UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Assistant Professor H. J. McClean has been elected president of the Los Angeles Social Service Commission.

Miss Sarah Bundy, A.M., is offering a new course this quarter entitled "The Sociological Content of Modern Drama."

The Sociology Seminar is giving its attention this year to "Social Problems and the War."

REVIEWS

Instincts in Industry. By ORDWAY TEAD. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918. Pp. xv+221. $1.40.

This little book is an attempt to popularize certain conclusions of social psychology and to apply them to American industrial conditions. It is a study of working-class psychology with the general thesis that there is reason to believe "that an examination of human behavior in industry will disclose vital relationships between those maladjustments which we call 'labor problems,' and the functioning of that complex of inherent tendencies and acquired characteristics which is human nature." Why working-class psychology? Because industrial unrest is the result of repression, because the mind of the worker is grievously misunderstood, and because the psychology of employers has already been exploited. The main body of the book is given over to a discussion of ten fundamental instincts as they apply to industry, namely the parental and sex instincts; the instinct of workmanship, contrivance, or constructiveness; of possession, ownership, property, or acquisitiveness; of self-assertion, self-display, mastery, domination, emulation, or "give-a-lead"; of submissiveness or self-abasement; of the herd; of pugnacity; of play; of curiosity, trial, and error, or thought. We may quibble about whether these are all general instincts, but remembering that the book is not addressed to scientific psychologists but to business men, it has a useful and stimulating message of social engineering; and, in any event, it carries a very sober and restrained view of instincts. The professional social psychologist will find a great many illustrations from industrial life with which to refresh his categories.

The author shows clearly the relationship of family feeling to strikes, scabs, riots, and "ca'canny." He should have added that one motive for shortening the twelve-hour day is to eliminate that absentee parenthood which was so clearly brought out in the Pittsburgh Survey and other industrial studies. The chapter on sex is largely a summary of the work of Patten, Wallas, Freud, and C. H. Parker. Employers in the great raw industries would do well to heed the facts brought out. On the instinct of workmanship the author follows Wallas, Münsterberg, and Veblen. The loss of fine, skilled workmanship on the one hand and

the opposition to both sabotage and Taylorism on the other are both, so the author thinks, referable to this fundamental instinct. His two suggestions for getting back the sense of art in industry have been often made, namely, giving the workers a sense of the place in the scheme of things which their product occupies and giving them a greater control over the conduct of industry. In the discussion of the instinct of possession (of a job, land, home, etc.) the author emphasizes the desire for prestige, and that is true enough; but it should be completed by pointing out the discipline which property confers.

Mr. Tead is on sound sociological ground when he declares that "Individuals in whom the tendency to submit is strong are more numerous than those in whom the tendency of self-assertion assumes influential proportions." Our present productive system fosters "the nemesis of docility" through its placing in the hands of even a benevolent despot the right to hire, fire, promote, demote, fix hours, wages, and other working conditions, and which, moreover, tends to convince the employer that his employees are really his servants-his things. That we knew only too well. But to this a new point is brought out in the discussion, namely, that a considerable part of economic subjection is really pathological and might be called a definite industrial psychosis in men who are so frequently "jobless, voteless, and womanless." The analysis of the instinct of the herd frankly acknowledges that, so far, the possibility of sublimating it either in general or as it applies to industrial affairs is largely a field for future inquiry. Sublimating the instinct of pugnacity, however, seems more clearly realizable. "It is not only conceivable but likely that the struggle for sound, social, and industrial organization can for some decades to come give substantial satisfaction for the fighting spirit of many men." Another moral equivalent of war? The chapter on the play impulse is perhaps the least suggestive in the book. It might have been enriched by experiences from community centers, factory welfare work, etc. On page 173 there is a faulty citation in the footnote which credits Kirkpatrick instead of Patrick with "The Psychology of Relaxation." The debate between the supporters of instinct and intelligence as the core of social processes will find some rather fresh materials in the chapter on the instinct of curiosity or thought. Two points of special importance to industry are brought out, namely, that leisure is a prerequisite to sound thinking and that fear paralyzes thought.

The general conclusion of this stimulating little book is simply a plea for that individualization and humanizing of industry which will mean

giving human personality a chance to express itself in and through a democratized industry. While the book does not pretend to be for the use of scholars, it certainly would be valuable as collateral reading for sociology classes. I should recommend it particularly, however, to tired and harried business men who are beginning to question if, after all, discontented, clamorous, restive, heedless, and uninterested workers are simply creations of the devil. It ought to be helpful in the ministry of reconciliation.

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

ARTHUR J. TODD

What Is National Honor? The Challenge of the Reconstruction. By LEO PERLA. With an introduction by Norman Angell. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1918. Pp. xliv+211. $1.50. This book is symptomatic of the current tendency to appeal from intellectualism to instinct under the influence of great crises demanding quick action. The author finds that the emotional complex of national honor is the chief cause of wars and that to secure permanent peace we must rationalize the concept of national honor. To this end he recommends the establishment of a court of international honor, which will give definition to the fact and analyze the claims of states to vital interest in specific instances. It should also give international publicity to those claims, thus serving as an effective check upon unjust national ambitions and jingoistic demonstrations. A league for peace would be a useful adjunct to such a court. In addition it is advocated that a sentiment or emotion complex supporting peace should be created internationally to take the place of the emotional sanctions for war which now exist. This could be done through advertising, prizes, honors, literature, setting forth the benefits of peace and the irrationality of war, etc. These are the practical proposals.

Intertwined with the above-mentioned program is a rather questionable psychological assumption to the effect that the causes of war are not economic but emotional and (apparently-though the exposition is not clear here) that the emotions supporting war are instinctive or inherited. Hence the problem of peace is ultimately the problem of building up emotions supporting peace, but we are left confused as to how this is to be done. If the emotions favoring war are instinctive and underived how can we be sure that we can build up substitute (acquired) emotional complexes of sufficient power to keep the instinctive ones in check? If the war emotions are derived as the common experience

of mankind would seem to indicate-do they not either directly or indirectly and in very large degree arise out of economic situations? Can we prevent the formation of bellicose emotions except by the removal of their economic or other irritability causes? The author seems to be content with an explanation in terms of subjective states and does not push the analysis back to objective facts. However, his psychological theory is not vital to his practical proposals.

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

L. L. BERNARD

Use of Factory Statistics in the Investigation of Industrial Fatigue; a Manual for Field Research. By PHILIP SARGANT FLORENCE. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1918. Pp. v+153. $1.25. The case for the shorter workday has been founded on theory and general observation rather than on actual figures, analyzed statistically. Mr. Florence in this book has formulated the procedure for scientific investigation of the effect of working hours. His outline is not theoretical. It shows in every section that it has stood the test of use. Mr. Florence' work has mainly been done in England where he was associated with the well-known studies of fatigue in munition plants. At present he is carrying on research work of a similar nature in this country. Manuals such as Mr. Florence', and studies such as he has made and is making will go far to put the case for the shorter work day on a scientific basis.

ILLINOIS INDUSTRIAL SURVEY COMMISSION

JANET R. HUNTINGTON

Instinct in Man. A Contribution to the Psychology of Education. By JAMES DREVER, PH.D. Cambridge: University Press, 1917. Pp. x+281.

An assembling of scattered literature on instinct coupled with an interpretative point of view has been needed for some years. In this study the first three chapters are devoted to preliminary definition, history of the opinions of descriptive psychologists from Hobbes to Dugald Stewart, of philosophers from Leibnitz to von Hartmann, and of the biological school stimulated by Darwin. Then follows the author's psychological analysis, using as controversial material such typical writers as Bergson, Lloyd Morgan, Stout, Myers, Shand, Hobhouse, Titchener, Thorndike, and McDougall. The concluding chapters