RECENT LITERATURE

NOTES AND ABSTRACTS

Social Science in the Colleges.-The rise of social science is one of the most interesting features of modern intellectual development. A hundred years ago a few "intellectuals" interested themselves in the philosophy of history and in certain abstract theories of the state. Today the study of concrete social problems has acquired such a vogue as to be in serious danger of developing into a popular fad. During the past century the problems of government, of industry, of education, and of every phase of common life have been greatly complicated. Social workers have come more and more to use the scientific method of getting at the fundamental causes of the evils in society. The scientific method as developed in the nineteenth century is something very different from the deductions and classifications of the old school men. It may be briefly summarized as (1) a statement of the problem, (2) seeking for a hypothesis, (3) collecting relevant data by observation and experiment for the purpose of testing the hypothesis, (4) revising the statements of problem and hypothesis in the light of new data, (5) the assembling of other data bearing on the revised hypothesis, and so on until (6) a working solution has been found. In a university, research work and the training of specialists frequently bulk large, but in a college these have very little place. Chief among the functions of the social science department in a college are these: to develop a healthy interest in social problems; to give information about social problems; to train habits of scientific study of social problems; to offer vocational guidance, with special reference to social work, teaching, commerce and administration; to give preliminary or prevocational training for social work, teaching, commerce and administration; to furnish advice to public officials, social agencies, and the community at large. Stuart A. Queen, Bulletin of Goucher College, June, 1920. O. B. Y.

Physiological Aspect of the Present Unrest.-In this article the present unrest will be looked upon as a social disease and the material factors connected with it are uncontrollable because of diseased morale. There are three stages in the analysis of the symptoms of the social disease. (1) Through the immediate influence of the war many of our traditional interests, attitudes, and habits were abandoned for the sake of loyalty. The laborers also found in the reduction of wages their status disturbed. The various organizations, such as the Socialist party, the Socialist Labor party, etc., whose program is one of antagonism to existent forms of government, took advantage of the war situation. Instead of using peaceful and legitimate means in seeking our ends we have accustomed ourselves in this great struggle to the argument of force. The war also stimulated our interest in the fundamental philosophy of life. (2) To what extent the present difficulties are legitimate results of pre-war tendencies. The industrial revolution and the change from individual to collective production resulted in mental changes, such as the loss of the feeling of individual responsibility on the part of the workman. The second phenomenon is the conflict between labor and capital produced by co-operative work based on self-interests of each group concerned and not on feeling of common interest. The weakening of governmental and religious authority has had somewhat unstabilizing influence on the people. (3) In the analysis of these phenomena the underlying psychological forces at work are the instincts of self-preservation and of preservation of species as expressed in the processes of adaptation of the civilian to military life and of the soldier to civil life.— John T. MacCurdy, The Survey, March, 1920. C. N.

The Logical Implicates of the Community.-If the ideal human society is an allinclusive community of individuals engaged in mutual co-operation, it must first of all rest upon a common understanding. For co-operation without understanding is not

the voluntary co-operation of free and rational beings. There are many kinds and degrees of understanding. If we call the more abstract understanding logical, we may speak of the more concrete as ethical and aesthetic. In comparison with fulness and richness of moral and aesthetic conditions, the merely logical implicates of the community must seem thin and abstract. Unless men are capable, in principle, of a logical understanding of one another, they cannot understand one another either ethically or aesthetically, since moral and aesthetic judgments also incorporate within them the forms of logical judgment. The foremost logical principle is that of identity. It is a principle which at one and the same time defines the individual mind's continuity of thinking and the social consciousness of a common thought and a common world. It asserts that meanings of all kinds, and hence also the corresponding objects, may be apprehended as identically the same, whether by the same mind at different times or by different minds at the same or different times. It asserts further that the universe of discourse is the same for all minds that understand each other. The conduct of all meaningful thought, therefore, whether individual or social, requires the validity of this law as its first condition. The next principle is that of inference: that judgments may be concatenated into systems of logical interdependence, so that one or several judgments may serve as the reason for a conclusion. The third is the principle of causation, which asserts that things behave in the same uniform manner. The fourth is the principle of teleology, which explains that there is a reason for all existing things, so that the universe has a rational meaning. All these principles underlie various aspects of the community life. In itself the logical order is something pre-existing; in its use and application for knowledge and life, it is human achievement. The pre-existence of a valid logical order is the first necessary condition for the realization of the true community. But it is not the sole or sufficient condition. There is a host of real and ideal conditions, physical, economic, political, aesthetic, and moral in which human effort can be a directing and creative force. The logical order is valid and necessary; the actual order, for which the logical order furnishes in part the framework, is at one and the same time a beneficent gift and moral task for the highest energies of free man.-David F. Swenson, Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, Scientific Methods, May, 1920. K. S.

Mekanisme og Vitalisme.-All who are engaged in the study of life and its various functionings are aware that the meaning and value of their studies are dependent upon the same premises as that of every other scientific study. The conflict which has divided biologists into two camps is not on the question whether or no life is determined by causal relations. The disagreement is on the subject of deciding which set of conditions should be reckoned with in every explanation of life and its phenomena. On one side are the biologists who see in life-phenomena a special order of mechanical and chemical processes. On the other side we find the biologists who think there is something in the living organism which cannot be explained as a mere complication of mechanical and chemical processes. J. S. Haldane, in his essays entitled The New Physiology, calls the attempt to explain life as a chemical-mechanical process "the most colossal failure in the whole history of modern science." If the organic and inorganic processes are to be comprehended in the same categories, he says, our whole conception of dead nature must be radically modified and must be drawn in under the biological point of view. The attempt to regard the worldprocess as a harmonious whole is a biological rather than a mechanistic conception. In the field of psychology it is impossible to understand the relation of mind and body if each is substantialized. A material atom cannot be put into motion by an idea or emotion. To accept the mechanistic viewpoint will merely serve to make life and consciousness seem increasingly mystical, the more mechanical science advances.C. N. Starcke, Tilskueren, April, 1920. O. B. Y.

International Education of World Statesmen, the Key to Permanent Peace.Full realization of Cecil Rhodes's conception would be a preventive of war eminently more reliable than expensive armaments. Reinforced by an international court and police force, cosmopolitan education of world-leaders would probably prove the precursor of permanent peace. The plan rests on the sound principle that friendship, which may induce individual self-sacrifice to the extent of life itself, is the surest

guaranty of generous compromise between peoples. In practical operation the Rhodes scholarships, because their opportunities and international significance have not been appreciated, have not attracted those ablest young men in the United States through whom alone the American and English branches of the Anglo-Saxon race could form strong friendship. The Rhodes scheme, too, embraces only two of the great powers within its scope. Perfected and actualized, then, Rhodes's plan would appear as an institution whereby prospective leaders of all the great nations, through sojourns in cosmopolitan centers of culture such as Oxford University, would become democratic world-citizens in sympathy with all peoples and classes. Reciprocity in education among the nations is an application to the sphere of international relationships of those institutions which human experience has proved to be the unrivaled developers of enlightened self-interest and altruism in individuals. National selfishness is as many times more vicious than individual selfishness as falsely patriotic millions are more able to do harm than short-sighted individuals. The gratifying effects on average welfare of national loyalty to world-welfare, are as many times those of individual loyalty to national welfare as the world is bigger than the nation and as truly patriotic millions are more capable of accomplishing good than far-sighted individuals. Ralph H. Bevan, Education, April, 1920. V. M. A.

Social Tyranny.-Not only in the realm of social institutions, but sciences, art, and religion are all held under the popular slogan of socialization. We are daily reminded by federal legislation, by the Protestant clergy, by our moralists and penologists, and by the most potent of modern forces, science, business, and industry, that the individual person is a social function. This is partly admirable and partly vicious. A man should cultivate his talents and his solitary pleasures, not only because they will make him more useful to his fellows but also because they are in themselves admirable. Artistic creation, scientific discovery, spiritual insight are indeed valuable because they raise the level of society; they are also valuable wholly by themselves. These two sorts of value are not inherently contradictory. But man is inherently inclined to treat them as if they were. The evil effects of the excessive deference we pay to the social milieu are best seen in the higher disciplines. If American philosophy has been on the whole unproductive, that is because it has not respected its own instinct for metaphysics. Our schools of new realism and pragmatism have but followed the standards of science: the former on the whole of physics and mathematics, the latter of biology. The deeper need of our time, of all times in fact, is that principle of duality which corrects exclusive individualism and exclusive sociality alike; which supplements the ideal of organic unity by the ideal of independent individuality; and which, when the two ideals cannot be harmoniously joined, points the way to compromise. When the state exercises its sovereignty in every way as it does now, it kills all individuality and eventually itself. It must, therefore, voluntarily abdicate its sovereignty in those matters wherein the individuals show their initiative and gain personal satisfactions. The state must ultimately limit its function to that of arbitration between disputing parties.-W. H. Sheldon, Philosophical Review, March, 1920. K. S.

Community Americanization: A Handbook for Workers.-Technically the word "Americanization" means "the process of making Americans." To accomplish this we must first possess the American spirit ourselves. We must have, besides, some knowledge of those we seek to bring into the brotherhood; a knowledge of their difficulties; a knowledge and appreciation of their cultures. A community survey should be made in order to understand the situation, and the pamphlet devotes ten pages to a suggested plan. A knowledge of the English language is indispensable to all who are to be truly Americans. To attempt to use a compulsory system upon the adults, however, would be fatal to the cause. They must be skilfully led to see the advantages accruing to them from a knowledge of English and then the community should see to it that every possible opportunity is offered to them to learn. Teachers who understand teaching English to foreign adults should be supplied by the school boards. But the language is only a beginning. Hitherto we have resented foreigners invading the native-born sections of our cities and thereby we have kept them in colonies which have not received the attention bestowed upon other sections of the

cities. Hence come housing evils, overcrowding, and filth, so that many immigrants are thrust into conditions of life far below the standards of health and decency to which they were accustomed in their own lands. This must be changed and all the deceitful schemes for swindling immigrants must be abolished before we can expect the foreigners among us to be true Americans. Thus, great is the task before us. Fortunately, however, there is a great deal of machinery with which to do the work already at hand in every community. The crying need is for co-ordination of this machinery. A central committee engaged by the national government is suggested, then state and finally community committees should be established for this purpose. U.S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, No. 76, 1919.

S. C. R.

Rural Socialization.—Socialization is the integration of group consciousness and conduct. The process of socializing the rural neighborhood is fraught with difficulties. The social instinct of the American rural people has become partially dormant during the period of lonely pioneer life. There are, however, four stages of co-operation for socialization: (1) Associational level, one of instinctive pleasure and also of least possible cost. Neighborhood meetings of almost any kind conduce to the growth of the social disposition in those associating. Assemblages should appeal to the play instinct, which is strongly reinforced by the social instinct. (2) The work stage, the range of which is limited and tends to become more so under modern conditions. (3) The economic level, where the business end of agriculture is involved. Community selling and buying, ownership of tools, grain elevators, storage warehouses are good examples of economic co-operation yielding immediate pleasure to utilitarian incentives and satisfactions; (4) the cultural or welfare level of socialization, where far more remote utilitarian interests furnish the motives and the cost to the group has become the greatest yet demanded. The dynamic forces behind co-operation are manifold. Instincts, desires, ideas, as well as environmental, social, and economical pressures have acted as controlling agencies. But the real and only dependable agency is personal leadership. Rural teachers, pastors, county agents, and perhaps others are those upon whom must fall the task of socializing the country neighborhoods of America.-Newell L. Sims, Political Science Quarterly, March, 1920. C. N.

Revolution und Gewaltlösigkeit. Zum Jahrestag des Neunten November. It was pleasurable for the German people to recall, on the anniversary of the German Revolution, that it took place almost without loss of life. The years of war seemed to the co-workers toward cultural progress the greatest crime against humanity. Both within Germany and abroad a small group of men and women could be found who saw that the foundations and development of a new sex morality, conditions conducive to the welfare of yet unborn generations, are capable of realization only in a world that has forever broken with bloody force. It is painful to contemplate how limited is the understanding of the fact that only in a world without force can civilization be built up. Those who disapproved of the use of force between nations, now approve of its application to the internal dissensions. Only a small minority favor disarmament in civil strife. and they are viewed as inimical to the majority. A strong protest should be made against the continuation of the dangerous principle that "might makes right." The simple fact that a class has had a hard struggle does not enable it to bring welfare to humanity. As long as this class is just as much determined to secure its own advantages as the class previously in power, a mere change as regards the powers in its possession could achieve no beneficial results for humanity. The attitudes of men must change and human life must be considered sacred. But a change of attitude cannot come until we do away with this Blut-moral war. Before the war we struggled for a refinement of culture by striving for the protection of future generations, the yet unborn child, motherhood in despair, and we struggled against the effects of force in the relations between the sexes. Our progress in the field of the morality of the sexes will depend on the realization of higher standards in the world at large. Dr. Helene Stöcker, Die Neue Generation, September, 1919. L. M. S.

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