized as follows. We are interested in social progress and in how 
 to be progressive. We find progress to be a complex of many 
 factors, material, intellectual and moral, all centering about human 
 well being as their aim. As a prerequisite to the solution of any 
 social problem it is necessary to have a true conception of human 
 nature. On it the character of any reform depends. Fortunately 
 human nature is plastic and adaptable. It is rich in variety and 
 possibility. Which of the many possible 'selves' will become 
 habitually dominant? We found the 'self to be largely a social 
 product, a reaction to stimulation from the social environment. 
 Wholesome human character can therefore be developed by pro- 
 viding the right kind of social environment. Social progress re- 
 quires a type of personality whose dominant interest centers in 
 the social service ideal, a type which is contributive and not 
 exploitative nor merely adaptive. Only an adequate system 
 of social education can produce a citizenry of the contributive 
 type. Social education is therefore the fundamental method of 
 progress.
 
 32 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 IV. 
 
 ** CHARLES A. ELL WOOD. 
 
 p»" °"'"""'«f IIOFESSOR ELLWOOD writes from the view-point 
 
 I w^ I of social psychology. He would prefer to call it 
 I r^ I jjsycho, or psychological sociology, but social psy- 
 I I chology has become the accepted term. It is a study 
 
 ^liiiiimiiiiDitiHiHiiiid of human relationships in mental terms. The mem- 
 I I bers of a society are related in inter-subjective ways. 
 
 I I When two or more persons make up a society, what 
 
 is sigmncant is the relation between their minds. 
 The social life is essentially psychic, and sociology is essentially a 
 psychic science. The development of human culture has been a 
 socio-psychic process, not capable of interpretation in mere objec- 
 tive terms. 
 
 Social life is essentially psychic. From Comte onward most 
 sociologists have recognized that it is the psychic elements that 
 constitute the social. We cannot think of society without refer- 
 ence to consciousness. "Any situation in the social life of hu- 
 manity will be found, upon analysis, to consist of conscious activi- 
 ties, mental attitudes, ideas, feelings, beliefs, interests, desires, 
 values, and the like. Customs, usages, traditions, social stand- 
 ards, civilization itself, all resolve themselves into elements which 
 are essentially psychical."^ In fact, it is the inter-mental life 
 in a group of individuals which makes social life possible. Ifc 
 is mental interaction, or the functional interdependence of indi- 
 viduals on the psychic side, which constitutes society. A society 
 then may be defined as a group of individuals who carry on a 
 common life by means of mental interaction. 
 
 • * Professor Ellwood bag published several books, " An Introduction to Social Psychol- 
 ogy, ' ' " Sociology in i ts Psychological Aspects, ' ' "Sociology and Modtrn Social Problems," 
 and "The Social Problem ' ' ; also various magazine articles. The first book mentioned is 
 the most important for social theory and for the purpose of this article 
 
 1 Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 6.
 
 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 33 
 
 The significance of this view to educational theory is obvious. 
 Social life is to be interpreted in psychic terms, in other words in 
 terms of instinct, acquired habit, feeling and emotion, desire, love, 
 hatred and also intelligence. It is just these psychic factors with 
 which education has to do. They provide the data for the educa- 
 tional process. Education is based upon instincts, it breaks and 
 develops habits, it evaluates and harmonizes the emotions, and it 
 trains the intellect. Researches in social psychology are evidently 
 of fundamental interest to the solution of educational problems. 
 
 Man lives, we are told, not in a perceptual, but in an ideational 
 world; or let us say, man builds himself up out of a perceptual 
 world, with which he began, into an ideational world. Growth in 
 social tradition, also called social heredity, has meant a gradual 
 accumulation of knowledge, ideas, beliefs, standards and values, 
 and therefore a gradual substitution of a psychical environment 
 for an environment of physical objects. This does not mean that 
 the world of real objects has become smaller to civilized man, but 
 rather that his w^orld of ideas has enlarged. He approaches the 
 physical world with a set of values already built up in the social 
 tradition. "Higher civilization is, therefore, in many respects, 
 the substitution of what we may call a 'subjective environment' 
 for an objective environment. Every developed type of civiliza- 
 tion, therefore, is dominated by certain ideas, beliefs or standards, 
 which give it, so to speak, its particular form and color. These 
 ruling ideas or ideals may be called the 'psychic dominants' of the 
 civilization. . . . They are the dominant elements in that body 
 of social tradition which furnishes the real environment to which 
 the individual reacts."^ The tremendous influence of these psy- 
 chic dominants upon human conduct is apparent in all periods of 
 history. They account for the peculiarities of different ages and 
 civilizations. Through history we find a succession of dominating 
 ideas, having their expression in monasticism, the Crusades, chiv- 
 alry, occasional eagerness for learning or art, exploration, move- 
 ments for religious or political freedom, witchcraft, other-world- 
 liness, occasional waves of civic virtue, migration, the fevered 
 
 1 Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 130.
 
 34 EDUCATION IN BECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 search for wealth, etc. Each of these, and many others, have at 
 times been striking factors in a psychic environment to which 
 men have adjusted themselves. 
 
 The diversity of these psychic dominants, as presented in his- 
 tory and among different peoples, indicates the versatile character 
 of human nature, which tends to adjust itself to any one of a 
 variety of psychical situations. And, of course, in so far as the 
 dominant factor in the psychical environment can be rationally 
 controlled or produced, so far is the life and conduct of the indi- 
 vidual intelligently regulated. The term "psychic dominant" is 
 attributed to the historian, Lamprecht. Elhvood urges, however, 
 that social life, especially modern civilized society, is much more 
 complex than Lamprecht assumed, and that in a correct interpre- 
 tation of it we may find not one ruling idea but many. 
 
 The direct relation of such psychological factors as instinct, 
 intelligence, habit, imitation, suggestion and feeling, to the social 
 life is elaborated by Elwood; and while very important to social 
 psychology, this material will be omitted for lack of space. 
 iSTotable contributions to the subject have been made by Baldwin, 
 Tarde, McDougall, Hobhouse, and others. We are concerned 
 next with some basic problems of sociology. 
 
 The most fundamental concerns of sociology are the problems 
 of social order or organization, and of social change or progress. 
 The problem of social order has to do with a settled or harmo- 
 nious relation between the individuals and groups making up a 
 society. Organization is, of course, essential to any group life. 
 In order to secure harmonious social adjustments societies have 
 maintained certain regulative institutions. The chief of these 
 are government, law, religion, morality and education. In the 
 brief discussion which follows, it will be seen that each of these, 
 in order to be effective, depends upon educational methods, and 
 therefore that education is fundamental to them all. 
 
 Government supported by law is conunonly thought of as the 
 chief regulative institution. And it is so when social order is 
 regarded mainly in terms of police powers. It is the agency of 
 last resort to restrain the behavior of the individual in the interest
 
 EDUCATION IN BECENT SOCIOLOGY 35 
 
 of the group, — or let us say, of the dominant group. To a great 
 extent, indeed, government in the past has been maintained to pro- 
 mote the privileges of dominant classes at the expense of others. 
 Today nations are striving to become democratic, to make govern- 
 ment representative of the whole group, and therefore above indi- 
 vidual and class egoisms. This is possible only where individual 
 citizens are dominated by patriotic and humanitarian ideals. To 
 secure these is the work of education. Today it is recognized more 
 than ever before, that government has the positive function of 
 actively promoting the social welfare. We have not the fear of 
 government as had the individualists of the recent past. ^'That 
 government is not best which governs least, but rather that which 
 governs most ; provided it does it in socially wise ways, so as 
 neither to destroy individual initiative nor to block normal social 
 change,"^ But broad increase in the functions of government 
 would be suppressive of democracy without wide diffusion of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Religion has always been a powerful factor in maintaining the 
 social order. Often it has been used in defense of exploitation 
 and has been therefore an obstacle to progress. At other times 
 it has been a potent force for good, and there is no reason why 
 it should not attach its sanctions to an increasingly higher social 
 order and become a telling factor in human advance. "What is 
 needed is a socialized religion, a 'religion of humanity,' which 
 will make the service of man the highest expression of religion. 
 . . . The Church, as the concrete institutional expression of the 
 religious life . . . ought to become the public conservator and 
 propagator of social values. . . . This means that it must become 
 largely an educational institution, ... a society where the highest 
 ethical culture is given to all who come within its influence."^' 
 This type of church will depend wholly on educational methods. 
 
 Social order must rest upon positive moral standards, stand- 
 ards which have to be raised as civilization advances. The sim- 
 pler morality of early times does not suffice. Higher types are 
 needed as civilization grows in complexity. No moral ideal is 
 
 1 Introdaction to Social Psychology, p. 269. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 271.
 
 36 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 effective which is not stated in social terms. In fact, "The moral 
 ideal must be pictured, not as a perfect individual, but as a per- 
 fect society, consisting of all humanity. This means that we 
 must have a socialized or humanitarian ethics which will teach 
 the individual to find his self-development and his happiness in 
 the service of others, and which will forbid any individual, class, 
 nation, or even race, from regarding itself as an end in itself, 
 apart from the rest of humanity."^ If the time and energy now 
 spent in teaching and preaching the ideal of a perfect individual 
 could be transferred to training the imagination of people to catch 
 the vision of a superior social order, a giant stride in progress 
 would be the result. It is not some vague Utopia that is wanted, 
 but a social ideal scientifically constructive, having due regard for 
 human traits both actual and latent. It is especially important to 
 point out immediate steps in the attainment of the ideal. Of 
 course, no concept of a perfect individual can be formulated ex- 
 cept in reference to the whole social situation in which he is con- 
 ceived to exist. 
 
 The conclusion of the discussion on social order is that all regu- 
 lative institutions depend on education to be effective, and there- 
 fore that education must be the ultimate form of control. "Per- 
 sonal education, therefore, furnishes the ultimate and most subtle 
 form of control, because it controls the formation of habit and so 
 of character in the developing individual. It must be the main 
 reliance of civilized society in securing high types of social order. 
 If properly carried out, personal education should furnish to the 
 developing individual at the plastic period of life a controlled 
 artificial environment, especially a subjective environment of the 
 proper ideas, ideals, standards and values. It can accordingly 
 mold individual character in almost any direction which heredity 
 makes possible."^ Education of a socialized type is urged by 
 Ellwood, therefore, as the ultimate means of social control; but, 
 it should be observed, that it is not thought of as separate from 
 
 1 Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 276. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 278.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 37 
 
 the other regulative institutions so much as the method by which 
 the others are to be realized. 
 
 Theories to account for progress are next in order of discus- 
 sion. The anthropo-geographical theory finds the active causes of 
 human progress in favorable conditions of the physical environ- 
 ment. The biological or ethnological theory of progress accounts 
 for a few factors, but at best man's biological constitution can 
 furnish only a basis on which his social progress can take place. 
 It can offer, therefore, but potentialities of his progress. Much 
 more consideration can be given to the economic theory of progress, 
 but as an adequate theory it must be rejected because it regards 
 the mind as a more or less passive reflex of the environment, in- 
 stead of an active instrument of adaption, an agency with cen- 
 trally initiated powers. It makes ideas depend upon mere envi- 
 ronment to the neglect of original human nature as a factor. 
 
 Psychical theories of progress, theories which see progress to 
 depend upon psychical factors, furnish the best explanation of 
 human progress; furthermore, they emphasize elements within 
 human control. This view means that the changes in man's ideas, 
 standards and values have been the chief factors in his social ad- 
 vance. Certainly man's ideas are not mere reflections from a 
 material environment. The intellect and its ideas must be seen 
 as instruments of adjustment and as the means by which social 
 progTess can be rationally planned and controlled. The final suc- 
 cess of the prohibition movement may be suggested as an illustra- 
 tion of the powerful effect of the diffusion of ideas. Certainly 
 it cannot be ascribed to changes in geographical, biological, or 
 even economic conditions. It is to be traced rather to the accu- 
 mulation and diffusion of ideas and ideals. It is an illustration 
 of how new knowledge and standards have produced a veritable 
 revolution, although pitted against long-established modes de- 
 fended by privileges and vested interests. And there is reason to 
 believe, says Ellwood, that rational changes and adaptations in 
 every phase of life can be effected by the same process. 
 
 The sociological theory of progress is introduced by Professor
 
 38 EDUCATION IN- RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 Ellwood for final acceptance. The psychological view alone is not 
 enough. The sociological theory is synthetic and recognizes that 
 all the above conceptions contribute some factors to a complete 
 theory. We found that the psychological view transcended all the 
 preceding in importance, nevertheless the character of the psychic 
 factors which will result in progress must be determined. The 
 intellectual elements of knowledge, beliefs and standards, also 
 emotional attitudes and values, need to be socialized, need to be 
 of a type which make for efficient and harmonious social relations ; 
 they need to be given a humanitarian direction without special 
 favor to any class or group. To Professor Ellwood no scheme of 
 progress is complete which does not regard the whole human race 
 as its goal. ''It is only ideas, standards and values which are 
 capable of serving as instruments of the increasing social co-ordi- 
 nation and co-adaptation of the largest possible human group — 
 humanity as a whole — which are capable of working consistently 
 in the direction of social progress."^ 
 
 We have been discussing theories of social progress. By way 
 of conclusion we need a further look into the nature of society 
 itself. What is society ? What holds the various parts together ? 
 W^hat is of especial significance in the relations among men? 
 Three theories on the essential nature of the social bond are pre- 
 sented, — the contract, the organic, and the psychological. The 
 theory of contract makes all social organization an outcome of self- 
 conscious relations between individuals, relations based upon the 
 mutual consent of the parties thereto. While views are still ex- 
 pressed, even today, on social problems, such as marriage and the 
 family, which are strongly colored by the contract theory, this 
 conception was long ago supplanted by the organic theory, a re- 
 action from it. The organic theory was a product of nineteenth 
 century biology. Society was seen in the likeness of an animal 
 organism. Later this theory was interpreted in more acceptable 
 ways by philosophical writers, but the analogy remains misleading. 
 
 That Ellwood finds the truth to bo in the psychological theory 
 has been shoTsm from the beginning of this article. A final sum- 
 
 1 Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 310.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 39 
 
 mary of the view-point will clarify it. "Wherein, then, is the 
 psychological theory of society distinctive, and what is its peculiar 
 value? The reply is, that the psychological conception presents 
 the social life as an adaptive process in which the psychic pro- 
 cesses within the individual function as the active elements. It 
 is the theory that the social life is a process, but a process made 
 up essentially of psychic elements; that is, of forms of inter- 
 stimulation and response between individuals, such as communi- 
 cation, suggestion, imitation, sympathy, conflict, and of psychic 
 processes within individuals, such as instinct, habit, feeling and 
 intelligence. It is the theory that the explanation of human social 
 life, as we have said, is to be sought in the underlying traits and 
 dispositions of men, in the influences of the environment which 
 act upon their plastic natures, and in the resultant aims and 
 standards which they develop. The social process, according to 
 this theory, is not purely subjective, but is psychic only in the 
 sense that its significant elements are psychic. . . . Human cul- 
 ture is essentially a psychic matter, and the human societies that 
 we know are creations of cultural evolution."^ 
 
 There is an inspiring optimism to the educator in the researches 
 of social psychology. His work takes on a deeper significance. 
 He fi.nds that education persistently and scientifically applied will 
 achieve great results in the advance of the human race, and that 
 it is the only thing that will. "The easiest approach to the modi- 
 fication of human society, therefore, is through the manipulatiori 
 of the intellectual elements, ideas, standards and values, espe- 
 cially in the young. Their rational direction and control in the 
 way of social advantage can certainly be counted upon to change 
 the whole mass of habits, social attitudes, customs and institutions 
 of society. The limits of the possibilities of such change, more- 
 over, cannot be set. Civilization is just beginning, and when the 
 civilizing process is rationally directed with an understanding of 
 the principles of human psychology and sociology, social progress 
 will be beyond anvthing which the world now dreams to be prac- 
 ticable."2 
 
 1 Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 322. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 325.
 
 40 EDUCATIOX IN EECEIirT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 Perhaps no \\Titer makes education and sociolog}' more closely 
 allied than does Ellwood. Accordins: to him the human social 
 process itself is essentially an educative process. It is a proce-'s 
 of learning and of achievement by groups, and its results are trans- 
 mitted only as they are taught a younger generation by an elder. 
 This was true even in primitive times, as is sho"\\Ti by the growth 
 of any tradition, say that of tool-making; but it is even more true 
 of modern democratic societies, where the whole process of social 
 adjustment is mediated by a process of mutual education, such 
 as communication, discussion, and the formation of group opin- 
 ions and standards. It follows that the educative process in the 
 schools is only a formalized, simplified, and controlled social pro- 
 cess, which can be understood only as a control over the whole 
 social process of the community, and that the development and 
 enrichment of educative processes in a community is the normal 
 method of human progress. Education is thus the very method 
 of cultural evolution. 
 
 In conclusion, we have space for a brief reference to educational 
 practice. The problem of training in citizenship is stated in this 
 way. "We have built a gigantic material civilization that re- 
 sembles nothing so much as a mighty machine which requires 
 almost infinite intelligence and good-will to run it in such a way 
 that it will not bring disaster upon us. Yet the intelligence and 
 good-will necessary to run this social machine must in a democ- 
 racy reside in the people themselves. Here then is our problem. 
 How are we to secure the intelligence and good-will needed in 
 the mass of our citizens to meet the increasingly complex problems 
 of an ever increasingly complex civilization."^ The real sover- 
 eignty in a democracy is public opinion. To secure public opin- 
 ion of the kind needed to solve the baffling social and political 
 problems which confront us requires a his'h degree of social and 
 political intelligence among the masses. This means much more 
 than an impulse to patriotism or a mere sentiment of good-will. 
 It means dynamic opinion in respect to specific problems like 
 capital and labor, taxation, production, sanitation, schools, rela- 
 
 1 Education for Citizenehip in a Democracy. Am. Jour, of Soc, July, '20.
 
 EDDCATIOX IX ItECENT SOCIOLOGY 41 
 
 ^■ions to other nations and races, and many others. How shall we 
 develop adequate intellioence along these lines ? Ellwood suggests 
 by making social studies fundamental in the curricula of the 
 schools, from the kindergarten to the college. By social studies 
 is meant history^ community civics, domestic science, public hy- 
 giene, economics, politics, ethics, anthropology, and specialized ap- 
 plications of these. Unless social problems are made central in 
 the scheme of education, there is little hope of attaining an effi- 
 cient democracy. Fortunately an increasing number of educators 
 are agreeing with the sociologists that social studies should be 
 central in the school. 
 
 The schools should aim more directly at moral training. "That 
 the ideals of justice, brotherhood and the service of mankind can- 
 not be taught in our public schools as easily as the ideals of busi- 
 ness efficiency, vocational excellence or commercial success, is 
 absurd."" The mistake has been made of thinking „that moral 
 and social standards, and even patriotism, can be taught as ab- 
 stractions. These things are the flowering of the training in social 
 service. They are values which may be expected to emerge through 
 the study of concrete social situations and problems. It is the 
 latter with which we must begin. The school should teach the 
 ideal of service at all times. The self-interest ideal has been 
 found to be a failure, a fact proved by experience and also by 
 the study of human relationships. The service ideal is the sub- 
 stitute. Would it not be possible to provide such an environment 
 for the child in school that social service would be seen and felt 
 as the ruling idea there, as the psychic dominant, all the way from 
 the first grade to the university ? 
 
 Like the sociologists already studied, Ellwood urges a quick- 
 ened faith in the power of education. It has usually been assumed 
 that the American people were devoted to education as an ideal. 
 Our social and economic ignorance, high percentage of illiteracy, 
 and poorly paid teachers indicate the contrary. "We need a 
 deeper faith in education as a savior and regenerator of democracy. 
 We need to realize that education is the conscious method of 
 
 2 Educational Theory of Social Progress. Sci. Mo., Nov., '17.
 
 42 
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 social evolution and so, in the last analysis, the only rational 
 means of social progress. We need to see the vital relation between 
 democracy and education, that both must rise or sink together. 
 But we need especially a practical faith in education, such as 
 will lead us to match every dollar spent for army or navy or mili- 
 tary training by at least another dollar spent for our schools. 
 Then, perhaps, we shall be able to safeguard our own democracy, 
 and thus do our bit in making a world safe for democracy."^ 
 
 1 Kdiication for Citizenship in a Democracy. Am. Jour, of Soc, July, '20.
 
 EDUCATION TK RECENT SOCIOT>OGV 43 
 
 V 
 
 EDWARD A. ROSS 
 
 jiin«iHimniiiiiiiiimt*j^ l}^^ many publications of Professor Eoss the most 
 I ^^ I ambitious and comprehensive, is his recent great 
 I 11 g work, the ''Principles of Sociology." While a few 
 I I representative concepts are basal in the other soci- 
 
 4^)iiiiiniiu!aiiiHimiiit^ ologies discussed, core ideas are less apparent in 
 I I Ross's scheme of presentation. The work presents 
 
 I I a wide range of observation and discussion. In 
 
 this article we are concerned with those aspects 
 of it which are especially suggestive to the educator, and, like 
 the other sociologies discussed, it has for the educator rich sugges- 
 tions. Of the numerous phases of education touched upon we 
 have space for only a few, and the following have been selected: 
 
 (a) The effect of social contacts upon individual growth. 
 
 (b) Social environment as a factor in the character of persons 
 and peoples, (c) The place of recreation and of art in life, 
 (d) Eugenics and the education of women, (e) Arguments for 
 the social sciences, (f ) Relation of the school to the government, 
 (g) Education as protection against mob mind. 
 
 (a) AVhile this book deals with groups and group activities 
 the individual is by no means slighted. He is much in evidence, 
 a fact fortunate for the educator since the individual is the unit 
 of educational endeavor. Ross provides us with a suggestive dis- 
 cussion of the effects of association on individual growth. 
 
 There is no such thing as human nature in isolation. It could 
 not develop. A child without human associates would attain a 
 mentality little above that of imbecile. "Self-consciousness, the 
 rise of personality, and the ordinary capacity for thought and 
 emotion are impossible without the give-and-take of life in so-
 
 44 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 ciety."^ Prison records show that solitary confinement results in 
 madness. The mere privilege of waving a handkerchief at one 
 of his fellows saved the mind of an Italian prisoner. The imag- 
 inary companion is well known to child psychology. The "only" 
 child is likely to suffer in his social nature. The essentially social 
 nature of a human being has been recognized only lately and 
 the delay in its recognition has worked infinite harm. 
 
 The educator is concerned with the gi'owth of personality. 
 This growth is by means of social stimuli. We are dependent 
 upon the recognition of others. Under the heading, "The Mirrored 
 Self," are suggestions of the manner of this growth. In its first 
 year the child performs many little acts and watches the social 
 results. The effect produced upon others determines his own 
 estimate of the worth of the act. "The human looking-glass in 
 which the infant sees its little I reflected furnishes it a powerful 
 stimulus to do things. Children brought up in foundling asy- 
 lums . . . learn to walk and to speak much later than those 
 whose baby efforts call forth the encouraging "ohs" and "ahs" of 
 an admiring family, whose sympathy baby soon learns to claim 
 as his right."" Likewise association stimulates school pupils to 
 achievement. Experience has sho^vn that both the quality and 
 the speed of their work is superior when performed in groups. 
 
 The demand for social approval is a life long trait. But we 
 differ greatly in our sensitiveness to the mirrored self, and like- 
 wise in the image for which we look. The ambitious man pants 
 for recognition. He wants to figure potently in the minds of 
 others, to be greatly loved, admired or feared. The shallow 
 nature covets approval of his immediate crowd. The wise man 
 is content with the approval of the discerning. The man of 
 highest achievement may be careless whether the public ever 
 learns of his existence; but even he needs an inner circle who 
 understand and appreciate his achievement. In fact the inde- 
 pendent character may find satisfaction wholly in the approval 
 of imaginary persons. "He may be serene when all men revile 
 
 1 Principles of Sociology, p. 96. 
 -2 Ibid, p. 114.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 45 
 
 him because in liis imagination he sees himself triumphantly 
 justified before some high tribunal of the worthies of the past or 
 of the elite of the generations to come .... It is rather a fine 
 type that is captivated by the idea of recognition of the unborn."^ 
 But recognition, present or remote, real or imagined, there must 
 be, or purpose and effort will perish. 
 
 What we become is dependent upon social suggestion and ap- 
 proval. Any normal child could develop into something noble 
 and splendid with the certainty of natural law, were it possible by 
 combined efforts of its associates persistently applied to stimulate 
 capacity and approve and disapprove wisely. As factors in the 
 growth of personality, suggestion and approbation have scarcely 
 yet entered into the methodology of education. Not that their 
 place is unrecognized by most teachers, nor that educational writ- 
 ers have overlooked their importance; but we have developed no 
 technique of their use. 
 
 (b) It is the fate or fortune of a human being to be bom into 
 a social environment which necessarily colors his life. He cannot 
 shake off the effects. Classes take on certain characteristics, 
 whole peoples take on characteristics which are but adjustments 
 to social demand. This fact has caused civilization to grow out of 
 savagery. For centuries culture materials and social standards 
 have accumulated, furnishing man the stage on which he now acts. 
 Ross says of Standards, "The effective social standards constitute, 
 as it were, a trestle by means of which a people rises farther and 
 farther above the plane of the instincts. If the higher stand- 
 ards were broken down it would sink to the barbarian level. If 
 all gave way, it would find itself on the moral plane of savages. 
 There is no reason to suppose that our original nature is appre- 
 ciably better than that of our Neolithic ancestors. If we behave 
 much better than they did it is owing to the influence of the 
 social standards we are reared in."^ 
 
 Our happiness as civilized men comes from our social inheri- 
 tance. But civilization presents thousands of types of malad- 
 
 1 Ibid, p. nc. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 564.
 
 46 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 justmeut aiid of arrested development. Both in our own and 
 in other lands are social requirements which act as blights upon 
 the human spirit. Subordination saps character. The servant 
 is humiliated by the tip he accepts. The disappearance of house- 
 hold industries has increased the economic dependence of the 
 wife. The dependence of teachers and preachers upon wealthy 
 eoverniuir boards lessens their visfor as social reformers. Eco- 
 nomic serfdom dwarfs manhood. Whole peoples show degenerate 
 traits when subjected to subjugation and inequalities. Ross 
 refers to the "pliant and slippery character" of the peoples long 
 under the yoke of the Turk. In most sections of our country 
 the Xegro can feel himself but a half man. "Dependence wilts 
 manhood as surely as the tropic sun wilts northern energy. 
 However stiff the native backbone of a race, a few generations 
 under the yoke will make them worms. The type of character 
 we stigmatize as "Asiatic" testifies, not to the presence of innate 
 weakness in the races of Asia, but to their long subjection to 
 arbitrary power. The nearer a class is to the bottom of the social 
 heap, the worse will its members be deformed in spirit, and the 
 less often will they exhibit the normal traits of freeman."^ 
 
 Unfortunately, characteristics wholly social in origin are 
 interpreted as psycho-physical. "In born dependents, servility 
 sycophancy, lying and petty thievery are as natural as it is 
 natural for a starving crop to be yellow ; yet these by-products of 
 pressure are pointed to as proofs of a poor moral endowment 
 Against a background of such faults stand out the more brilliantly 
 the high spirit, manliness, and sense of honor of the hereditary 
 superiors. Character-contrasts social in origin are interpreted 
 as inborn. To divert attention from their underpinning of privi- 
 lege, the superiors point to the low-caste and say: 'Look, they 
 are the dull-witted, the incapable ; we are the well-born, the fittest. 
 Our mastership and our reward are of Nature's own giving. We 
 are the cream that rises to the top of the milk."^ 
 
 The turn of human character at the twist of the social environ- 
 
 1 Principles of Sociology, p. 366. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 367.
 
 EDUCATION IN ItECENT SOCIOLOGY 47 
 
 ment is by no means a cause for pessimism; quite the contrary. 
 Human nature is malleable; and it is as readily responsive to 
 right as to wrong stimuli. In this is the educator's opportunity. 
 His task is to surround the young generation with an environ- 
 ment designed to elicit the higher, happier, cooperative traits of 
 human natui'e. 
 
 (c) Modern thinking has shown us human nature's deep de- 
 mand for recreation. In fact recreation has become one of the 
 foremost social and educational problems. The evolutionary view 
 of man's origin which has cleared up so much of the contiict 
 between reason and instinct, has afforded an understanding of 
 the problem impossible before. It has put play in its right 
 perspective. Neither Mencius' idea of the original goodness of 
 human nature nor Calvin's doctrine of total depravity have tal- 
 lied with facts. Man's nature is not simple. Its roots extend to 
 the remote past, and it is these very old tendencies in human 
 nature, inherited from prehuman ancestors as well as from early 
 man, that explain much of our psychical composition. Each 
 of those original tendencies, commonly called instincts, were good 
 in the sense that they were instruments of survival. But owing to 
 the grip of heredity the instinct survives the wild life in which 
 it was serviceable. Conditions of living have changed so greatly 
 that many of these tendencies no longer find an outlet; never- 
 theless, the demand for their expression continues. Man has 
 passed through various culture stages, and "the series — herds- 
 man, husbandman, craftsman, artisan — constitutes a curve away 
 from the instinctive, which finds its terminus in the machine- 
 tender. With little in it to arouse the impulses of rivalry, curios- 
 ity, or constructiveness, the day's work is done under steady 
 strain."^ 
 
 There is today, lloss observes, a growing passion for recreation, 
 and it is due to the poverty of modern employments in elements 
 which stimulate the instincts. What is coveted by the tired 
 worker in store, office and factory is not merely rest, relaxation 
 or change of activity. "No, what ails the slave of desk and clock, 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 610.
 
 48 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 of client and customer, is what ails the horse pawing in his stall, 
 the wolf restlessly pacing his cage, lie needs experience that ivill 
 feed his famishing instincts. Hence the great recipe for recrea- 
 tion is "back to JS'ature" — raw Nature, so rich in simple and 
 racially familiar things! In a wilderness trip the novice thinks 
 that it is the big outstanding features that do him good — canoe 
 paddling, swimming, fishing, or shooting rapids. The fact is, 
 most of his benefit comes from a lot of little things which he 
 scarcely notices, but which register ifi his subconscious mind. 
 Such are green-clad hills, tossing seas of verdure, the sparkle of 
 sunlight on stirring leaves and rippling waters, the mirror magic 
 of still lakes, the soughing in pine tops, the shadow dance of sun 
 falling through foliage, the challenge of precipitous trails, the 
 sense of little peering furry creatures, all about one. Thick 
 woods, darkness, and queer night noises stir the wild self in us 
 just enough to afford a delicious tingle."^ 
 
 This fine passage explains very well the claim of I^ature upon 
 human nature. Increasingly modern employments have denied 
 expression to the instincts. Ross suggests that a methodical study 
 be made of occupations to determine to what extent they accord 
 with or go against the grain of our natural dispositions. Of 
 course the situation is easier for the man who operates his own 
 business because his quest of success provides situations which 
 stir his emulative, fighting and constructive instincts. 
 
 We are told that the want of recreation drives to vice. No 
 people have been more destitute of amusement than the Chinese. 
 The opium habit is the result. The monotony of factory or pack- 
 ing-house labor coupled wnth the dinginess of home life induces 
 the drink and 'drug habits. Dullness of existence is one of the 
 causes of prostitution. Eoss suggests three methods for dealing 
 with unsocial recreational tendencies, suppression, substitution, 
 and sublimation. 
 
 Suppression has been tried the most but with bad results, 
 becaused based upon a misconception of human nature. Substi- 
 tution, working by means of playgrounds, sports, group dances 
 
 1 Principles of Sociology, p. 607.
 
 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 49 
 
 and pageantry, lias remarkable promise for elevating world 
 civilization. "The four thousand supervised playgrounds in the 
 United States, looked after by nine thousand professional leaders 
 and supervisors, have weaned great numbers of lads from mis- 
 chief-making, broken up "tough" gangs, and overcome slum ten- 
 dencies. Athletic contests have driven the bull fight from Hispanic 
 peoples under American influence . . . Under the lead of 
 American officials the wild Igorrotes of Luzon have learned to 
 divert themselves with athletic contests and dancing instead of 
 head-hunting. At first the savage bystanders would stone the too- 
 skillful pitcher of a visiting team and match games often broke 
 up in a free fight; but the onlooking Americans and the police 
 checked such tendencies and now the Igorrotes are said to be good 
 sportsmen. In China, as opium smoking declines, sport comes 
 in with a rush and thousands of Chinese make long journeys by 
 train in order to attend the national meets. In the light of ex- 
 perience it does not seem rash to anticipate that bullfight and 
 cockfight, opium debauch and vinous "spree" every ghoulish 
 orgy of religious fanaticism, and every obscene or bloody rite 
 in Asiatic temples, may be displaced in a generation or two by 
 ball games and track meets, folk-dancing and symbolic pageants, 
 if only in public supervised recreation centers all the children 
 are bred to merry and wholesome plays."^ 
 
 The third method, sublimation, is based upon the fact that our 
 natural cravings may find gratification within the imagination. 
 Instead of arousing emotions issuing in harmful reactions, we 
 substitute situations known to be unreal which can induce only 
 play-emotions. This is the function of art. "It is the mission 
 of literature and art to create means of satisfying our repressed 
 desires wholly within the mind, thereby giving them a fuller or 
 less costly scope than we dare to give them in real life. The relief 
 of the soul by art or sport so resembles that of the body by a cathar- 
 tic that the Greek thinkers called it katharsis or purgation."" But 
 art does much more than relieve the soul. It broadens our vision 
 
 1 Principles of Sociology, p. 015. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 44.
 
 50 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 of human life. It makes us aware of unseen possibilities in our 
 own lives. It gives us zest. It shakes us out of the humdrum 
 of existence to renewed vigor in a quest of the worth-while. 
 
 Since art, meaning music, sculpture, the drama, the moving 
 picture, is so vital in the life of a people, we must give heed to 
 Ross's warning of its present commercialized condition. Com- 
 mercialization means "the increasing subjection of any calling 
 or function to the profits motive." We are told that the manipu- 
 lations of certain "monument associations" conducted for gain 
 throttle the artistic ambitions of the young sculptor. Even the 
 great actor has become today but an employee of an amusement 
 corporation. Commercialized recreation is developing a demand 
 for coarse pleasure because it sees "more money can be extracted 
 from young people by offering them the high-flavored, the risque, 
 the sensational, than by offering them the pure and elevating." 
 
 In several important respects society has shaken off the fetters 
 of commercialization. A dowry, or "marriage portion," was once 
 essential to the marriage contract. In America today mating is 
 largely free from the taint of avarice. It required years of 
 struggle to lift the ministrations of religion and of government 
 out of the market place. We are now faced with the problem 
 of de-commercializing recreation. The community provision of 
 recreation which has already succeeded in some places is the 
 most hopeful sign that this field is not be abandoned to mammon. 
 
 (d) Sociology is a new science and has been little influenced 
 by tradition. Tradition has dominated education. Today this 
 is especially true of the education of girls. Only recently did 
 we begin to educate girls at all, and then we assumed that what 
 was best for the boy was likewise best for the girl. Four years 
 of high school followed by four years of college became the estab- 
 lished regime, and the girl was allowed to participate in this 
 sacred order of things. Today the number of women seeking 
 higher education promises to exceed the male element. The high 
 school population already shows an excess of females and the 
 number of women in colleges is rapidly increasing. In this con-
 
 EDUCATION" IN EECENT SOCIOLOGY 51 
 
 dition the sociologist sees important consequences for society as 
 it affects the parentage of future generations. 
 
 In the chapter on Selection we are told that, "College women 
 marry two years later than non-college women of the same social 
 class and for this class marriage occurs two or three years later 
 than for women in general. Furthermore, only one out of two 
 college women marries, whereas in the general population nine 
 women out of ten marry. Moreover, the average number of 
 children born to a married alumna of our famous women's col- 
 leges in no case runs as high as two, and for some colleges the 
 average is less than one."^ Ross assumes that the colleges are 
 recruited from among the brightest fifteen or twenty per cent, of 
 each generation of girls. And since the college woman's chances 
 of bearing progeny are greatly below those of her non-collegiate 
 sister, it follows that the increasing college attendance of women 
 is having the effect of lowering the native ability of the race. 
 
 Speaking as eugenist the sociologist makes two recommendations. 
 First, women should graduate from college at the age of twenty. 
 This could be accomplished by eliminating superfluous things 
 from the curriculum and by better teaching methods especially 
 in early grades. This change would assure early and more 
 numerous marriages among college graduates. Second, mother- 
 hood must be recognized and honored as a career. "Brilliant 
 girls covet careers because the career is honored. Many of them 
 would be content as mothers if motherhood were equally honored. 
 But this is impossible until superior motherhood is differentiated 
 from commonplace motherhood, which in turn awaits a marking 
 system by which superior children can be discriminated from 
 commonplace children. "- 
 
 Eugenic considerations likewise furnish a strong argument for 
 the married school teacher. The school board policy of enforcing 
 celibacy upon that superior type of women who compose the 
 teaching body cannot be good for the race. "The courts should 
 
 1 Principles of Sociology, p. 392. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 393.
 
 52 EDUCATION IN KECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 uphold the woman teacher's right to marry and bear children 
 without forfeiture of position." 
 
 (e) Ross's sociology must convince the most conservative of 
 the vital need of social science in all grades of the educational 
 system. ^Yhat is especially needed is to develop the power of 
 critical thinking in human affairs ; also to turn the search light of 
 social intelligence on existing conditions. In the chapter on Ossi- 
 fication we find how rigidly an ancient practice or institution 
 becomes fixed in the public esteem. 'The first users scanning 
 with a cold or critical eye, will modify or abandon it if it does 
 not suit their purpose. But after it has been taken over and 
 worked by a later generation which has feelings about it, it 
 loses its plasticity, turns to bone, as it were."^ There are several 
 causes of ossification. Most of us are mentally lazy. We shun 
 complex problems which require sustained thinking. Although 
 social progTess is a popular subject for discussion very few will 
 inconvenience themselves for its sake. Static conceptions of 
 society prevail in spite of the many economic and social changes 
 constantly in progress. And again, the interests of individuals 
 become dependent upon the fixed order. For example, "For 
 thirty years religious leaders have urged that economics and so- 
 ciology be a part of the training for the Christian ministry. 
 With rare exceptions, however, the theological seminaries have 
 done nothing, owing to the vested interests of the professors of 
 the traditional subjects. As a result the clergy are steadily 
 losing influence because of their ignorance of the burning moral 
 issues of the time."^ To prevent ossification we need to take a 
 critical attitude towards our customs and institutions. "Each 
 generation ought to review all the institutions they inherit, and 
 consider of each whether it is still at the peak of fitness." 
 
 Success, however egotistical, has been held up for the emula- 
 tion of youth. In the chapter on Equalization we are told that 
 reflective thinking will give us a juster appraisal of the suc- 
 cessful. Has a man's success advanced or retarded human wel- 
 
 1 PrinciplPS of Sociology, p. 502. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 504.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 53 
 
 fare? This is a question for serious concern in our school his- 
 tories and literature, since these fix ideals in the minds of the 
 young. We also need a shattering of the prestige given to the 
 mere possession of wealth. "From the social point of view, the 
 envied idle rich not only have no claim to special consideration, 
 but appear as the drones of a hive, the camp followers of an army, 
 the stowaways of a ship, the deadbeats of a business . . . What 
 the heir consumes costs the toil and sweat of his contemporaries; 
 so that society may well say to him, 'This is what we are doing 
 for you; now what are you doing for us?"^ The principle that 
 every man, neither sick nor imbecile, shall produce at least to the 
 extent he consumes, will one day be recognized as fundamental 
 in rational social organization. Enlightened revisions of what 
 constitutes success and honor, the association of these wholly with 
 social service, are inevitable with the diffusion of social knowledge. 
 
 (f ) What should be the relation of the school to the government 
 has become a vital issue in educational administration. Ross 
 contends that the school should be under independent control. The 
 success of the Kaiser's government in deliberately moulding Ger- 
 man opinion to its ovni ends by means of the school is sufficient 
 warning. Today the State, charged with new functions, is be- 
 coming more powerful. Laissez faire is dead. With its added 
 bulk and prestige it is especially necessary that the governmental 
 machine yield readily to the will of the people. It must never 
 be permitted to control public opinion. The school as the mother 
 and moulder of opinion should be independent of government. A 
 non-partisan board of education should have the power to levy 
 taxes for the support of schools and not have to beg funds from 
 a political body, either city council or state legislature. "]^ow 
 that the State is gathering mass and momentum, the School should 
 stand wholly on its own bottom, lest the State tamper with the 
 holy functions of enlightenment, character-moulding, nnd opin- 
 ion forming. "- 
 
 1 Ibid, p. 384. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 437.
 
 54 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 (g) Of Professor Ross's earlier works mention should be made 
 of the Social Psychology. That human groups are highly sus- 
 ceptible to suggestion and imitation, the main themes elaborated in 
 this volume, is a fact of deep interest to the educator. The chap- 
 ters on Mob Mind and the means of checking it are pertinent espe- 
 cially today when mob mind means more than the condition of an 
 agitated group at one place. A crowd under the sway of feeling, 
 bent upon the accomplishment of some end, the killing of a man, 
 the destruction of a building, exhibits mob mind. It may likewise 
 occur under the excitements of a religious revival or political con- 
 vention. On such occasions one's normal reasoning powers are sus- 
 pended, and individuality is lost while merged with the crowd. 
 This has been true of man since he ran in packs in prehuman days. 
 But today as never before mass suggestion affects persons far apart. 
 The telegraph, the fast mail, the numerous editions of the news- 
 paper are the instruments for the rapid spread of suggestion and 
 feeling, an extension of mob mind over large areas. After the 
 destruction of the Maine in Havana Harbor the demand for ven- 
 geance was general over the country, and only the cool-headed 
 were satisfied to await the report of official enquiry into the cause 
 of the explosion. Deliberate and wide spread propaganda is easier 
 today than ever before. How are we to protect ourselves against 
 these streams of suggestion, against shallow conclusions, against 
 floods of mass feeling ? In the chapter "Prophylactics against Mob 
 Mind" more than a dozen suggestions are made, but space limits 
 us to brief mention of the first four. Higher education which 
 equips a student with tests of objective truth is protection against 
 many forms of delusion. Scientific education at any grade will 
 have this tendency. Familiarity with the world's great classics, 
 acquaintaince with the intellectual kings of the human race, is a 
 ■bulwark against the deceit of false prophets. The influence of 
 high grade teachers will throw the student on his own resources and 
 ripen his individuality. The study of the sciences of hygiene, psy- 
 chology and sociology is especially recommended, "for body, mind 
 and society are the storm centers of faddism, the breeding ground
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 55 
 
 of manias. To be folly-proof here is to be fortified against nine- 
 tenths of the higher foolishness. The reason why cranks haunt 
 these three to^^ics is that they are of supreme human interest. The 
 prizes that can be held out for the adoption of the Kneipp cure, 
 theosophy, or some social Utopia are the most desired things in the 
 world — immunity from disease, from sin, and from poverty." In 
 brief, it is the increasing sway of scientific education alone which 
 can be depended upon to check the baneful influences of mass 
 suffs'cstion or mob mind.
 
 56 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 VI. 
 
 EDWARD GARY HAYES. 
 
 *3HmHiiiiiDiiHiiiimit|Ej^jj^pg ^^Q jjjogt (jirect approach to the place of 
 
 I Y\ I Education in the sociology of Professor Hayes is 
 
 I W^ I in his treatment of social control. In order to 
 
 I I live a harmonious life, in fact, ir order to secure 
 
 liiimmiiiioniHimiiicI any degree of integrated life whatever, a group of 
 
 I I human beings must have certain methods or agen- 
 
 1 I cies of control. These are necessary for co-opera- 
 
 4>3iniriiiiiiiDiiiiiiuiii[<i> ^^^^ ^^^ solidarity. Without them the group will 
 
 disintegrate or degenerate in unending conflict. Man has instincts 
 and natural traits upon which as a basis the agencies of control 
 are built. In fact, for a primitive form of social organization, 
 these natural traits themselves may be the main bonds of social 
 cohesion. Sociability, the love of one's kind, imitation, fear of 
 the enemy, are natural characteristics which cement together 
 primitive groups. The same thing is true of personal groups among 
 ourselves. Personal contact with others stimulates our sympathy, 
 altruism, sense of justice, and feelings of loyalty to common inter- 
 ests. J^atural traits therefore suffice for a degree of harmony and 
 solidarity in personal groups. But civilized nations are too vast 
 for personal associations. The "we" groups in which each person 
 mingles are usually but infinitesimal portions of the total popula- 
 tion. What hope is there for developing sympathy and solidarity 
 among great groups of people, most of whom will never meet each 
 other in personal ways ? What prospects are -ihere for harmony 
 and co-operation over large areas ? The answer is, that agencies 
 of control must be devised, and while these utilize natural traits 
 and instincts, they must go much beyond them in intricacy and 
 elaborateness. 
 
 "Introduction to the Study of Sociology ' ' and "Sociology and Ethics ' ' are the two books 
 published by Professor Hayes which supply data for this study.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 57 
 
 As a society grows in numbers and coirplexity, increasing 
 elaborateness in the machinery of control muso follow. In a per- 
 sonal gi'oiip the consequences of contact are iimnediate and appar- 
 ent. In a developed society the causal connection between an 
 action and its consequences is likely to be i emote and obscure. 
 There are dairy owners and real estate promoters, for example, 
 who would instinctively recoil at the thought of committing mur- 
 der, but whose cupidity and neglect result in the death of many 
 from impure milk and contagion-reeking tenements. Likewise the 
 trust magnate, generous to his personal folio sving and pridefuUy 
 honest in ordinary business dealings, may nol hesitate to manipu- 
 late the values of securities though the result be the filching away 
 ■of the painfully accumulated savings of the poor. It is evident 
 that an advanced society affords gigantic opportunities for de- 
 structive conduct from which no instinctive impulse restrains, and 
 it likewise affords opportunity for great good to which no instinc- 
 tive impulse prompts. To avoid the evil and promote the good the 
 turbulent current of human impulse must be "redirected by dikes 
 and channels that have been laid down by careful engineering and 
 that require incessant labor to keep them in I'epair." These dikes 
 and channels, which are social products rsther than instinctive 
 possessions, are the means of control. The power of their steady 
 influence is likely to be overlooked. "In times of peace and in 
 well-bred society the course of life runs on so smoothly that it 
 resembles the unjarring movement of the earth on its axis and in its 
 orbit, and it may never occur to the mind that cataclysmic forces 
 are held in bonds by the unremitting gravitation of social control."^ 
 
 We have seen w^hat social control means. According to Hayes 
 there are two types of control which society relies upon to secure 
 its aims. The first is control by sanctions, which means by rewards 
 and punishments. The second type is contiol by social suggestion, 
 sympathetic radiation, and imitation. The latter arc the three 
 main forms of human association, or main modes by which persons 
 are related to one another. They may be defined briefly as fol- 
 lows. Social suggestion is the relation in which the idea of one 
 
 1 Intro, to the Study of Sociology, p. 585.
 
 58 EDUCATION IN EECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 associate becomes known to the other, and this may be either by 
 direct telling or by inference from observation of the other's be- 
 havior. Man is imique in possessing this characteristic. ^'The hu- 
 man organism is a mechanism adapted to function under the stim- 
 ulation of ideas. That is the key to the life history of man and 
 society, in so far as that mystery can be anlocked with any one 
 key."^ Sympathetic radiation implies that feelings and senti- 
 ments manifested by one person evoke siriilar feelings and senti- 
 ments in others. Its part in character molding is immense. "Most 
 of the definite sentiments, which are popularly regarded as instinc- 
 tive, are in reality caught by social radiaiion from the society by 
 which we are surrounded from our infaicy." Imitation means 
 that the overt practice of one is practiced by the other. It is of 
 course a factor of enormous importance in constructing and per- 
 petuating uniformity in social usages. 
 
 The first type of social control elicits and represses particular 
 actions, it is control from without. The second establishes general 
 dispositions, more permanent inner tendencies. Social life is 
 primarily psychic and this type of control gives to society its 
 psychic basis. Social suggestion, sympathetic radiation, and imi- 
 tation are identified by Professor Hayes with education. We have 
 therefore reached the heart of our problem. Education is the maia 
 means of control. Of course this implies a definition of educa- 
 tion much broader than that of the schocl. It includes all human 
 association, in fact all social contacts mast be recognized as parts 
 of a process of education. "ISTot merely are we molded during the 
 plastic years of childhood, but through Dut life our activities are 
 repressed or elicited or directed by the past, present and antici- 
 pated activities of our associates."^ 
 
 At the beginning of the argument we found that agencies of 
 social control have the effect of bringing order and solidarity to a 
 group. A civilized society however can regard these conditions as 
 but means to some further ends. In fact, the highly developed 
 civilisation is able to establish means of control that will rationally 
 influence the trend of the social process in the direction of some 
 
 1 Ibid, p. 311. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 418.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 59 
 
 selected goal. A supreme end as the goal of conduct for both 
 individual and society is as necessary to rational development a3 
 is a destination for a ship. What is 1he social ultimate? ''The 
 ultimate aim of social control and of ill rational endeavor is to 
 secure the completest and most harmonious realization of good 
 human experience, regarded as an end in itself."^ Ward found 
 the end in collective happiness; Hayes says, in good human 
 experience. 
 
 Having established good human experience as the aim of social 
 control and of rational effort the question arises what are the means 
 available, or what steps can be taken, for its realization. We have 
 seen that we cannot depend upon instincts. Fortunately, how- 
 ever, we have found the main means of control to lie in education ; 
 so the problem becomes that of uniting social control and enlight- 
 enment. Such union depends on whether men can be adequately 
 influenced by considerations of wider values, on "whether reason 
 can either dominate instinct, or enlist the responses of instinct 
 in service of wider aims. ... It depends also upon whether the 
 pressures of social approval and disapproval will adequately 
 supplement private conscience. . . . The world is inevitably com- 
 mitted to the experiment of uniting control with enlightenment. . . 
 And the success of this experiment of human society depends upon 
 converting life into team work, into a co-operative enterprise."^ 
 
 Evidently an enlightened control must depend upon the elicit- 
 ing of personal qualities and dispositions, because it is in person- 
 ality that we find the ultimate basis of social order. The problem 
 of social control and therefore of education is to convert each per- 
 son's instincts and propensities into dispositions to acts which will 
 yield the highest correlation between individual satisfactions and 
 social service. We need to develop a type of person actively com- 
 mitted to participation in co-operative undertakings. 
 
 The attainment of an enlightened order of humanity depends 
 upon the prevalence of this requisite type of personality. What is 
 the desired type? I^umerous characteristics could be given as 
 highly desirable. Hayes selects four traits which age-long exper- 
 
 1 Ibid, p 586. An analysis of pood human experience as tli^ aim of the individual and 
 collective life is adequately worked out iu the recent volume Sociology and Kthics, particu- 
 larly in chapters 7 and 8 on Social Values. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 587.
 
 60 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 ience has demonstrated to be the universal essentials. The first is 
 reliability or honesty, for no society can prosper on dishonesty. 
 The average human being is born with a tendency to craft and it 
 will be used at least outside of his immediate partisan groups un- 
 less a sense of honor is acquired. The second is temperance which 
 means among other things the control of animalism. Of course 
 normal appetites are not evil in themselves, but they are easily 
 perverted. Consider the perversion of the sex instinct. "The 
 multitudes who escape this peril do so not by a gift of nature but 
 by virtue of an acquired trait, a sentiment stronger than instinct 
 inculcated by society as the result of countless bitter lessons. 
 Though in well-reared characters the defenses are built so high and 
 strong, still society must rebuild them with every generation ; 
 because desire for physical pleasure is so strong and because social 
 tolerance can make anything seem right. Every society has still 
 some customs that are like low weak places in the dikes."^ The 
 third essential trait of character is steadiness, steadiness in endea- 
 vor. The savage and the child tire quickly of work. The youth 
 must be taught not to flinch before the irksome task when there i-^ 
 necessity for doing it. 
 
 The fourth of the traits considered indispensable in members 
 of a developed society is justice, which is identified with the social 
 spirit. Although justice has an instinctive basis, this spirit is 
 largely the product of reason, and "the reasoning which is the 
 foundation of justice has for its major premise the fact that the 
 values of life are real by whomsoever experienced," an idea which 
 resembles Todd's insistence that we project ourselves into the lives 
 of others by means of our imaginations. It is the requirement of 
 reason and therefore of the social spirit that we estimate at par 
 the value of every life we touch, that we recognize others' interests 
 to be as important as our own. And while a man's immediate 
 responsibility is for those nearest to him because he has more power 
 over them, it includes all to whom his influence extends. "The 
 demand of reason is that he should so spend his energies as to 
 produce the greatest net increase of human values, whether those 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 591.
 
 EDUCATION IX EECENT SOCIOLOGY 61 
 
 values are realized in his own experience or in the experience of 
 others." These considerations lead to a rule of conduct put in a 
 form suggested by the Kantian Ethics. The rule is: "I for one 
 will so play my part that if all played their part in the same spirit 
 the good possibilities of society would be fulfilled."^ Even in the 
 present stage of social evolution the individual may live in the 
 spirit of this rule. The fact that some do and others do not con- 
 stitutes "the line between the sheep and the goats." Obviously 
 justice is a broad concept. It includes every virtue. Negatively 
 it forbids the infliction of injuries and positively it summons every 
 one to strive for the supreme goal, which we found to be the in- 
 crease of good human experience. 
 
 The important question is whether the above reasoned conclu- 
 sions can be converted into sentiments with impelling power. Can 
 they become settled principles so as to function in the heat of life 
 when contrary impulses are strong? Can they become the com- 
 mon sense of the multitude ? Can the four essential traits become 
 established in the responses of human nature, become a "second 
 nature," and thereby make a highly developed society possible? 
 Let us mention some of the grounds suggested by Hayes s 
 sociology for the belief that it is possible and wholly feasible. In 
 the first place, a new type of mores is attainable. Comparative 
 sociology studies the mental attitudes and customs of many typos 
 of social life past and present. This study of the mores reveals a 
 surprising variety of ideals and practices. "It is necessary for us 
 to learn that 'human nature' determines only within wide limits 
 what men shall regard as beautiful, what things they shall desire, 
 what ambitions they shall pursue, or what they shall regard as right 
 or wrong. That is to say, it leaves undetermined, save within wide 
 limits, what their character and content of life and personality 
 shall be. We have seen that human nature does not prevent men 
 from seeing beauty in yellow cheeks and eyes aslant and blackened 
 teeth and feet deformed to lumps and beards dyed in bright colors, 
 or from regarding the eating of a dead parent's body as a seemly 
 mark of respect ; that social influence does more than human nature 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 594.
 
 ■62 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 to determine musical preference for a bedlam of squawks, squeals, 
 clangs and bangs, or for simple melodies, or for the intricate har- 
 mony and subharmonies of Wagner ; that birth from a rake called 
 a duke, or ability to pound an opponent's face, may at one time 
 and place set a man higher in social regard than virtue coupled 
 with ordinary or even extraordinary usefulness, and at other times 
 and places have no such power; that social molding can build con- 
 sciences that approve not only of slavery, as did many of the most 
 Christian and most charming people in America till recently, and 
 polygamy, as Abraham and a majority of the wise and good men 
 of the past have done, but also infanticide, human sacrifice, killing 
 the aged, and wife-lending as a duty of hospitality ; 'that the mores 
 can make anything seem right. '^ Human beings will suffer 
 deprivations and j)ain for the sake of established modes of behavior, 
 however irrational some of these appear to us to be. Human sen- 
 timents are diverse and impel to various ends. But the mores as 
 readily provide a basis for the higher type of social life ; they pro- 
 vide increasingly for honest practices, temperate living, for the 
 social spirit, for co-operative endeavor. Sentiments may be builfc 
 up issuing in the expression of what we found to be the essential 
 traits of the socialized man. 
 
 The direction of ambition is socially determined. A man 
 measures his success and worth by the standards set up in the 
 group. The individual responds to what society values. "What- 
 ever society adequately appreciates, society will get, up to the very- 
 limits of human possibility, whether it be prizefighters, money- 
 kings, scientists, or constructive statesmen. 'Ro other reform is 
 so fundamental as a shifting of emphasis in social valuations."^ 
 The strong will seek expression in intelligent social service whe7i 
 society extends its highest approval to that type of career. Simi- 
 larly conscience codes are wholly matters of the social environ- 
 ment. Conscience itself is not inborn although every normal per- 
 son is gifted with the capacity to develop one. Only environing 
 influence or education can determine what the content of his con- 
 
 1 Uiid., p. 664. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 666.
 
 EDUCATION IN EECENT SOCIOLOGY 03 
 
 science shall be. History reveals amazing changes in conscience 
 codes. "A few centuries ago an ambitions Dane would say to his 
 neighbor: 'Come, I have a good boat, let us sail to a village down 
 the coast and burn it, carry off the fairest of the women, pillage 
 the church, plunder the houses, and live all the rest of our days 
 in comfort and become, besides, the most respected men of this 
 region.' And after the exploit they would return to their admir- 
 ing friends singing of their o^vn glory as 'wolves' and 'sea thieves'." 
 Compare such behavior with that of their descendants in the in- 
 telligent and peaceful Denmark of today ! "It is not too much to 
 anticipate that our descendants will look upon the ethical code 
 that measures business success by acquisition rather than by pro- 
 duction much as we now regard the code of the vikings."^ 
 
 "We should note further the variability of human nature, the 
 second nature into which it matures, its unmeasured possibilities, 
 its diversified latencies. "The principle of the wide variability 
 of each individual within the limits set by nature — the fact that 
 there is in each normal child a generous assortment of unrealized 
 possibilities inviting any one of numerous careers, including 
 material for devil and saint, savage or social flower; the truth that 
 interests, tastes, ambitions and conscience vary in response to 
 social conditions as really as language and as widely as the contrast 
 between the Chinese or Algonquin language and our o-wn — this 
 momentous principle is one of the words that sociology has for the 
 guidance of education."^ 
 
 Another reason for courage in the anticipation of a co-operative 
 society is in the fact that the ideal society invites expression of 
 individuality rather than repression of it. In fact, "interests, 
 appreciations and powers, though primarily they are developed 
 capacities for individual experience, are also essential to society." 
 A normal hunger is the condition of the human mind. It will 
 be occupied with something whether trivial or useful, noble or 
 base. Its appetite seeks knowledge of human kind, biograi)hy, 
 anecdote, history, or neighborhood gossip. Its interest extends 
 to physical nature, seas and mountains, beasts and birds, trees and 
 
 1 Sociology and Ethics, p. 184.
 
 64 
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 flowers ; also to man's material accomplishments, engineering works 
 and cities. This hunger must be developed into wholesome in- 
 terests to reduce the humdrum of the average life. ''There is no 
 necessity that the life of any normal being should revolve in a 
 petty orbit, from the work bench to the dinner table, to the barber 
 shop, to bed and back to the work bench." It is the empty life that 
 breeds discontent. Unsatisfied hunger leads to nervous disorders^ 
 possibly to anarchy. This plea of the sociologist for a principle 
 similar to the Ilerbartian many-sided interest has its end not 
 merely in the individual's fulfillment. It is a recognition that the 
 individual's interests and expression are essential to social har- 
 mony, that the development of men's tastes, of what they like, 
 is a necessary factor in a program of social control. So we have 
 the rule : "Every individual is to be educated not only for the ser- 
 vice of others, but also for his own essential living."^ 
 
 But we may go a step beyond the mere denial that the co-opera- 
 tive mode of life suppresses individuality. We must reject the 
 false view that men are essentially egotists and that genius can be 
 stirred only by material rewards. Human experience has proved 
 the close relation between happiness and loyalty to a social aim. 
 Such is the lesson of Goethe's masterpiece. In it we have an 
 answer to the great question : What is worth while ? Faust drank 
 deeply of the reputed delights of life ; wealth, power, honor, carnal 
 love ; also of the beauties of art and of intellectual pursuits. But 
 none of these gave lasting satisfaction. Finally he undertook 
 to serve his fellow men. "Then in useful work, with himself 
 forgotten and his powers employed in the service of a social aim 
 by which his energies were zestfully enlisted because it was worth 
 while, he found the answer to the question, the question of the 
 sphinx, that must be answered truly by all who would live. . . 
 We are social beings, and though we may have many pleasures, we 
 do not discover and realize our appropriate satisfaction save as 
 self-interest and devotion become reconciled."^ To attain this 
 
 1 Intro, to the Study of Soc, p. 6B3. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 654. A passage from Sociology and Ethics, p. 158, illustrates the same thought. 
 "Yonng millionaires who lett their life of dainty self-indulgence for the Great War and 
 peeled jjotatoes in the cantonments and were cased in the mud of the trenches, testify that 
 it was the happiest time of their lives, because thev were for the first tfme included iu a 
 great social co-operation with adequate motives and were possessed by the social devotion.'
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 65 
 
 view one need not have the exceptional mind and career of a 
 Goethe. A similar faith is wholly possible for the average man. 
 His own experiences are the material out of which it will be 
 constructed, when the social atmosphere is cleared by a vision 
 of better social organization. ''The co-operative enterprise of 
 social life is the great summons to ennobling devotion. To make 
 this plain to the common sense of the people, as the summons of 
 war is plain, is the highest aim of education." 
 
 The problem of realizing our co-operative society has been 
 viewed from three angles : the fact of social evolution and the flex- 
 ibility of the mores, the consistency of individual expression with 
 social solidarity, and the essential relation between personal happi- 
 ness and loyalty to aims of group welfare.^ These perspective:! 
 have given ground for encouragement. A study of the inner 
 essence of society, of the intricate nature of social life, would 
 indicate however that we must not be too sanquine of rapid evolu- 
 tion. The mind secures content and expansion by a process called 
 by Professor Hayes "social osmosis." Social osmosis is but an- 
 other name for association, but the term seems especially expres- 
 sive of the facts and is enlightening as an educational concept. 
 In physics osmosis means the passage of liquids or gases in both 
 directions through separating membranes. Social osmosis means 
 the passage of suggestions, of ideas and of feelings. When I 
 speak of "my life" what I mean is the content of my stream of 
 consciousness, my sequence of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, senti- 
 ments, values, loves, animosities, etc. Language is only the ex- 
 pression of these. What is significant to me in another person 
 is likewise his stream of mental states and activities. "Indi- 
 vidual streams of consciousness flow on side by side . . . and bi»- 
 tween these individual streams of consciousness there is a con- 
 tinual osmosis."^ Social life is primarily psychic. The psychic 
 activity of one member of society is transfused with those of other 
 members of society, all together forming the process of social life. 
 
 1 The problem of the adequacy of available motives for social conduct is clIscusBert 
 more complntely and very suggestively in Sociology and Kthics, particularly in chaptor 10, 
 on the Ethical Function of Human Predispositions, and chaiiter 11. on Socialization 
 through the Exercise of Reason. 
 
 2 Ibid, 303.
 
 66 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 It is evident that substantial progress of a group is not possible 
 unless the uplift extends to all its interdependent units. The 
 wise parent surrounds his child with noble home influences. But 
 the excitements of the neighborhood press relentlessly upon the 
 child's attention. Sometimes the outside influences are elevating, 
 often they are commonplace and vicious. And the child in the 
 unfortunate home may be surrounded from his beginning by 
 streams of evil tendency which condition his conscious life. 
 
 The fact that social osmosis is a process present in all environ- 
 ments and moments of life shows the limitations of the school. 
 The language of the sidewalk, the sensational billboard, the sophis- 
 ticated "movie," the crudities of the colored supplement, the 
 ugliness of neglected streets, the jarrings of an exploitive system 
 of industry, these too are among the contributors to the child's 
 jjsychic life. An illustration of the limitation on the school is 
 evident also in the degree of character molding in the home during 
 the pre-school age. "Very early and perhaps even before he 
 enters the school room at six, the influence of the family has deter- 
 mined for the child and in the majority of cases for life whether 
 he is to be Catholic or Protestant, Methodist or Presbyterian, 
 standpatter or progressive, whether he is to use refined or degraded 
 speech, be truthful or deceiving, a self-seeker or animated by the 
 social spirit."-^ Why the home influence is so powerful in the 
 early years is stated lucidly in the following passage which is 
 worthy of the meditation of child trainers. "The greatness of 
 this power is due to three well known principles of social psychol- 
 ogy : first, the naivete and suggestibility of the child. The empty 
 mind of the child has at first nothing to oppose to whatever ideas 
 are presented, and it has no predjudice against whatever senti- 
 ments are radiated by its associates. Second, the principle of 
 repetition. Even the well-fortified mind stored with accepted 
 tastes, approvals, and beliefs, is so susceptible to the effects of 
 repetition as to give rise to the popular remark that it is only 
 necessary to say a thing often enough in order to have it believed. 
 The child in the home is subjected for years to a repetition of the 
 
 1 latro. to the Study of Sociology, p. 070.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 67 
 
 same impressions. Third, the principle of prestige. Elders have 
 tremendous natural prestige with the young."^ 
 
 What influences can the school exert in opposition to unfavor- 
 able effects of home and neighborhood life? By way of answer 
 an excellent suggestion is made in the sociologist's discussion of 
 the power of prestige. We have seen that by osmotic processes 
 the pupil receives influences from a vast variety of sources. But 
 these sources of influence are by no means alike in their effects 
 since some have greater pressure and penetrative power with 
 him than others. When an individual, group, class, or institu- 
 tion is especially effective as a source of social suggestion, sym- 
 pathetic radiation and imitation, it may be said to have prestige. 
 Fortunately the school exerts prestige. In defense of his opinion 
 the young child asserts, "My teacher said so," or ''We do this way 
 at school." Prestige measures the school's power for assuming 
 dominant charge of the child's life. 
 
 But the school will not have prestige unless it is respected and 
 loved. When the school in the child's mind is associated with 
 irksome tasks disconnected with concrete realities, a place where 
 his freedom and interests are suppressed, and where joys and en- 
 thusiasms are not felt, such a school will not have prestige. On the 
 other hand the child may find in school what his emerging soul has 
 blindly groped for, but what his iiome and neighborhood have 
 failed to give him, namely, respect for his personality, encourage- 
 ment for his efforts, the joy of achievement, the thrilling exercise 
 of new powers, recognized fairness in dealings with associates, 
 and most of all love and enthusiasms caught by contacts with higli- 
 minded men and women. With such wholesome human influences 
 and wise methods, combined with a stately building efficiently 
 equipped and artistically surrounded, the school will fortify its 
 prestige and may hope to be the dominant directive agency in the 
 
 pupil's life. 
 
 Our school program requires expansion in the diroc-tion of 
 moral training. Educators must make more direct an.l i^crsis-
 
 68 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 tent attempts to moralize education. Thinking on this subject is 
 confused. It has become a popuhir view that nothing can be done 
 "directly," that moral influences are matters of the teacher's per- 
 sonality and of the general atmosphere of the school. But what 
 pearl of great price is ever attained without direct aim and effort ? 
 Undoubtedly much can be accomplished in moral training if a 
 comprehensive plan is earnestly undertaken. We have seen that 
 the mores are flexible and that sentiments are acquired. We 
 need to aim at new practices and inculate new sentiments centered 
 about co-operative modes of social life. The spirit of competition 
 in school should give way to co-operation. All opportunities must 
 be used for instilling sentiments in support of the essential traits, 
 reliability, temperance, steadiness and the social spirit. The 
 social spirit in particular we found to be a product of reason ; 
 therefore its acquisition is a matter for direct teaching.^ The 
 ability of a school to inculcnte these traits should be the mark of 
 its success. We found that ambition is socially directed, and that 
 standards of success are social products. The school can set up 
 standards of success and by them estimate the worth of careers with 
 reference to the common welfare. In so doing it will influence the 
 direction of ambition. The school can broaden the pupil's in- 
 terests in men and in nature ; we found that persons of wide 
 interests are better citizens. The school can give content to the 
 pupil's developing conscience code. In short the school must set 
 about in a direct way to prepare the child for membership in a 
 moralized co-operative society. There is no question that the 
 school already provides moral influences. Our assertion is that 
 efforts in this direction must be vastly increased. "The slow 
 dragging centuries will continue to drag and the destiny of human- 
 ity go unfulfilled in spite of all the progress in science and indus- 
 try, unless there be commensurate progress in morality."^ 
 
 The following is a brief summary of the argument. Means of 
 control are necessary to secure solidarity in any society. While 
 in very primitive and personal groups instincts and natural traits 
 
 1 For a detailed exposition of the place of reason in developing the moral nature, see 
 Sociology and Ethics, chapter 11, on Socialization through the Exercise of Reason. 
 
 2 Intro, to the Study of Sociology, p. 670,
 
 EDUCATION" IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 69 
 
 may suffice as bonds of cohesion, in well civilized societies some- 
 wliat elaborate agencies of control are necessary. Through its 
 agencies of control the developed society is able consciously and 
 rationally to direct the social process. To direct it wisely it should 
 set up a goal to be attained. We have assumed the goal to be, the 
 increasing realization of good human experience. Society will 
 work for a rational goal only if control is united with enlighten- 
 ment. Enlightened control depends upon the prevalence of a 
 type of personality characterized by certain social traits. The 
 desired type of personality is attainable by education. We found 
 that the adaptability of the mores, the consistency of individual 
 expression with social progress, and the unity of personal happi- 
 ness with group welfare, are factors encouraging to the realization 
 of the social ideal. We found also that the osmotic pressure of a 
 variety of retarding influences hamper the school's work of whole- 
 some mind training; but that the school can overcome much of 
 this limitation by establishing its prestige in the pupil's life, and 
 by a more searching and vigorous plan of moral training.
 
 <i>]iiiiiiiiiiiiaiiiiiMiiiiic4> 
 
 "^0 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 VII. 
 
 RESUME. 
 
 Educational Sociology. 
 
 I"""" """""""ff S social philosophy usually but an excrescence or 
 
 I w I interpretation of underlying popular sentiment? 
 ill Does the philosopher and thinker lead public opin- 
 I I ion, or merely reflect it ? One writer expressed 
 
 ¥:iiiiiiiiiiiiaiiHiiiiimi^ the view recently that the doctrines of the scientist 
 I I are both effect and cause of the social environ- 
 
 I ment, a thesis which he illustrated by reference to 
 two famous biological scientists, Weismann and 
 Galton.^ In denying the hereditary transmission of acquired 
 characteristics, Weismann, it is claimed, reflected the social dis- 
 tinctions of his native Germany. His theory too has contributed 
 much to the tide of imperialism of our day; in fact, it has been 
 so twisted as to have become a bulwark of reaction. Galton, the 
 Englishman, glorified hereditary talent. Certainly no modern 
 country has extended official recognition to talent as has England, 
 and at the same time, no western country has so kept up the 
 forms due to birth. This writer asserts that a neo-aristocratic 
 philosophy has arisen which has its roots in the doctrine of Weis- 
 mann and Galton. Perhaps we should expect the opinions of 
 even scientists to be colored by the social environment. Did not 
 the clear-headed Aristotle deny a soul to the slave? 
 
 Whatever be the merits of this interpretation of Weismanniau 
 and Galtonian theories, there would seem to be something dis- 
 tinctly American in the wi'itings of our sociologists. They reflect 
 American aspirations and ideals, at least when these are at their 
 best. They furnish us with deeper meanings and possibilities of 
 democracy. Of the writers discussed in this series of articles 
 
 1 See Current Opinion, September, 1920.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 7l 
 
 all are champions of democratic ideas ; in all we find a profound 
 belief in the people, an assertion of the worth of the individual, 
 a rejection of the sway of the superman. It may be these views 
 are partly the effect of an undertow of popular feeling. We may 
 hope they are at the same time prophetic of the future and will 
 have a guiding influence on the trend of the national life. 
 
 Perhaps the thought uppermost in the mind of Ward, a thought 
 which he held to the day he died, as evidenced in late addresses, 
 was of the tremendous possibilities for social good which repose 
 in the latent capacities of the masses. The social organization 
 was to be perfected, and collective happiness attained, by putting 
 the latent to use. Knowledge was the means. It is the right 
 of each and every individual to share fully in the knowledge and 
 culture which the race has accumulated up to the present moment. 
 Each is by nature joint heir to the social estate. It is the opinion 
 of agronomists, says Hayes, that the yield of American corn lands 
 could be doubled by the application of the lessons of science, and 
 likewise, he asserts, the harvest of life for the people of America 
 could be doubled if the possibilities with which they are endowed 
 by nature were brought to approximate realization. One of Todd's 
 striking passages upholds the latent fineness of the individual, 
 notwithstanding an ugly exterior, and suggests too the means of 
 turning him to the higher life. After a comment on the work 
 of Burbank in changing the character of plants, he asks, ''Where 
 is the wizard who will turn thorny, unproductive, selfish, shirking, 
 cross-grained human natures into co-operators, good citizens, and 
 members of a great, united human brotherhood ? He is perhaps 
 even now in our midst. But, whoever he is, it is safe to say that 
 his means will be social education, centering about a new concept 
 of the self. And his philosophy will be a constructive optimism 
 that includes a liberal view of human nature, precisely because 
 human nature and the self are trustworthy when given proper 
 surroundings. 'Human nature is all right as it is,' declares u 
 modern preacher. 'Human nature needs no change and nobody
 
 72 
 
 EDUCATION IN RECEIS'^T SOCIOLOGY 
 
 is trying to change it. It only needs a chance.' "^ The man 
 without social vision sees only what his eyes reveal. The man 
 with it sees the latencies in the human situation. 
 
 A belief in the masses and the ascription of worth to every 
 individual is, of course, wholly consistent with the recognition cf 
 natural leadership. By means of educating all, Ward hoped to 
 increase social leadership; he said that by a system of universal 
 education especially talented leaders, 'the dynamic agents of so- 
 ciety," could be increased one hundred fold. Ellwood makes the 
 statement that "IsTothing great is achieved in human society with- 
 out personal leadership. . . . From the simplest stone imple- 
 ment to the automobile, most men have had to use or copy the 
 invention of the exceptional mind." In fact, it is when the laten- 
 cies of the masses are recognized that the question of leadership 
 becomes all the more important. The selection and training of 
 leaders today is especially the task of the higher institutions of 
 learning. It is of the utmost practical importance that they per- 
 form their tasks well, because "with expert leadership the capacity 
 of civilized people for social progTess might be increased almost 
 indefinitely."* But the leadership urged by Ward and Ellwood 
 is the kind that issues in service. There is no safe leadership 
 unless the people are intelligent enough to select leaders who aim 
 to serve. Todd issues a warning against the egotistical domi- 
 nance of some "natural" leaders. "Is it not time to cease paying 
 with no questions asked the price demanded by Caesar or John, 
 Warwick or Richard the Third, iN'apoleon or Bismarck? . . . 
 Utilize the elite; cultivate genius, if that be possible; endow it, 
 if necessary to protect it from want (great inventive genius has 
 scarcely ever been appropriately cared for) ; reward it according 
 to real contribution; but make it an aristocracy like that of 
 Aristides, who, in a memorable debate, challenged his opponent 
 in these terms : 'It is for us to struggle, both now and ever, which 
 of us shall perform the greatest services to his country.' "^ 
 
 It is evident that the school should supply for the youth it 
 
 3 Theories of Social Progress, p. 8. 
 
 4 K'lwood : Intro, to Social Psy., p. 158. 
 
 5 Theories of Social Progress, p. 542.
 
 EDUCATION IN" RECENT SOCIOLOGY ' O 
 
 teaches standards for the judging of great men. It should help 
 him to estimate the paramount influence of this and that hero. 
 The worth of each should be ascertained bv searching examina- 
 tion. The contribution each has made to human welfare is the 
 test. If this had been done there might not have been such a 
 large cult of Napoleon worshippers in the late nineteenth centurv. 
 The school too must strive to develop leaders. But in some 
 quarters today leadership is over-emphasized, to the neglect of 
 the education of the masses. If we required everv boy and girl 
 in the country to complete an education in a well organized high 
 school the problem of leadership would take care of itself. What 
 we need most of all is a heightened general intelligence for the 
 fielection and stimulation of leaders. 
 
 All the writers studied present a dynamic view of society. 
 Humanity is in movement. Ward's great work is Dynamic 
 Sociology. He said sociology had to do with human achievement 
 Todd's central problem is that of social progress, movement in 
 the direction of human well being. Cooley's last book is named 
 Social Process, and the opening sentence reads, "We see around 
 us in the world of men an onward movement of life." The same 
 is true of Ross. Of the fifty-seven chapters in his Principles of 
 Sociology, thirty-eight treat of social processes. Society is dy- 
 namic; nevertheless, at every stage we find a relative fixity. 
 Society is held together by various forms of organization, institu- 
 tions, customs, modes of thought. At any given stage these forms 
 determine the character of the individual. We found the child's 
 life to be a reflection of the organized mind of his group. Society 
 itself, as Ellwood insists, is fundamentally organized mind. The 
 mental attitudes of one group are affected by the attitudes which 
 exist or are supposed to exist in other gi-oups. In spite of the 
 "vision splendid" of idealistic youth, he most likely becomes a 
 fielf-seeking shirk when ushered into a form of organization char- 
 acterized by egotism and exploitation. Fortunately, the social 
 mind is always capable of reorganization. The dynamic concep- 
 tion is optimistic. A d\aiamic society is ever shuflling off old for 
 new forms of organization. In so far as the movcnient is pro-
 
 74 EDUCATION IN EECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 gressive, it means deeper understanding among the individuals 
 and groups making up the whole, greater reciprocal good will, 
 and increased common devotion to the general welfare. 
 
 Education as the means to progi'ess has been emphasized in all 
 the preceding articles. With AYard it is the general diffusion of 
 scientific knowledge. This is the only path to a higher organi- 
 zation of society and to effect it we need a deep and universal 
 faith in popular education. Centuries ago men built great cathe- 
 drals, expressions of their collective faith and aspiration. Men 
 aspire no less today, but their aims have a new direction. Today 
 our hopes center in better social organization, and in education as 
 the means of attaining it. Todd approaches the problem of 
 progress from many avenues, and in each of them finds the answer 
 in social education. The problem of society to Hayes is to unite 
 social control and enlightenment, and enlightened control neces- 
 sarily rests upon educated personalities. Ellwood sees the need 
 of a deep popular faith in education as the savior and regenerator 
 of democracy. And it must be a practical faith, leading to ade- 
 quate financial support of schools. He emphasizes especially 
 education for unselfish leadership, moral training in the public 
 schools, and much more attention in the curriculum to the social 
 studies. 
 
 When we urge education as the social panacea, however, we 
 must acknowledge limitations in the material at hand. What 
 ought to be taught is often not clear. Ward lamented the absence 
 of social knowledge. And there is today a lack of settled prin- 
 ciples and standards of conduct, an uncertainty of what is con- 
 sistent with the higher social organization. Old forms are pass- 
 ing away before new ones are substituted. "The higher moral- 
 ity," says Cooley, "if it is to be attained at all, must be especially 
 thought out." It has by no means been thought out in applica- 
 tion to the many specific human situations in which a person 
 finds himself a part. "We find, then, that people have to make up 
 their own minds upon their duties as wives, husbands, mothers, 
 and daughters ; upon commercial obligations and citizenship. . . . 
 Inevitably many of us make a poor business of it. It is too
 
 EDUCATION IN EECENT SOCIOLOGY 75 
 
 mucli."^ We need to teach young people the best ethical stand- 
 ards kno^vn to us to meet these specific situations. But we 
 need also the assistance of a group of social seers to shape and 
 clarify the standards themselves. These standards constitute the 
 social organization. Nowhere is the work of the leader so vitally 
 required. 
 
 The social seer will, of course, be an expert in the science of 
 society. Ethics has become essentially a social study. All stand- 
 ards of conduct pertain to social situations. Sociology and ethics 
 closely blend with sociology, the larger term. The most recent 
 statement on the relation of sociology and ethics is by Hayes. "^ 
 According to him these sciences coincide both in their practical 
 and theoretical aspects. It should be noted, however, that he dis- 
 counts a priori speculation, which has been the historical method 
 of ethics. Ethics is a study of objective realities, its field being 
 the facts of social life. But while sociology seeks causes and 
 explanations of social realities in all divisions of social life, ethics 
 is concerned with these only in so far as they issue in good or evil. 
 It has to do with "the terminus ad quern of the life men live in 
 society." In fact, all of the sociologies studied are contributions 
 to the science of ethics. This means that certain types of human 
 relationship and forms of social organization are urged as supe- 
 rior. These writings show evidence of enthusiastic human inter- 
 est, and a ^dsion of a social order as yet far from realization. 
 Problems of right and wrong are suggested by the contrast betwoon 
 that which is and that which ought to be. It is obvious to the 
 reader that the ^vriters are men intensely interested in the trend 
 of the social process, let us say, in the outcome of the social con- 
 flict. Their writings indicate a liberal view of human nature. 
 In human nature and society are latencies that have never been 
 elicited. These latencies afford the possibilitis of new and supe- 
 rior forms of social organization. If present forms do not accord 
 with the expression of human nature thus liberally conceived, 
 progress requires the substitution of new forms of organization, 
 
 6 Social Organization, p. 352. 
 
 7 Sociology and Kthics, 1921
 
 76 EDrCATION" IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 and still new forms as consistent with increasing human welfare. 
 Institutions of the past are not rejected without searching exam- 
 ination of their worth ; a worth, however, to be estimated always 
 in reference to the growth and expression of the human self as 
 a social being. 
 
 About twenty-five years ago, when students were prepared for 
 teaching, it was common to introduce them to a form of Hegel- 
 ianism as contained in the "Philosophy of Education," by Rosen- 
 kranz. They were supposed to find guidance as teachers in a 
 metaphysical scheme of the universe to which the teaching pro- 
 cess was in some way related. It became apparent that this kind 
 of training was inadequate to solve the practical problems faced 
 by the schools. A scientific movement, now less than twenty years 
 old, followed the earlier metaphysical attempts at an acceptable 
 pedagog^^ It has had to do with the technique of instruction, 
 and particularly with the nature and development of the indi- 
 vidual mind. In fact, it has been almost wholly psychological. 
 The more recent fruits of this movement are innumerable devices 
 for subjecting educational processes and products to quantitative 
 measurement. The larger view point of philosophy has been 
 wholly buried, or at least side-tracked, by endeavors to bring under 
 scientific scrutiny the many details of school work. As was said, 
 this movement has more to do with technique, with measuring 
 results, with determining efiiciency in relation to accepted or 
 assumed standards, than with a consideration of more ultimate 
 ends of the educational process. It seems to be concerned more 
 with the manner of the going and with the elimination of lost 
 motion than with underlying purposes. It gives at best, then, 
 an incomplete view of pedagogy, something which needed to be 
 built up, but nevertheless only a means. The larger view must 
 be sought and developed. We can understand means only in 
 relation to an end, a part only in relation to a whole. To secure 
 the larger view of the business of education is the next im- 
 portant step in building up a scientific pedagogy. It is not 
 metaphysics, however, that will supply it. It is to be found rather 
 in a far-seeing scientific sociology.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 77 
 
 Why will sociology supply it? The mariner charted the seas 
 and the heavens above them. The sociologist is attempting to 
 chart the world of social reality. As Ward pointed out, we have 
 a chemistry, a physics, and a biology that reduce to natural law. 
 That ascertainable forces operate likewise in human society, that 
 social relationships reduce to uniformity and generalisation, can- 
 not be doubted. A scientific sociology is but a matter of study 
 and discovery. It is enormously helped by the achievements of 
 modem psychology, because human nature is at the core of the 
 social problem. Psychology has given us a new view of the innate 
 man disentangled from social tradition. We behold his tenden- 
 cies, powers, and latencies, and the results of these in the social 
 life ; and we may behold, too, the possibilities of new combina- 
 tions of these for new and superior forms of social organization. 
 By its study of social organization, actual and possible, and of the 
 factors which make for human advance, sociology furnishes the 
 materials which give us the larger view of the educational process. 
 
 Books under the name of educational sociology are beginning 
 to appear. An examination of the contents of those so far pub- 
 lished indicates little recognition of common ground. One enters 
 the field seeking the solution of detailed educational problems; 
 some other presents a selected body of sociological theory pre- 
 sumed to have educational uses. The subject' is as yet hybrid, 
 and what to emphasize is a matter of choice. But the sociologists 
 themselves have contributed much to this field. And when we 
 learn from the sociologist what a vital factor education is in the 
 social process, we are the more impressed because we assume it is 
 an unpremeditated judgment. Theories of Social Progress is a 
 significant contribution to educational sociology, and yet the 
 latter is not the theme of Todd's work. The book presents an 
 impartial search for the means of progress, and the conclusion 
 that the means are found in social education is all the more sig- 
 nificant to the teacher by virtue of the method followed. Ellwood'o 
 sociology resolves itself into an exposition of the fundamental 
 identity of the social process and the educational process, and he 
 finds in this relation a basis upon which educational sociology
 
 78 EDUCATION IN EECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 must be built. The sociology of Hayes sets up a social goal and 
 finds in education the only means of attaining it. 
 
 Whatever the field of educational sociology should ideally 
 include. I take it that the three following factors are especially 
 important to the student of this subject: 
 
 (a) A study of the theories and principles of sociology. A 
 half-dozen well selected books from our American sociologists 
 could be read in one year at college. These would give the socio- 
 logical habit of thought. They would present society in an organic 
 view which we found meant "seeing things whole." They would 
 furnish the main problems of social organization and progress. 
 They would supply conceptions of ends to be attained in the 
 social process, ends to become the aims of rational effort. We 
 found the goal of progress to be a complex involving various 
 factors, all, however, concerned with human well being. It is 
 important to keep in mind what these factors are;^ also that any 
 definition of progress must center around a concept of human 
 nature as plastic and potentially co-operative in a social whole. 
 
 We were reminded by Ellwood that the moral ideal should be 
 pictured not as a perfect individual but as a perfect society. It 
 would be very useful if some definite representation of a perfected 
 social organization could be presented. Since education is the 
 fundamental pathway to the social goal, should not the goal assume 
 clear shape in the minds of the leaders of education? But how 
 shall our perfected social organization be pictured, — as Platonic 
 Republic, City of God, Utopia, or modern socialistic state ? Such 
 pictures have had great vogue. The unending conflicts of opinion 
 concerning the Republic testify to man's inherent longing for a 
 just social order. The shortcomings of these historic schemes 
 are mainly two. They are based upon too limited a view of 
 human nature, therefore on a pseudo psychology, an ignorance, 
 however, rapidly receding before present-day advances in social 
 psychology. And second, they are static. No human mind is 
 intelligent enough to construct the final social state. And although 
 
 8 See e. g. definition of progress in Article III, on Todd's Sociolo^ry.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 79 
 
 useful as hypotheses, all schemes of an ideal state must be tenta- 
 tive. Perhaps no scientific sociologist would risk his reputation 
 to produce a graphic picture of the ideal state. N^evertheless, the 
 sociologists do present us with the elements, the essential building 
 blocks, that must enter into the construction of the social edifice. 
 Thev indicate the avenues which lead to progress, as it has been 
 the purpose of this series of articles to show. 
 
 (b) Sociology furnishes us with social aims. These aims 
 provide the underlying purposes of education. They may be 
 furthered or hindered by innumerable agencies other than the 
 school. Educational sociology may well strive to estimate the 
 educational effects, in reference to social aims, of institutions, 
 agencies and community factors, such as the existing state, family 
 life, the church, the treatment of crime, methods of administer- 
 ing charity, the theater, moving picture shows, athletic contests, 
 county fairs and city expositions, city planning and beautification, 
 newspapers and magazines, public libraries and museums, the 
 stock exchange, chambers of commerce, great department stores, 
 newspaper and bill-board advertising, women's clubs and organ- 
 izations, labor organizations, professional associations, fraternal 
 societies, semi-religious associations like the Y. M. C. A., play 
 facilities for children and adults, congested sections of cities, 
 employment in factories, in department stores and on the farm, 
 farmers' organizations, good roads, the religious revival, the polit- 
 ical campaign, etc. 
 
 Lester F. Ward wrote nearly forty years ago: "The doctrine 
 that education is an active factor in Dynamic Sociolog;)' is simply 
 a corollary from the doctrine of evolution in general, which rests 
 upon the power of environment to mold the organism. For what 
 is education but a quality of the environment?"® The above 
 agencies are the influential factors in the social environment. 
 They determine in large measure the character of the individual 
 and of the group life. They have the power to further or retard 
 the ends of social progress. The student of educational sociology 
 will keep definitely in mind conceptions of fundamental social 
 
 9 Dynamic Sociology II, p. 635.
 
 80 EDUCATION I]!^ KECENT SOCIOLOGY 
 
 aims. AVitli these as norms lie will endeavor to estimate the 
 educational influence of the above and of other agencies in the 
 en^dronment. This means, of course, that many concrete inves- 
 tigations will have to be made to supply the content of an educa- 
 tional sociolog}", 
 
 (c) The school is the main agency for the realization of social 
 aims. The first essential is that the fundamental aims of pro- 
 gress be kept clearly in mind throughout the organization and 
 administration of the school. Of course this will not be done 
 fully until superintendents, teachers, school directors, and the 
 public take up the study of sociology. We should at least expect 
 this pursuit on the part of teachers and superintendents. A school 
 taught and administered without a definite conception of social 
 aims is like a ship sailing the ocean with no port ahead. 
 
 A definition of social aims is especially important today because 
 new responsibilities are being forced upon the school. Histori- 
 cally considered, the school is the bearer of tradition, the trans- 
 mitter of accepted social values. It secures for each new gener- 
 ation the inheritance of the past, l^evertheless, if the school is 
 to become an important factor in social progi'ess, this body of 
 tradition needs constant reappraisement in the light of social 
 aims. The question, "What knowledge is of most worth ?" must 
 be asked and re-asked. To keep pace with social progress the 
 school must accept new functions. At present the danger is that 
 too much will be unloaded upon it. If parental duties are neg- 
 lected, it is urged that the school make up the deficiency; if the 
 church fails in its task of religious education, it is demanded 
 that this work be done at school; if the business man finds his 
 employees inefiicient, the school is asked to emphasize commercial 
 subjects. The school has always been an object of interest for 
 propagandists of various kinds. To what extent shall the school 
 take over the work of other institutions ? What shall be its atti- 
 tude toward new reform movements ? To do justice to tradition, 
 to reconcile the claims of vocational and cultural training, to pro- 
 tect itself against propaganda, and at the same time to be a 
 dynamic agent in a progressive society, requires a fine balancing 
 of social aims. This is the work of an educational sociology.
 
 EDUCATION IN RECENT SOCIOLOGY 81 
 
 An educational sociolog^^ is concerned with the work of social- 
 izing the school. This means that the school should be recon- 
 structed so that the pupil will find expression and development in 
 co-operative activities of social value. It means, too, the defining 
 of specific objectives to be attained by the school studies. Keep- 
 ing in mind the fundamental social aims to be reached by educa- 
 tional methods, the problem is, what are the immediate ends to 
 be sought through geography, history, civics, language, and all 
 other subjects and activities of the school, A few good contri- 
 butions have already been made along this line, but most of the 
 work is still to be done. It is distinctly the problem of an educa- 
 tional sociology. 
 
 Some men prominent in the educational field urge that the 
 immediate objectives are all that require definition. These men 
 have justly revolted against the vague and general educational 
 aims set up in the past. They demand now that the objectives 
 of education be stated wholly in concrete and specific terms. But 
 without the larger sociological view and a grasp of underlying 
 social purposes, the immediate step taken may prove a false one; 
 and again, without them it is more difficult to keep able men in 
 the work. Is it not probable that some of that large number 
 who left the teaching profession the past four years would have 
 remained at their tasks had they grasped the real meaning of 
 education as a force in human advance ? "Let education become 
 dynamic, let it thrill with a vision of becoming the chariot horses 
 and the chariot in which society shall urge itself forward to a 
 better day, and men and women of the first rank will arise and 
 consecrate themselves to make the vision full reality."