THE TREND OF APPLIED SOCIOLOGY
In the preceding chapters the discussions have dealt primarily with the
philosophic and psychologic phases of social thought. Another important
phase of our field is applied sociology. The hosts of individuals who
have been engaged in dealing directly with societal problems have
learned valuable lessons from their personal experiences. Sometimes
they have labored according to false theories; often they have scorned
theories entirely. At the other extreme, the world has often accepted
fine theories, but made a pitiable spectacle of itself in falling away
from its idealistic professions.
As the term implies, applied sociology treats of techniques for
improving the quality of human living. The best techniques have been
developed experimentally, but by persons who have combined a high
estimate of social theory with practical programs of activity. The
useful concept of social technology, a more accurate term perhaps than
applied sociology, was given to society by Charles R. Henderson, whose
balanced thinking, sane judgment, and important ameliorative activities
made him the founder of this branch of sociological science. Dr.
Henderson’s name is synonymous with a practical interpretation of
both democracy and Christianity, with the spirit of vigorous yet
kindly reformation in penology, with the concept of prevention in
philanthropic endeavors, and with justice and love in all the fields of
human achievement. There are many other important names in the list of
those persons who helped to found applied sociology; for example, such
individuals as Canon Barnett, Arnold Toynbee, Jacob Riis, Jane Addams,
and many other social welfare saints.
Poverty and crime have been the two chief phenomena with which welfare
work has been concerned. Until the present century the attempts to meet
the problems of poverty have been largely remedial. Jesus said that the
poor are always present in any age of society. St. Francis of Assisi,
tiring of monastery life, sought out the poor in the natural walks of
life, and dedicated himself in their behalf.
For centuries England has experimented with solutions for the problems
of poverty and pauperism. She has learned that when she cares too
assiduously for the poor she encourages the spirit of pauperism and
increases the numbers of dependents. When she provided liberal aid for
illegitimate children, she found that illegitimacy was furthered.
England has had a series of important literary leaders who have
interested themselves in behalf of the poor and outcast. Dickens
drew minute word pictures of poverty. Carlyle, the iconoclast and
individualist, pierced repeatedly the shams of society which are partly
responsible for the perpetual existence of social misery. In beautiful
diction Ruskin spoke in behalf of social justice. In similar fields,
France has her Hugo and Balzac; Germany, her Hauptmann; Russia, her
Tolstoi and Gorky; Scandinavia, her Bjornson, Ibsen, and Strindberg.
Individuals of this type, however, cannot be considered social
technologists. They have directed public opinion to specific social
problems, but rarely offered technological programs of practical value.
Since 1900, the leaders in social technology, such as C. R.
Henderson,[XXIV-1] Sidney and Beatrice Webb,[XXIV-2] and E. T.
Devine,[XXIV-3] have made clear the specific conditions under which
the poor may be permanently aided.[XXIV-4] Remedial care will always
be necessary, but it must be offered in ways that will not encourage
anyone to make a living by begging. The prevailing thought today
regarding poverty is in preventive terms. The individual should be
shown how to help himself up the economic pathway. Education will make
the individual efficient and safeguard him against falling into a
chronic state of pauperism.
Above all else, social technology urges the establishment of justice
in economic conditions. As shown in Chapter XIV, Henry George, in
his _Progress and Poverty_, made a fundamental analysis of one set
of causes of poverty, which he found in the unjust factors in the
economic system. He showed how ownership in land may be traced back
to force. Shall the first person who acquires a section of land be
allowed to fence it in and to keep out all other persons unless they
pay him a price that rises rapidly as the number of other persons
increases?[XXIV-5] Why is there increasing misery amid advancing
wealth? The larger the city the greater the degree of squalor--this was
George’s perplexing observation. Material progress does not improve
the condition of the lowest classes. Prosperity under the present
economic system appears to be a heavy wedge driven into society. The
individuals who are below the line of cleavage are crushed down; those
who are above this line are hoisted upward into positions of luxury and
affluence.
Henry George, despite the large number of followers which his ideas
have today, was probably in error in believing that to take the
ownership of land out of the hands of individuals, through the method
of the single tax, would prevent poverty. However, no one should
be blind to the fact that increasing land values result from mere
increase in population. Either the birth rate or immigration increases
population and sends up land values, which in turn is accompanied by
a rising scale of rents with an elevated cost of living and increased
poverty.
The history of human thought concerning crime has run a vicissitudinous
career. It was not until the days of John Howard and Beccaria that
a truly scientific approach was made to the problem. John Howard
(1726–1790), sheriff of Bedford, became interested in criminals. He
visited jails throughout England. He traveled widely in Europe, usually
at his own expense, studying the causes of typhus fever and endeavoring
to effect a more humane treatment of offenders.
Beccaria (1735–1794), an Italian criminologist, published in 1764 a
remarkable book, _Crimes and Punishment_. Beccaria protested against
attempting to repress crime by the use of fear. Retaliation is an
entirely inadequate motive for administering punishment. Torture
is inhuman. Neither retaliation nor repression meets the problem.
Reformation was the concept with which Beccaria startled Europe.
Punishment should be administered so as to reform.
In modern days the names of Cesare Lombroso (1836–1909) stands out
prominently in the field of criminology.[XXIV-6] Lombroso was a
determinist, finding in heredity and environment all the causes of
crime, and relieving the individual of moral responsibility. The mental
defective, the alcoholic, the frantically angry are irresponsible for
the crimes they commit. By defining one irresponsible group after
another the Lombrosan school has practically included all individuals
in this classification, leaving no one responsible for his conduct.
The remedy for crime, according to Lombroso and his followers, is
found in society. Society is responsible for the criminal acts of its
members. If society should surround all individuals from infancy with
a favorable environment, then crime would end. In the writings of
Garofalo, Ferri, de Quiros, Gross and other Continental criminologists,
a broader point of view is usually taken, making the responsibility
for crime to rest on three factors, heredity, environment, and
individual morality. The margin of choice, and therefore of individual
responsibility, is usually made very slender. European criminological
experts, and even American writers, such as Parmelee, have commonly
minimized the importance of moral character and the accountability of
the individual.
In the United States the trend of interest has been penological. Since
the days of William Penn, who had been a prisoner in England, American
thought has centered on the problem of prison reform. Barrows and
Brockway devoted their lives to the reorganization of prison procedure.
Wines and Lane show lucidly the trend in penological thought, paying
splendid tribute to the achievements of Z. R. Brockway in establishing
the Elmira Reformatory (New York).[XXIV-7]
The fundamental principles of the Elmira procedure are as follows:
(1) The average prisoner can be reformed. (2) Reformation of the
prisoner is the duty of the state. (3) Prisoners must be considered as
individuals and accorded the treatment which each needs in order to
bring him to a normal attitude of life. (4) The prisoner’s reformation
requires his own co-operation in the process. (5) The prison must
have the power to lengthen or shorten the sentence according to the
offender’s stage of reformation. (6) The entire process of reformation
is educational, giving the offender opportunity for psychical, mental,
and moral growth. (7) Punishment for crime is administered in the
discipline and labor, which are unremitting and exacting.
In recent years Thomas M. Osborne has been developing the honor system
and self-government among prisoners.[XXIV-8] The idea is dramatised
by Burleigh and Bierstadt in _Punishment_.[XXIV-9] The conception is
that kindly administration and the personal touch of love will win the
offender’s heart and mind, and effect a reformation.
The last twenty years have seen a remarkable development of the concept
of prevention of crime. This theory, however, takes the problem back
to pre-adult years, to the adolescent, to childhood, and even to the
pre-natal years of the specific individual. The establishment of the
juvenile court, with the success of Judge Ben B. Lindsey, has served
to call attention to the fact that criminals are made as a rule before
they reach the age of twenty-one.
The contributors to recent thought about delinquency, such as Jane
Addams, Breckinridge and Abbott, W. R. George, Ben B. Lindsey, Mrs.
Louise de Koven Bowen, Flexner and Baldwin, are pretty largely agreed
that the causes of delinquency, and hence of criminality, are as
follows: (1) The defective home--made defective by illness, poverty,
shiftlessness, ignorance, immorality, desertion, divorce, death--is
the leading single causal element. Nearly all criminals begin their
careers as disobedient sons. The law of obedience and self-discipline,
if not observed in the home, is learned later only at the expense of
anti-social and criminal acts. (2) Mental defectiveness often causes
delinquency. The mentally defective child, if energetic, has great
difficulty in withstanding the evil temptations of life. He or she has
bodily passions that are further developed than his mental inhibitions.
In this connection the public school has an important function to
perform in detecting mental defectives and in segregating them under
special educational care. They should be segregated also by sexes, so
that they may not reproduce their kind, and they should be kept under
educational and institutional direction throughout their lives. They
can be made useful and happy under a guarded environment. (3) Civic
neglect is a third cause of delinquency and crime. Young people are
released from the public schools, often without proper home training
and supervision, and drift about in a highly complex urban environment,
full of commercialized and vicious devices for preying upon the
curious and the unsuspecting. (4) Social injustice, for example in
industry, arouses feelings of hatred of class against class, and leads
to criminal acts. (5) Moral thoughtlessness and religious indifference
are common causes. A moral and religious attitude gives a balanced
expression to personality, wholesomeness and obedience in the home;
and a deep, constant, and abiding interest in public welfare is an
invaluable preventive of sin, vice, and crime.
A growing conception relative to juvenile courts is that a
considerable portion of the work that such courts are now called on
to perform belongs to the public schools. The compulsory attendance,
child welfare, and continuation school departments may well assume
responsibility for and direction of many youth who now become court
charges. It is urged that a fully organized procedure of constructive
work and play activity under the supervision of the schools will
greatly reduce juvenile delinquency.
Another cause of juvenile delinquency is parental negligence. It is
believed by many authorities that problems of this character should
be taken care of through the domestic relations court rather than in
the juvenile court. Another causal factor is the growing disrespect
for parents on the part of children, that is, the increasing degree of
failure of children to appreciate the significance of the concept of
obedience.
In regard to labor problems, social technology has made notable
contributions. Child labor is a term which refers to the employment of
adolescent children for wages, when such children are thereby deprived
from normal opportunities of mental and physical growth. Children
should learn to work, even at unpleasant tasks, but when at an early
age they are taken out of or quit school and become gainfully employed,
they are deprived of a normal adolescence; they and society both
lose.[XXIV-10]
The problem of women in industry is due to the migration of millions of
women from the home into industry. While women are entitled to equality
of opportunity with men, they are often unmindful that constitutionally
they are not fitted to perform all the tasks that men are doing; that
if they fail in the bearing and rearing of children rationally, the
race dies; and that, if they neglect to make the home attractive, the
family as an essential social institution is undermined.
The labor problem, when applied to men, brings forth a multiplicity of
contradictory opinions. The idea of industrial democracy is the storm
center. While praising modern capitalism for its stimulus to initiative
and for its large-scale enterprises that have been highly beneficial
in many ways, the social technologist pronounces modern capitalism
undemocratic. He declares that it must purge itself or be supplanted by
another industrial order; it must take cognizance of social changes and
adjust itself accordingly or be routed.
The injustice in modern capitalism is often stressed in social
technologic thought. Only one factor, wealth, is represented in the
management of business. The skilled or unskilled laborers, often
“the hardest working partners” in the business, are not represented.
Applied sociology, unlike socialism, would keep industry in the hands
of individuals. The idea has been best developed, perhaps, by a social
theorist, Professor A. W. Small. Labor and capital must both have
representation on boards of directors, if capitalism is to prove that
it is not undemocratic.[XXIV-11]
Tripartite management of industry is a current phase of industrial
thought. Where employers and employees have reached a common ground of
co-operation, they have often joined forces in collusion against the
public and the consumer. The employer agrees to a rise in wages for
the employee, and the employee to an increase in dividends, providing
he receives a portion of the added returns--meanwhile the public is
apathetic or rages impotently. The best thought today is urging that
on boards of directors and managers all three interested parties shall
have representation, namely, labor, capital, and the public.
It is a current opinion that the failure of capitalism to democratize
itself will result in the rise of socialism by revolutionary means. If
capital with its one-sided control of industry is supplanted by labor
with another type of control, it is doubtful how much will be gained.
The labor standard is manifesting itself as a class standard, and at
times arbitrarily. To have society controlled by labor standards, no
matter under what form of socialism they may appear, will not guarantee
progress. The labor classes, the capitalist classes, the professional
classes--all must rule, and unselfishly for the welfare of society.
The current socialist thought ranges from a radical bolshevist theme of
a dictatorship of the proletariat to a conservative state socialism,
like that advocated by John Spargo. Bolshevism has the earmarks of
class autocracy. Progress cannot be secured by a social order in which
the least educated and trained are in control. On the other hand, it
is not clear that state socialism, with its governmental control of
interest-producing capital and rent-producing land, will best guarantee
progress. The socialization of individuals will probably be more
effective than the socialization of industries.
The tendency is toward the elimination of profitism. This negative
thought, it is claimed, will relieve capitalism of its worst evils, and
allow the educational process of socializing individuals to go forward.
The concept of social insurance has been given a remarkable reception
since 1882. Social insurance was introduced as a means of pacifying
labor and of making it contented under the rule of capitalism. It
was admitted into governmental economy by Bismarck as an agency
of forestalling socialism. It spread rapidly. It has met with two
setbacks. (1) In the first place it has acquired such momentum that
capitalism sees it as the entering wedge of a genuine socialism. (2)
In the second place social insurance is guaranteeing so much security
to the workingman that he is constrained at times to sacrifice his
initiative and even to become shiftless, saying in effect to himself,
“I’ll be taken care of anyway.” It is this second type of antagonistic
thought that indicates the real weakness in social insurance. It would
be better to have a society in which the workingmen as a class would
have an ample opportunity of caring for, and be stimulated to care
for, their old age and for periods of disability. For the individual
exceptions, special provisions could be made.
The unemployment problem has produced many reform theories.
Unemployment insurance, now being made the subject of experiment, is
probably not reaching the main causes. The causal factors are many
and deep-seated; they range from individual shiftlessness and mental
defectiveness on one hand, to economic injustice and social callousness
on the other.[XXIV-12] The prevailing thought urges a more efficient
training of the individual; the increasing of the workman’s opportunity
to enlarge his personality through each day’s work; the development of
industrial democracy and justice; and a complete socialization program.
Another set of problems concerning which applied sociology is
endeavoring to find solutions relates to the family, feminism,
marriage, divorce, and housing. Professor George Elliott
Howard[XXIV-13] and Dr. Edward Westermarck[XXIV-14] have traced the
development of the family and marriage throughout human history. The
primitive relationships between sexes have been described by many
anthropological writers. A history of the American family has been
written by A. W. Calhoun.[XXIV-15] Single volume treatments of the
family as a social institution have been made by Bosanquet[XXIV-16]
and Goodsell.[XXIV-17] These works essentially agree that the family
is an evolutionary product, that the primitive family centered about
the mother and child, that patriarchalism introduced a high degree of
masculine arbitrariness, and that the family is at present undergoing
marked changes whereby the spirit of democracy is gaining ground.
In the new found spirit of freedom, woman has sometimes been captivated
by the desire to follow man into all the man-made occupations. Sex
nature predestines woman to the chief occupation or profession of
all, that of motherhood. For woman to rush headlong after men into
industry may turn out to be not liberty, but license and deterioration.
Current social thought protests vigorously against the idea of women
being household drudges, and also against women wasting their time in
pluming themselves or in idling away their days in dolls’ houses,
supported dependents of men. Women are entitled to learn vocations and
to live constructive lives, in an atmosphere of the largest possible
freedom consistent with the development of themselves and the race.
On the other hand, any movement which weakens the home as a societary
training institution apparently defies the laws of social advance.
The housing problem is provoking urgent thought. With the rise of
large cities the economic order favors exorbitant land values and
extraordinarily high rents. The social increment goes into the hands of
the few. The flat and apartment house life often favors pet bulldogs
rather than children, and decreases the efficiency of the home as a
social institution. These untoward tendencies, furthermore, are being
supplemented by an attitude of more or less helpless apathy on the part
of the public.
Another field of applied sociologic thought is represented by the
terms, race problems, immigration, and naturalization. These concepts
are all outgrowths of the population concept which has been treated
in an earlier chapter. The human race with its common origin has
subdivided and wandered into all the inhabitable parts of the globe.
Climate, geography, and social environment have operated to make the
race subdivisions distinct and discriminatory. Race pride and prejudice
have raised impassable race barriers.
In the United States the leading race problem involves the Negroes.
Booker T. Washington[XXIV-18] urged that if the Negro shows himself
industrially efficient and morally worthy, the prejudice against him
will disappear. W. E. B. DuBois[XXIV-19] asks that the prejudice
against the colored race by the white race be removed in order that
the Negro may have a fair chance to show himself capable. The Southern
white people declare that the colored people must be segregated on
a lower plane than that occupied by the white race. Northern people
assert that the trouble lies chiefly in an undemocratic attitude of
Southern white people toward the colored race. Thus the currents of
thought concerning the Negro come into conflict, but without forming a
common current of action.
Another phase of the race problem is conveyed by the concept of
hyphenated interests. The Americanization movement has assumed momentum
because of the need for a more unified spirit within the nation.
Although some of the promoters of Americanization have used autocratic
means, the opinion is gaining ground that the transference of the
loyalty of the immigrant from his home country to his adopted country
can best be effected by treating the immigrant sympathetically and
democratically in all his contacts--industrial, social, political--with
the people of our land.[XXIV-20]
The public health movement has acquired force because of the belief
that only public and widespread action can remove many of the causes
of disease. Tuberculosis, for example, is a disease that is caused
by a microscopic germ which thrives and multiplies in the tissues of
susceptible and weakened organisms. Tuberculosis and unsanitary housing
conditions flourish together. The individual is often helpless, but
the thought is now well grounded that public action can stamp out the
breeding places of the tubercle bacilli and relieve the country of
the white plague. An improved economic and educational status for the
unskilled laborer and his family would also help to improve the health
level of the country. Current social thought supports the contention
that the real work of a physician is to keep people well rather than to
cure them after they have fallen seriously ill. Preventive medicine and
the public health movement are strongly urged by social technology.
Another phase of applied sociology of current significance is indicated
by the term, community organization.[XXIV-21] The idea of this
movement originated in the failure of people to develop a democratic
consciousness. Community organization refers to attempts of communities
to organize themselves for neighborhood efficiency. When a community
organizes its own recreations and amusements, it functions in two
important directions. (1) It supplants commercialized amusements,
operated for profit and often on a socially destructive basis, by
community recreation, maintained by the people themselves in socially
constructive ways and at a minimum of expense. (2) In participating in
and building up community enterprises such as community recreation,
the people of the community develop a co-operative democratic
consciousness. The problem of the use of leisure time is growing
in proportion to the extent that the laboring classes are winning
a shorter work day. In addition to community recreation, community
health movements, community newspapers, community co-operative stores,
community committees for securing needed legislation and for breaking
the force of economic monopoly, are attracting widespread attention.
The social unit and the block system of community service, are terms
which indicate variations of the community organization concept,
originally a product of the need of meeting the leisure time problem
constructively with the very important result of re-creating democracy.
Social technology has produced the survey.[XXIV-22] The social survey,
being related in its origin to the census, is an accurate method
of gathering social facts, not merely facts about the numbers of
people, the acreage, and the amount of wealth, but the facts about
the societary assets and liabilities of a city or community, and
concerning the constructive and the destructive forces. By making
surveys at regular intervals of five or ten year periods, a community
can determine the amount and direction of its own progress. The idea
of a survey is similar to that of an inventory of a business house--to
find out the gains and losses, and to plan for the future according to
the verdict of the inventory.
In recent years social case work has acquired an important rank in
the field of applied sociology. Social reform deals with methods for
improving the whole mass of individuals and for raising the level
of the entire group; social case work on the other hand stimulates
individuals to improve the quality of their lives, to adjust
themselves more adequately to their environment, and to transform
their environments. Social case work insists that sound social reforms
can be effected only on the basis of first-hand experiences with the
needs of individuals who are the victims of social imperfections or
their own shortcomings. Social work with individuals has provided a
body of specific facts of first magnitude as a foundation for measures
of social amelioration and progress; it has mirrored life which is
under the harrow of circumstances; it has portrayed life where living
conditions are harshest.
Applied sociology represents methods of social attack. It furthers
progress by planning for society on the basis of past societal
experiences and current facts and tendencies. It fulfils the demands of
social telesis.