interested in the improvement of our economic system as well as in the increase of their own wages. INDIVIDUALISTIC V. ORGANIZED SOCIAL SERVICE The final objective of education, social service, is the only one which is generally recognized as having special social implications. Even here the individualist in education still maintains his individualistic point of view. Social service may be looked at from the standpoint either of its subjective value to the individual or of its objective value to society. From the individual standpoint its purpose is primarily to develop personality or to fulfil one's personal duty to help others. From the social standpoint its purpose is to increase the effectiveness of social organization or to fulfil an organization's duty to help society. The essential divergence comes from the direction of the vision, whether one looks at himself as a component part of a group or at the group as a specialized part of himself. It is the same difference that exists between egoism and altruism as motives of human action. We give higher ranking to altruistic than to egoistic motives, even though they may, and often do, result in the same type of conduct. In the same way social service inspired by group motives is on a higher plane than the same service performed through individualistic motives. This may be made clear by specific applications. The basis of philanthropy is human sympathy. One may express his sympathy by aiding the individuals he knows or alleviating the misery he comes in contact with; or he may work through institutional channels, giving his aid to the organized agencies for human betterment. It is quite possible for one to be sympathetic and helpful, and all of us know people of this type, without being willing to contribute freely to organized charities. But we also know the weakness and dangers of purely personal charity. It is based on elemental feeling and is likely to degenerate into mere almsgiving. Organized philanthropy is superior because it is more likely to be constructive and is usually administered by trained workers whose sympathy is guided by intelligence and whose group loyalty keeps them from being led astray by unworthy personal appeals. Personal charity begins with the individual, while institutional philanthropy always proceeds from the group outward. Institutional service when properly directed is not impersonal in the sense of losing the personal touch, but it does call for a higher type of devotion and demands for its support a more socially minded clientèle. It is social service par excellence, and before it can be universalized requires an impersonal social sympathy and an educated social conscience. In the same way civic service may proceed from either personal or social motives and be made either an individual or a group enterprise. A citizen may work for political betterment because it will improve his citizenship and give him a greater personal following, thus opening up a means of political preferment, or he may do the same work for the good of his city, his state, or his nation. While the results may be essentially the same the impulse to service is essentially different. It takes a higher type of personality to respond to the group or social motives than to serve from individualistic motives. We glorify patriotism because the patriot thinks first of his country and later of himself. Likewise in business a man may work with an eye single to the success of his own establishment or with an added conscious effort to promote business efficiency. Every useful business successfully operated benefits the business community, but if there is mingled with the desire for personal returns the desire to render the community an economic service the business is likely to be run on a higher plane. A workman may do good work in order to increase his own pay, but the type of man the employer likes to promote is the one who sees the effect of his labor upon the success of the firm and who naturally co-operates without being driven. The churchman may sacrificingly serve to increase his religious standing or to save his own soul, but the true Christian serves for the sake of the cause and to save the souls of others. In all of these cases the individual type of service is egocentric, while the social type is sociocentric. The sociocentric type of service demands the same individual insight and will to serve plus the willingness and ability to co-operate, and gives the added economy and efficiency that come from union. If we are to increase and improve through education the type of social service which springs from social-mindedness we should develop an educational system that will train our citizens as directly as possible for social activities. The only system of education that will do this is one which emphasizes social studies and gives continual practice in assuming group responsibilities. No past age has ever offered such a variety of institutional memberships and opportunities or has been able to stimulate through social organization such breadth of social-mindedness as we have in the United States today. Germany has succeeded in establishing a national unity and an individual subservience never before equaled, but she has done it by submerging all loyalties into service to the state. But political solidarity alone is too narrow a base upon which to found a great civilization. Our racial solidarity and national perpetuity must be founded upon a type of social and civic service which is broad enough to include a variety of institutional loyalties to counterbalance our native individual separatism. The stability and virtues of the family group, the ethical idealism of the church, the co-ordinated effectiveness of industry and business, the freemasonry of social classes, the constructive nature of organized philanthropy, and the democratic service of government must all be preserved. It is the public school alone which seems to possess the breadth of purpose properly to co-ordinate social activities and to reach the child while he is plastic enough to make its teachings effective, that promises an adequate development of this necessary social-mindedness. Nor may we expect its possible service to be even approximately realized until it is more highly socialized in its teaching personnel, its curriculum, and its methods than it is at present. It would seem then that the manifest mission of sociology in education is to see that the social aspects of school training receive proper attention. The sociologist is needed in the educational field to counterbalance the psychological emphasis upon the development of individual intelligence and efficiency by the sociological emphasis upon group intelligence and social efficiency. We have pointed out the special need of social hygiene as well as of individual health instruction, the demand for social aesthetics, social self-control, and social ethics as well as for individual artists, individual self-control, and personal morals, the value of vocational responsiveness and idealism as well as of vocational efficiency, and the superiority of organized social service inspired by group loyalty over egocentric social service inspired by individual impulse and ambition. But the orientation of education as an institution and the elaboration of educational aims are only the beginnings of the contribution that sociologists owe to education. They must take a definite part in the training of teachers, aid in outlining means for the socialization of educational materials and studies, stimulate the increase of group methods of instruction, and insist upon abundant laboratory practice in social activities as a means of instilling a sense of social responsibility and an intelligent social-mindedness. NEWS AND NOTES NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF SOCIAL WORK The central current of the discussions and deliberations at the fortyfifth National Conference of Social Work which met at Kansas City from May 15 to 22 was social reconstruction. Significant in this connection was the large place given to sociologists and social philosophers in presenting fundamental viewpoints and problems. At the Saturday noon luncheon of teachers of sociology and others engaged in education for social work a motion was passed authorizing the appointment of a committee to arrange for meetings of this group at the next conference. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Professor Edward C. Hayes, of the University of Illinois, is giving courses on "General Sociology," "History of Sociology," and "Home Service and Social Work in War Time" in the first term of the Summer Quarter. The last-named course will be continued during the second term by Professor John L. Gillin, of the University of Wisconsin and director of the Division of Civilian Relief of the Central Division of the American Red Cross. Professor Anna Garland Spencer, of the Meadville Theological Seminary, is offering courses on the social and religious aspects of education. UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Dr. Jessie F. Steiner has been appointed assistant professor of sociology. Professor Steiner is the director of the third institute for the training of home service held at the University from June 18 to July 27. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Mr. LeRoy E. Bowman, of the War Camp Community Service, is offering a course in the summer session on "Community Organization." UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Professor E. H. Sutherland, of William Jewell College, is giving courses on "The Social Survey" and "Rural Sociology" in the summer school. |