Charles A. Henderson

“ Public interest, as indicated by the headlines of newspapers, is usually concentrated on very few "paramount issues" at a time, and moves rhythmically back and forth from one to another. Now it is an outburst of burglary and holdups at the onset of frosty weather ; now an election, a lynching, a crash in the market, a battle, a tornado. At such a moment the study of a lifetime is in demand to still the feverish curiosity of an hour. ”

“ Men talk and write, logically and beautifully, before logic and grammar. If men had waited for science before they constructed systems of state, industry, and church, there would be nothing to explain. ”

“ We have many studies of vast interest to society which are properly economical, administrative, or educational. A problem in social technology has at least these marks ; all the elements of welfare are involved ; all the members of the community are affected; and the data to be used are normally derived from more special sciences. If the answer can be supplied by an expert in any particular field of science or experience, the problem may be left there. ”

“ For example, the disciplined and broadly edu- cated head of a household considers all the interests of the members of his family, the relation of their welfare to the interests of neighborhood, city, and all mankind. At the basis of his every command or arrangement is a system of society, rational and as complete as he can think it. All his knowledge of the physical sciences, of economics, politics, ethics, is brought to serve him in the construction of a scheme of group-living. ”

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a social group which contains within itself, as does the family and the rural community, all the elements necessary to exist- ence the urban community. Here again we find the three necessary factors for a particular branch of science the natural group, the body of experts, the materials of knowledge in the special sciences and in the maxims of experts. ”

“ Social technology can render its best service by dealing with genuine social problems in vital connection with a body of knowledge and a system of principles. The statement, loca- tion, and analysis of a situation are made comprehensive, and the facts which are essential for a judgment are arrayed in an intelligible form for the use of administrators, voters, and THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY 481
reformers. A particular problem is always a part of a larger view, and its solution must be found by bringing it into the light of organized bodies of knowledge. ”

“ If it is found that, after the special social sciences economics, politics, ethics, pedagogics- have done their best work, an entirely different method of treat- ment of the phenomena of association offers a more adequate, comprehensive, and complete analysis, classification, and explana- tion of the facts of society, that method will be respected. That a more adequate and complete treatment is desirable no one seems to question ; skepticism affects only the achievements of those who have hitherto professed sociology. ”

“ When men of science once apprehend the vast- ness of this neglected field, they will bring to it the same acumen, patience, and method which have won worthy triumphs in the production of wealth. Granting that the economic basis must first be laid firmly, may we not now insist that a part of scientific labor be drafted off into other fields of research ? We actually have more and better books on breeding cattle and marketing corn than on forming citizens and organizing culture. Is it not worth while to attempt a social technology of the rural com- munity? ”

“ In relation to the rural community we may claim that there is a body of experts, and that there is material for a branch of social technology which shall present a system of regulative principles of conduct. In dim and shadowy outlines the rural pastors, teachers, parents, physicians, and local "authorities" have a set of "ethical " maxims which are enforced by stinging criticism, praise and blame, law and constabulary, sermons and church discipline. ”

“ It is evident to editors and to all others who are trying to create and educate a genuine " municipal patriotism," a common judgment of policy, common will as to all that should be done for health and culture, for all citizens by all citizens, that social technology is at this crisis essential. And there are men and women of large brains and resources, outside of university lecture-rooms, who are honestly working at this task. ”

“ Indeed, every liberally educated citizen, alive to all the interests about him, constructs in his mind such a rational sys- tem in outline for the community in which he lives, and, in less definite form, for the commonwealth and the nation. So far as he acts reflectively, he directs his political, industrial, educa- tional, and ecclesiastical influence according to a more or less consistent body of regulative principles.
In one respect practical sociology is not at a disadvantage compared with theory. ”

“ Dependence of practical upon theoretical social science. From the preceding statement it will be seen that practical social science derives all its data from the description, classifica- tion, and explanation furnished by theory. Practical science has no value except as it rests on a mastery of the facts, the laws, and the causes which theory makes known and intelligible. ”

“ Ethical writers have systematized the traditional beliefs and inherited convictions of modern society in regard to marriage duties and domestic virtues. In short, there is not a science or art which has not made a contribution to what may be called, and is sometimes called, a "domestic science." Yet, a "domes- tic science," as a branch of social technology, remains to be con- structed.
No better example can be chosen to illustrate the helpless- ness and inadequacy of a special science and its data, so long as those data stand isolated. ”

“ It may be taken for granted that social technology will make progress only by some kind of specialization. Only by minute division of labor have the sciences of chemistry, physics, biology, politics, and economics achieved their triumphs. ”

“ Already we have treatises on agrarian politics, politics of commerce, manufactures, transportation, the economics of the "labor question," of ecclesiastical institu- tions, and of educational systems. It is sometimes claimed that there is a particular practical economic science wherever the problem is relatively wide in scope and connected with a natural group of phenomena. The tendency to mark off specialized "sciences" is seen in biology as well as in economics, and there would be more justification for this in sociology because of the greater complexity of the phenomena. ”

“ It may fairly be claimed on behalf of our attempt to construct a general science of society that we are doing only what many economists and political philosophers always do when they seek to satisfy the rational demand for unity and completeness and the practical needs of social organization : they " socialize." ”

“ We have in the temperance question a true social problem, a community interest. The evils of intemperance affect all citi- zens. Not one individual can escape the burden of taxation, the dangers to life, property, and morals, incident to the liquor traffic. All interests of all citizens are affected. ”

“ But no thinking man can rest satisfied with a purely economic, or even economico-legal, treatment of the interests of this large group and the interests of society in their welfare. While we insist that the economic and legal factors must be worked out by experts in economics and jurisprudence, we must also insist that, side by side with them, all other social factors must be considered, and that the difficult task of har- monizing all data of special experts must be in fact, if not in name, a branch of social technology. ”

“ Intemperance, defined as an excessive and improper use of alcoholic drinks by large classes of the community, is the phenomenon to be explained. We have to do with a social custom and its effects.
The procedure of the Committee of Fifty is an illustration of the influence of sociology in modern methods of attacking a social problem, and its investigations are both theoretical and practical, in the sense of the words used in this paper. ”

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institutions, then ethical science must wait on theoretical soci- ology. The debt and obligation are reciprocal, and progress in each science depends on parallel progress of the other. In many books on ethics the writer passes from his own data to dogmatic deductions about social relations and institutions, as if he needed no exact knowledge of these relations and institutions to com- plete his valuation and make it reliable and verifiable. ”

“ Nor is it sufficient to agree that we desire to promote the virtue of temperance. Ancient systems of ethics have admitted self- control among the cardinal qualities of good character, and there is no controversy over this vague claim. But the moment we attempt to define the conduct of the temperate man in society we are compelled to collect evidence, for we are met with radi- cal differences of opinion, and many communities are divided. ”

“ The scope, method, and value of general sociology, as science and philosophy, cannot here be discussed. The reply to skeptical questions must finally come from the actual service which the new aspirant renders to the rational and practical demands of the human mind. ”

“ But theoretical social science deals with things as they are, and practical social sci- ence, according to the authors quoted above, deals with things as they are, but with a purpose of introducing also what ought to be and is not yet, or only imperfectly, realized. ”

“ The man of truth and honor becomes a liar and a beggar, his moral nature falling fatally with the organic changes in his brain caused by alcohol.
1 Many of the recent statistics are given in C. D. WRIGHT, Practical Sociology, with references to sources. THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY 483
The complete mastery of this subject cannot be compassed without deriving data from the fields of many specialists in the fields of biology, economics, jurisprudence, administration, ethics, psychiatry. The statistical investigation alone is an enormous task. ”

“ There are topics which become acutely interesting to the public at frequent intervals, and which take almost complete possession of many persons all their lives. This is true, for example, of the labor question, temperance reform, relief of the poor, criminal treatment, currency, and education. ”

“ The politician and legislator cannot draft a law, or an amendment to a law, with wisdom, until he has been taught in some way all the physical, intellectual, aesthetic, economic, ethical, and religious consequences of his statute. ”

“ The phenomena of community life must be described, that is, set forth in their order of coexistence and succession, rela- tions of space and time. The basis of this task lies in social geography and demography. Description is not complete with- out the discrimination, classification, and naming of typical forms of the phenomena, since the endless number of individual facts cannot be grasped by the mind without grouping them according to some real characteristic or mark. ”

“ If the politi- cal philosopher must constantly trespass on the fields of the economist, and the economist follow his own clue out into gov- ernmental relations and agencies, and even culture associations, there is justification for an explicit effort to coordinate both factors with other social forces and means when man's estate is in question. The sociologist is doing openly what has long been done actually under titles which do not connote the whole reality. ”

“ Practical sociology deals with precisely the same social phe- nomena, the same typical forms, the same uniformities or laws, the same forces, as theoretical sociology, but for a different purpose, and therefore with some difference of method. Prac- tical social science is ambitious to discover and present in systematic form principles which regulate social conduct in conformity with ends. ”

“ We have but to expand this method, based on regulative prin- ciples as wide as the moral world, as ancient as civilization, and we have a social technology a system of conscious and pur- poseful organization of persons in which every actual, natural social organization finds its true place, and all factors in harmony cooperate to realize an increasing aggregate and better propor- tions of the "health, wealth, beauty, knowledge, sociability, and Tightness" desires. ”

“ For the first problem we may use the data of ethical science and philosophy, but not without consideration of empiri- cal conditions. The valuation of the ideas of morality is a problem of ethics, aided by psychology. For general sociol- ogy the data of ethics and psychology are ultimate elements. ”

“ One of the men who have studied our American system of reformatories presented to the last International Prison Congress a long and able paper whose central plea was for a sociological treatment of the subject, since the methods of economics, juris- prudence, and prison science, taken separately, break down in detail before a closely and logically connected system can be constructed. ”

“ Over against each of these social groups and classes there is already, in most instances, a body of experts, whose lives are devoted to the study and administration of social organization in relation to this class or group. ”

“ Life makes problems of the most difficult and pressing kind' There is no end of subjects for doctor's theses in our field, and we are not driven to set tasks whose issues are in vacuity. In every community, however small, the people feel the weight of uncertainty and grope for the light. ”

“ According to the conclusion just stated assuming that it would be reached by investigation a rational program of temperance reform is nothing more nor less than a system of social peda- gogics, which embraces all the ends of education, all the means of moral training and discipline, all the community means of control and direction ”