Established by Edward L. Youmans
APPLETONS'
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY
EDITED BY
WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS
VOL. LVI
NOVEMBER, 1899 TO APRIL, 1900
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1900
COPYRIGHT, 1900,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
[Illustration: FREDERICK C. SELOUS.]
APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
DECEMBER, 1899.
EXACT METHODS IN SOCIOLOGY.
BY FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, PH. D.,
PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
Those who do pioneer work in science encounter not only the inherent
difficulties of research and interpretation, but also the
misapprehension of certain educated men whose distinctive gift is a
fatal genius for applying false standards of measurement to the
progress of thought. Seizing upon some branch of knowledge that is in
a state of vigorous development, when its newer results are out of
harmony with its earlier hypotheses, such critics love to point out
these contradictions, and try to prove that the branch in question is
no science at all, and that its teachers are hardly worthy of
respectful consideration.
The history of science contains many interesting chapters pertaining
to this kind of criticism and the fate that has invariably overtaken
it. When Copernicus and Galileo showed the absurdity of the Ptolemaic
astronomy, the theologians enjoyed themselves for a time, as they
demonstrated--to their own entire satisfaction--the folly of all
rationalistic attempts to explain what revelation only could make
clear. When Darwin explained the origin of species through variation
and natural selection, the pretensions of biology were completely
exploded by its lay and clerical critics (they thought and said so) by
the extremely simple device of the "deadly parallel column." Was not
Cuvier a great anatomist, and had he ever taught this nonsense about
the mutability of species? Was not Agassiz the most learned naturalist
alive, and what had he to say about Darwinian vagaries? Had he not
proved, over and over again, that the very concept of the species was
the notion of a group of characteristics that could not possibly
change or be changed from generation to generation? In more recent
years we have again seen the same method of reducing science to a
variety show for the entertainment of the tired general reader applied
to both biology and psychology. Weismann has tried to prove that
acquired characteristics are not transmitted in heredity, and that the
germ plasm is distinct from the somatic cells. The neo-Lamarckians,
Spencer, Cope, and some of the botanists have contended for the older
interpretation. Is biology, then, a science? Forbid the thought!
Heaven preserve our minds from such confusion!
If the sociologists have hoped that they alone might not be overtaken
by easy annihilation, they deserve to be humiliated. But it is safe to
say that they have cherished no such illusions. If the men who have
devoted much time to the scientific explanation of society have had no
other qualification for their task, they have at least shown some
acquaintance with the history of thought. And so it is not likely that
they have suffered deeply from disenchantment when they have been
confronted with the regulation exposure of "the present position" of
their science.
There is no need of wasting space to prove that the kind of criticism
here referred to is without scientific value. The present position of
any science can not be determined by arraying its contradictions and
inconsistencies, irrespective of a serious attempt to ascertain which
of its concepts and hypotheses have inherent vitality. It is precisely
when a science is at its best, surely advancing year by year and full
of promise for the future, that contradictions most abound in its
monographs and text-books.
A true scientific criticism, then, must proceed by a different method.
The present position of a science can be ascertained only by
instituting three specific inquiries, namely: First, among the more or
less contradictory conceptions and hypotheses which constitute its
groundwork, what ones are surely displacing all others and gaining the
wider acceptance among active students? Second, what progress is being
made in the application of exact methods to research? Third, is there
a practical or working harmony between the concepts that are gaining
ground and the more exact methods of research that are being
perfected? Do the concepts and hypotheses lend themselves to exact
methods, and do they, on the whole, help to perfect methods? Do
improving methods, on the whole, confirm or strengthen the concepts
that are gaining wider acceptance?
If these inquiries are applied in the domain of sociology they bring
to light unmistakable evidence of a steady and gratifying progress
toward scientific consistency and rigor of method. Much babble about
social ills and possible reforms still masquerades as social science.
A great deal of loose thinking and slipshod investigation is paraded
as expert opinion on questions of social welfare. But no one who has
seriously followed the efforts of scientifically trained minds to
discover the natural laws of social evolution is in any danger of
confounding the results thus far obtained with the chatter over every
passing fad. In the more serious work itself there is found a vigorous
and hopeful disagreement of opinion upon all unsettled questions. But
the fact of real significance is that the disputation has become
intensive. The debate no longer ranges over a wide field. A selective
process has eliminated one after another the more loose and vague
conceptions of the science, the irrelevant issues, and the superficial
analogies. There has been a progressive concentration of attention
upon a group of closely related and fundamental problems.
The sociology of August Comte was little more than a highly
intelligent and quickening talk about social order and progress. It
convinced thoughtful men that there is a social order to be studied in
a scientific spirit and by scientific methods, and that social
progress conforms to laws that may be discovered. Mr. Spencer narrowed
the field of sociological inquiry and gave precision of statement to
all social problems by bringing them within the formulas of universal
evolution. He still further narrowed the field by demonstrating the
close relationship of social phenomena to the phenomena of organic
evolution and by seizing upon certain psychological facts as chief
factors in social causation. All fruitful later work in social
interpretation has been a further concentration of investigation upon
the psychic factors. While admitting that social as well as mental
phenomena are subsumed under biological phenomena, and that the
parallelism of social organization to biotic organization is real, the
younger students of sociology have developed the science as an
offshoot of psychology, and have dropped the biological analogy as
unfruitful for purposes of research. The pioneer in this movement was
Dr. Lester F. Ward, whose masterly analysis of the psychic factors of
social phenomena gave the right direction for all time to sociological
inquiry, and whose emphasis of the importance of reason and volition
in the social process, although it has not yet received the attention
that it merits, is destined to be fruitful in coming years.
To the further study of the psychological foundations of society
practically all the valuable work on fundamental social problems has
been given during the past ten years. Tarde has given us profound
studies of imitation and invention; Gumplowicz and Le Bon, of the
psychology of races and culture groups; Novicow, of the psychology of
conflict and toleration; Le Bon and Durkheim, of the psychology of
crowds, of co-operation, and of the division of labor; Baldwin, of the
psychology of the social unit--the _socius_.
Thus it appears that while sharp disagreements of opinion still exist
relative to the priority or the generality of one or another of these
psychic factors in the social process, discussion has focused about
the psychological phenomena themselves. There has been a progressive
limitation of the field and an increasing definiteness of conception
and hypothesis.
My own effort, if now I may be pardoned for referring to it, has been
to restrict the field yet further, and to make the problems of
sociology yet more specific. I have contended that these psychological
phenomena which have been seized upon for purposes of sociological
interpretation are still too vaguely conceived. They are often
disclosed to the inquirer in purely individual as well as in social
aspects. The lines of inquiry between the study of mind in general, of
mind as individual, and of mind as manifesting itself socially in the
concert or co-operation of a number of individual minds, have not been
drawn with sufficient precision. I have tried to show that the
psychological phenomena that Ward, Tarde, Gumplowicz, Novicow, Le Bon,
Durkheim, Baldwin, and others have so admirably analyzed as psychic
factors of society are social when, and only when, they have certain
coefficients, namely: (1) The coefficient of resemblance--that is, a
fundamental similarity of individuals to one another underlying and,
on the whole, dominating their innumerable differences; (2) the
coefficient of awareness or consciousness of resemblance--that is to
say, certain feelings, perceptions, or thoughts of resemblance, which
give rise to varied prejudices and preferences that facilitate or
prevent effective co-operation. Whether this contention of mine will
prevail, whether there will ultimately be a general agreement among
sociologists that these coefficients of resemblance and consciousness
of kind are the true _differentia_ of social phenomena, time and
further research must determine.
The second inquiry through which we may learn somewhat of the present
position of sociology relates to the development of method. Exact
method in social research is statistical. Wherever we can obtain
numerical data within the domain of social phenomena, there we arrive
at exact or quantitative knowledge. The development and application of
statistical methods to social problems has been one of the most
striking scientific achievements of the present century. When
Quételet, in 1835, published his great work, _Sur l'Homme et le
Développement de ses Facultés_, he laid the foundation for a thorough
statistical investigation of psychological and sociological no less
than of anatomical phenomena. And after the publication, in 1846, of
his work, _Sur la Théorie des Probabilités appliquées aux Sciences
morales et politiques_, followed, in 1848, by _Du Système social et
des Lois qui le régissent_, there was a rapid development of
statistical methods in precision, and of attempts to extend the
statistical method to groups of facts which had until then been
studied only from a purely qualitative or, at best, a vaguely
comparative point of view. At the present time every subdivision of
descriptive sociology draws data from rich collections of statistical
materials, and employs statistical methods for the further extension
of knowledge.
Thus, in the study of the social population, statistical methods are
employed not only to give the total number of inhabitants dwelling
within a given territory and the degree of density of population per
square mile, but also to show to what extent population increases by
births in excess of deaths, to what extent by immigration in excess of
emigration, and to what extent the composition of the population is
rendered complex by the intermingling of many nationalities. The
character of a population, also, and its social capacities are in a
large measure statistically investigated. General intelligence is
studied by means of statistics of literacy and illiteracy; industrial
preferences by statistics of occupation; habits of industry by
statistics of the number in every thousand of the total population who
regularly follow gainful occupations; frugality by statistics of
savings, insurance, and home ownership; and the amount of
communication, whereby assimilation and co-operation are rendered
possible, by statistics of travel, mail, and telegraphic service.
Passing to that study of concerted feeling, thought, and purpose which
may be called a study of the social mind, and which constitutes the
second great division of descriptive sociology, we find that it can be
carried on, and that to a great extent it is prosecuted, by means of
statistical research. We have statistics incomplete, but admitting of
perfection, of those impulsive, emotional disturbances of masses of
men which take the form of strikes, insurrections, lynchings, and
revivals. The report of the United States Department of Labor on
strikes, published in 1894, and a recently published monograph by Dr.
Frederick S. Hall on Sympathetic Strikes, show the possibilities of
this method whenever it shall be exhaustively applied. It could be
successfully applied to the other phenomena mentioned. By painstaking
effort and a sufficient expenditure of money the data could be
obtained. Lombroso and Laschi, in their work, _Le Crime politique et
les Révolutions_, have made a beginning toward the collection of
statistics of insurrections and revolutions. More exact, at present,
are our statistics of the rational working of the minds of large
numbers of men in communication and co-operation. These we have in the
familiar form of election returns, which show us the decisions that
communities make on questions of public policy and administration.
This information could be increased by the application of statistical
analyses to the vast body of statute law and judicial decisions. A
beginning of such work has been made in the valuable Bulletin of State
Legislation, published by the New York State Library.
In the third division of descriptive sociology--that, namely, which
treats of social organization--the application of statistical method
is proceeding with great rapidity. We have not only statistics (yearly
improving in quality) of marriage and divorce, of the organization of
all governmental departments, military and civil, of chartered
corporations, of religious and educational societies, but also of the
thousands of associations formed for the promotion of special
interests, recreation, scientific research, art and literature, and
philanthropy. Every year the statistical information on these matters,
included in such compilations as The World Almanac, becomes not only
more extensive but more precise.
Yet more abundant are the statistical accumulations pertaining to that
fourth and last division of descriptive sociology which treats of the
social welfare--of the functioning of society, of the ends for which
it exists. We have statistics of prosperity, of the accumulation and
distribution of wealth, of the expansion and contraction of credit,
and of business failures. We have statistics of longevity. We
ascertain improving sanitary conditions by changes in the death rate.
We learn by statistical methods of the increase or decrease of
accident and death due to public disorder or maladministration. We
ascertain through educational statistics the decrease of illiteracy
and superstition. And by the same means we ascertain the dimensions of
pauperism and of crime. Not only so, but, by a certain refinement of
statistical method, applied by competent men like Sir Francis Galton,
we ascertain the increase or decrease and the distribution of the
higher manifestations of intellectual ability and moral character.
Thus the whole field of descriptive sociology is being more and more
exhaustively studied by statistical methods that are yearly improving
in precision. So far, then, as may be judged from the development of
its methods, no science at the present time is making surer and better
progress than sociology, and none is offering to the general public
conclusions based upon more exact methods of induction.
Let us now look at the relations which the development of statistical
method bears to that development of fundamental conceptions, which has
already been described. Do we here discover increasing harmony, a
tendency toward co-ordination, or have analyses of concepts, on the
one hand, and developments of statistical method, on the other hand,
followed diverging lines?
There can be no possible doubt of the answer that must be made to
these questions. Conceptions and methods are in as perfect accord as
can be discovered in any branch of science. The merest glance over the
field of social statistics shows that, for the most part, they record
and classify phenomena that are essentially psychological. In working
from the general theory of evolution through the biological
parallelism down to psychological premises, analytical sociology has
been doing in one way precisely what statistics have been doing in
another. The moment we pass from statistics of density and
distribution of population we find ourselves dealing next with groups
of facts that are biological (the facts, namely, of distribution
according to sex and age periods), through facts that are partly
biological and partly psychological in character (the facts, namely,
of nationality), and then, leaving these behind, we deal henceforth
entirely with facts that belong to the mental and moral categories. To
name them would be only to repeat the categories already enumerated:
the statistics of intelligence, industry, and moral character, of
emotional or rational social action, of various forms of organization
for the achievement of as many different purposes, and of the
development of the conscious personality of man as a result of his
social relations and activities.
Not only is this true, but the further interesting fact may be
discovered that social statistics of every category employed or known
are based upon a frank recognition of that coefficient of resemblance,
physical or mental, which I have contended is a mark of social
phenomena. The first step in statistical tabulation is classification,
and classification invariably starts from an assumption of real or
supposed resemblance. Not to dwell on such fundamental distinctions as
those of color, race, and nationality, we encounter the more special
resemblances of agreement in religious belief, agreement in industrial
preference, agreement in political conviction (as shown in election
returns), similar susceptibility to emotionalism, similar capacities
for rational comprehension, similar imperfections of nature, which
result in lives of crime or pauperism. Remove from social statistics
this postulate that blood kinship or mental resemblance between one
social unit and another is the basis of social phenomena, and the
statistics themselves would cease to exist.
Statistics reveal also the consciousness which men have of their
resemblances and their differences. It is statistically known that the
geographical distribution of nationalities is not accidental or
capricious. Immigrant Italians, Germans, and Scandinavians find their
way to those parts of the country where men of their own blood and
speech are already established. Intermarriages of men and women of
different nationalities are statistically known to be frequent where
no differences of religion exist, and infrequent where different
nationalities profess different faiths. The statistics of political
elections are quite as much statistics of the consciousness of kind as
of differences of mental type itself.
The most significant fact of all, however, has still to be named. It
is this: From the first known beginnings of statistical research to
the present time every extension of statistical inquiry has been in a
large measure due to the consciousness of kind. The first statistical
surveys of communities of which we have any record were such tribal
enumerations as those recorded in the book of Numbers, the avowed
object of which was to ascertain the strength and resources of the
various tribes by clans, lesser gentile groups, and households, not
more for utilitarian reasons than for the gratification of gentile and
tribal pride. The census taken in Greece in 594 B. C. was for the
purpose of dividing the people into four classes and levying taxes
according to wealth. The constitution of Servius Tullius, 550 B. C.,
distinguished six property classes, and the attempt to determine these
statistically was one of the earliest experiments in census-making at
Rome. The Domesday Book of William I (1086) is the first great
statistical document in English history, and its origin was due to a
desire to know not only the military and fiscal strength of the
nation, but also its class distinctions and feudal relationships. The
great stimulus given to statistical investigation by the French
Revolution was an obvious product of class feeling. Most of the
refinements of statistical inquiry in later years have had a like
origin. Such, for example, was the cause of the discrimination in our
own census of the foreign born from the native born, and of the native
born of foreign parents from both native and foreign born. Such has
been the cause of the attempt to get more exact statistics of
religious denominations, of labor organizations, and of the
distribution of wealth. Had there been no reason for including these
costly inquiries in statistical investigations, except that of their
general utility and scientific interest, the appropriation for them
would have been denied in Congress without an instant's hesitation.
They have been included because of the political deference given to
class feeling and to various forms of religious and educational
prejudice.
Thus there is seen to be a remarkable interdependence of statistical
method and psychological analysis in the development of sociological
research. Analysis and method have converged upon the same postulates,
and it is apparently by the development of methods frankly founded
upon these postulates that our sociological knowledge is to be further
increased.
It would be a great mistake, however, to assume that sociological
knowledge is to be increased only by the further collection and
interpretation of numerical data. Careful monographic description and
historical research must continue to be important sources of both
information and hypothesis. The great defects of monographic work,
both descriptive and historical, are, first, a certain lack of
precision, attributable to the large part played in investigation by
the individual judgment of the student (the lack of objective tests by
which his subjective impressions may be critically examined); second,
a certain incompleteness, attributable to a failure to separate each
inquiry into all its scientific subdivisions and to attempt to obtain
desired data under each subdivision, as is done in statistical
investigation where, in every table, as many topics as there are
scientific subdivisions of the general subject are represented by
columns, and an entry of some kind is made in every column.
I wish now to point out the possibility of giving greater precision to
monographic work in sociology by the introduction of quasi-statistical
methods--methods that are essentially quantitative in an algebraic
sense, though they are not numerical.
Social phenomena have the interesting characteristic that small
forces, while never lost in that composition of forces which
determines the ultimate equilibrium of the social system, often count
for absolutely nothing in the practical affairs of a given generation.
If, for example, Mr. Bryan and a Democratic Congress had been elected
in 1896, the practical consequences for the United States would have
been much the same whether the Democratic plurality had been one
hundred thousand, half a million, or two or three millions. This is
but one example of a large class of facts. Social phenomena are more
often than not determined by a mere matter of more or less, rather
than by the exact amount or degree of more or less. The determination
is algebraic rather than arithmetical. Is the element under
investigation a positive or a negative quantity? Is its sign plus or
minus? That is usually the important question for the sociological
student.
Now it happens that a great many investigations in descriptive
sociology do not as yet admit of the introduction of exact
statistical--that is, arithmetical--inquiries which, nevertheless, do
admit the use of algebraically quantitative methods. In the
monographic description of a community many questions arise which can
not be answered by the entry of figures in a column, but which could
be answered by entering in a column a symbol indicating that a certain
trait, habit, or choice could be predicated of a large majority, or of
a small majority, or of only a large minority, or of only a small
minority of the entire population. That is to say, it often happens
that an observer who can not take a perfect census (getting answers to
all his questions from every individual in the community), and who
therefore can not fill out his columns with arithmetical values, can,
by such interviewing as is possible to him and by such an examination
of the objective products of social activity as are open to the
inspection of any one who chooses to observe them critically,
determine with absolute certainty whether certain things are true of
majorities or only of minorities.
Suppose, for example, that a traveler is studying an out-of-the-way
settlement, or a tribe, which presents many points of interest that
are comparatively novel. All who are familiar with the narratives of
travel and exploration which Mr. Spencer has used as data for his
Descriptive Sociology are aware that they are almost totally devoid of
system. The reader is told that such marriage customs, such clan
relationships, such political institutions, such industrial
operations, have been observed. The all-important coefficient is left
out. What the student of sociology would most of all like to know is
how many individuals in the community manifest such or such a trait;
how many have such or such a habit; how many profess such or such a
belief; how many adhere to this organization, how many to that. But
since this exact arithmetical knowledge usually can not be obtained
within the limited time and under the circumstances of a traveler's
researches, he should try to get at least partially quantitative
results by noting in every instance whether the phenomenon observed is
true of a majority or only of a minority of the people under
investigation.
This simple method admits of a high degree of refinement by the
obvious device of subdividing the total human mass under observation
into enumeration units. If, for example, we are studying the social
character and activities of the people of the United States, we may
take the fifty Commonwealths and Territories as enumeration units.
Making out a tabular form, we may enter in the left-hand column the
names of the several States and Territories. At the top of successive
columns, counting from left to right, we may enter words designating
the social phenomena to be observed. Then, taking the States and
Territories in order, we may enter opposite the name of each a symbol
indicating that a majority large or small, or a minority large or
small, of the inhabitants of the State or Territory in question
manifests the trait or follows the activity, or belongs to the social
organization designated at the top of the column. The symbols that I
have found most convenient in use are these: For a large majority, a
double plus sign thus, ++; for a small majority, a single plus sign
thus, +; for a large minority, a double plus sign in a circle thus,
[++]; for a small minority, a single plus sign in a circle thus, [+].
The great possibilities in this method of giving precision to
observations and records of the facts of social psychology and
activity become daily more obvious to students who practice it with
reasonable care. Almost any desired degree of accuracy can be attained
by taking smaller and smaller enumeration units. Thus, if I wish to
form and to record my judgment as to whether the people of the United
States as a whole manifest a high, a medium, or a low degree of
general intelligence, I seem to be raising a question that admits of
little better answer than a statement of vague impressions. But let me
take a concrete measure of high general intelligence--for example, the
general intelligence of a town noted for its large proportion of
scientific and professional men, its graded schools, its satisfactory
school attendance, and its low percentage of illiteracy. Let me then
subdivide the United States into fifty parts--namely, the
Commonwealths and Territories--and let me enter in a column opposite
the name of each a symbol indicating that, as compared with the
general intelligence of the town which I have taken as a standard, a
large majority or a small majority, or a large minority or only a
small minority, of the people in that Commonwealth are of the high
general intelligence; that a large majority or a small majority, or a
large minority or only a small minority, are of medium intelligence;
and that a large majority or a small majority, or a large minority or
a small minority, are of low intelligence. Obviously, when I have
completed this process I have subjected my vague general impression
that the people of the United States as a whole are of high, medium,
or low general intelligence to a certain correction and measure. I
count up the entries in my columns. I discover that I have made, let
us say, nine entries indicating that a large majority of the people in
each of nine States are of high intelligence. I find that I have made,
let us say, eighteen entries indicating that in each of eighteen
States a small majority of the people are of low general intelligence;
and this mere counting of the entries may show me that, when taking
the States one by one, I have made a somewhat different estimate of
the general intelligence of the people of the entire country from that
which I made when looking at all the people of the country as an
undivided mass.
If still unsatisfied with my judgment, I may proceed to subdivide each
State into its counties, and take the counties as enumeration units. I
may go through the process of recording my judgments by entering
symbols in the several columns of my table, and at the end I may again
count up my totals of high, medium, and low intelligence. Obviously, I
can do this work only if I am able to travel through every county in
the United States, and, by interviews with people, by forming general
impressions and by visiting schools, get a fairly definite idea of the
relative intelligence of each civil division; or if, being unable to
make this personal inquiry, I resort to printed information--namely,
educational reports, miscellaneous public documents, historical
records, newspapers, and other objective data throwing light upon the
intellectual status of these various divisions. This, I find, is an
enormous labor; but if I conscientiously perform it I correct my
subjective impressions, and there is a fair presumption that my final
result is a judgment vastly nearer the truth than was my first general
impression of the intelligence of the whole undivided mass of the
American population.
Thus the conscientious use of the method which I have suggested
insures, in the interest of precision, two important modifications of
ordinary sociological description: First, it subjects the purely
subjective processes of judgment to a certain correction and
measurement; secondly, it leads the observer step by step, and almost
unconsciously, to resort more and more to definite objective data in
place of first impressions.
Essentially the same method, by slight modifications of detail, may be
extended to historical inquiries. How often do we encounter in
historical monographs the statement that, since a certain date, there
has been a marked increase of this or that activity, or that such a
trait or such a habit, occasionally observed half a century ago, is
now characteristic of whole sections or populations! To the credit of
the historians, it must be said that careful men seldom make such
statements without offering in substantiation of them a certain amount
of objective evidence. But the method is loose, and it has the radical
defect of permitting such terms as "increase" and "decrease," "great
increase" and "great decrease" to stand for different quantities when
applied to different phenomena under examination in the same
treatise. There is no uniformity of measurement. Now, it is easy to
introduce uniformity, even where arithmetical values are not known. It
is possible to know that we are applying the same method of
measurement when we say that, since 1850, there has been a "great"
multiplication of lynchings in the United States that we apply when we
say that there has been a "great" increase of population, although, in
the case of the lynchings, we have not arithmetical values, while in
the case of the increase of population we have.
This can be done in the following way: Distinguish and designate
degrees of increase or decrease by symbols thus: No change, = 0;
absolute increase but relative decrease, = +1; absolute increase with
no relative decrease, = +2; great absolute increase without relative
decrease, = +3; absolute and relative increase, = +4; absolute
decrease but relative increase, = -1; absolute decrease without
relative increase, = -2; great absolute decrease without relative
increase, = -3; absolute and relative decrease, = -4.
Now let the historian who wishes to pass in review the quantitative
changes that have occurred since a given time--for example,
1850--before he puts on paper his impressions, based upon such
evidence as he has been able to collate, put down all these symbols
against the name of each of the social phenomena which he is studying.
He will instantly see that he is trying to apply to each of the
phenomena whose changes he wishes to record a certain scale of
measurement, and he at once asks himself: What do I really mean by
such a term as "relative" increase or decrease when contrasted with
"absolute" increase or decrease; and what do I mean by such a term as
"great" increase or decrease when contrasted with such a term as
"increase" or "decrease" without a modifying word? The moment he puts
these questions before his mind he will feel a sinking of heart as he
reviews the pages in which he has confidently told his readers that
such "absolute" and "relative" changes have from time to time
occurred, and reflects that he has seldom been consistent in his use
of these terms.
How, then, shall he attain consistency and precision? To be consistent
and precise in the use of the word "relative" it is necessary to make
at the outset an arbitrary choice of a term of comparison, just as in
making comparative judgments of such a phenomenon as general
intelligence it is necessary to take as a standard the phenomenon as
observed in a particular community. The most suitable term of
comparison for all judgments of increase or decrease in social
phenomena is the increase or decrease of population per square mile
within the area and during the period studied. The increase of
population is arithmetically measured, and it stands in relations of
direct causation to every social change. The historian, therefore, in
forming his judgments of relative increase or decrease should always
take the increase or decrease of population per square mile as his
term of comparison.
What meaning, finally, shall be attached to the word "great" when the
historian wishes to distinguish "great" increase or "great" decrease
from "increase" or "decrease" in general, and absolute statistics are
not available? There is one, and, as far as I can see, only one,
perfectly satisfactory procedure.
Let the investigator subdivide the community which he is studying into
enumeration units according to the method suggested above for the
descriptive monograph. Let him then make as many tables as there are
ten-year periods in the general historical period that he is
investigating. That is to say, let him make a table for 1850, for
1860, for 1870, for 1880, and for 1890. Let him then proceed according
to the method laid down for the descriptive monograph, entering
opposite each Commonwealth the symbol for majority or minority, thus
showing by States, for each of the ten-year periods, the prevalence of
the trait or activity under investigation. Suppose, for example, that
the phenomenon studied is the growth of popular interest in prize
fighting since 1850. The historian should begin by asking, In what
States, if any, in 1850 were large majorities of the people interested
in prize fights to the extent of countenancing them and eagerly
following their progress? In what States were only small majorities so
interested, in what States only large minorities, and in what ones
only small minorities? The best answers that the historian can make to
these questions, after examining all the evidence that he can command,
he should record by entering the proper symbol against each State,
after which he should repeat the procedure for the date 1860, for the
date 1870, and so on. When his tables are thus completed, he should
count up the number of entries of each symbol in each table. If then
he finds that in less than half of his enumeration units--i. e., in
less than half of all the States and Territories--small minorities
have become large minorities, large minorities have become small
majorities, or small majorities have become large, he will be
justified in concluding that there has been an increase, but not a
"great" increase, in popular interest in prize fighting. If, however,
he discovers that these changes have occurred in more than half of his
enumeration units, he can say with reason that the increase of
interest in prize fighting has been "great."
Cases may arise in which a correction of the judgment thus formed may
be necessary. It might be erroneous to say that there had been no
great increase of interest in prize fighting if it were discovered
that the increase had occurred in two or three Commonwealths only, but
that in them it had been phenomenal. The method itself, however,
reveals the necessity for correction in such cases and measures the
error; for, obviously, a phenomenal increase or decrease in any one
enumeration unit would be disclosed by a dropping of the intermediate
symbols between [+] and ++. That is to say, small minorities would
become majorities, or great majorities would become small minorities,
within an interval during which lesser changes were occurring
elsewhere.
Thus, by taking a little trouble, the historian can apply one constant
measure to his judgments of increase and decrease, as he reviews
social changes. He must subdivide his community into enumeration
units, and against each unit, at each convenient date, he must enter a
record of his judgment that the trait, activity, interest, or relation
under investigation can be predicated of a large or of only a small
majority, of a large or of only a small minority, of the individuals
composing the enumeration unit. He must then count up the changes from
minority to greater minority or to majority, or from majority to
minority. Conscientiously following this method, the historian may
often make comparisons of great precision, when otherwise his
comparisons, made without reference to a common measure, would be
little more than suppositions.
Following such methods as these, the writers of descriptive and
historical monographs can increase our approximately exact
sociological knowledge. Constructing and filling out such tables as
have been described, they can bring to light serious gaps in our
numerical statistics, and they can thereby suggest and stimulate new
statistical inquiries. Thus co-operating, the descriptive writers, the
historians, and the statisticians can in time perfect our descriptive
sociology, and, co-operating with those students who are completing
the analysis of fundamental concepts, they can gradually give
precision to our formulations of sociological law.
* * * * *
Bishop Creighton, of London, has characterized the present
English idea of education as embodying the supposition that "all
the child had to do was to sit still like a pitcher under a pump
while an expert hand poured in the proper amount of material for
it to hold." His own view was that the only education anybody
really obtained was that which he gave himself. "The idea
prevailing at the beginning of the century was that men should
read a good book, master its contents, and pursue for themselves
the lines of thought it suggested, and talk it over and make its
ideas the subject of discussion among themselves. No system could
surely be better."
VINLAND AND ITS RUINS.
SOME OF THE EVIDENCES THAT NORTHMEN WERE IN MASSACHUSETTS IN
PRE-COLUMBIAN DAYS.[1]
BY CORNELIA HORSFORD.
[Footnote 1: A paper read before the Viking Club of London on
December 16, 1898; also before the Section of Anthropology of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science at the Boston
meeting, August, 1898.]
The evidences that Northmen were in Massachusetts in pre-Columbian
days are drawn from two sources, geography and archæology. The
archæological evidence is found by comparing certain ruins in
Massachusetts with ruins of the Saga-time in Iceland, and also with
the native and early European ruins on the coast of North America. The
geographical evidence is found by comparing the descriptions of the
country called Vinland in Icelandic literature with the coast of North
America.
The geographical data for this paper are taken from each and all of
the three oldest manuscript versions of the story of Vinland, because
they complement each other where the descriptions vary in detail.
These are called the Flat Island Book, Eric the Red's Saga, and
Thorfinn Karlsefni's Saga.
If the coast of North America should repeat the same geographical
features, it would obviously be impossible to determine the site of
Vinland by geography alone. Let us see if this is so. It is stated in
Eric the Red's Saga that Karlsefni's party, which consisted of one
hundred and sixty men and their live stock in three vessels, after
sailing southwest from Greenland for a number of days and seeing two
new countries, came to a certain cape. "They cruised along the land
and the land lay on the starboard.... There were there an open,
harborless coast and long strands and sand banks. And they went in
boats to the land and found there the keel of a ship, and they named
it Keel Cape. And they gave a name to the strands and called them
Wonder Strands, because they were long to sail by. Then the land
became scored with bays, and they steered the ships to the bays."[2]
They remained here for some time, but they had not yet seen the
Vinland which Leif Erikson had found a few years before.
[Footnote 2: The translations are from the Icelandic texts in The
Finding of Wineland the Good by Arthur Middleton Reeves. Henry
Frowde, London.]
Thorhall started to seek for it "northward round Wonder-strand and
westward off Keel Cape." Therefore we must first look for a cape, the
trend of whose shore is north and south, with open water west of it,
and beyond that again land. This cape must have a long, sandy,
harborless coast, with sand banks on the east, and it must be broken
up into bays farther to the south, and one of these bays must be large
enough and deep enough for three vessels, one of which could carry at
least fifty men across the Atlantic. The icelandic word "öroefi" which
is used in this text means "harborless," and is the descriptive local
name of the convex, sandy, unsheltered coast of southern Iceland
(Oroefa), the present Skaptafells district, from Stokksnes to
Dyrhólaey. This gives a clear idea of what we ought to look for along
the coast of North America.
The eastern coast of North America[3] shows us that, south of
rock-bound Labrador, the only places north of New York where capes
are to be found jutting northward from the land are northern
Newfoundland, Cape Breton Island, the southern shores of the Gulf of
St. Lawrence, Cape Ann, and Cape Cod.
[Footnote 3: Chart of North Atlantic, No. 98. Norie & Wilson,
London.]
There is no stretch of open, harborless, sandy coast from Cape Bauld
to Cape Spear, with its steep, sterile, rocky shores.[4] There are two
or three stretches of unbroken coast from three to five miles long,
north and south of Canada Bay, northwest of Conception Bay, and
northeast of Bonavista Bay, but these are not the shores of capes
jutting to the north, with long strands and sand banks.
[Footnote 4: Belle Isle to Boston, No. 102. Norie & Wilson,
London.]
If we begin with Cape Breton and follow the coast northward we find no
extensive stretch of harborless coast until we reach Island Point.
From this point to Cape Smoke there is a comparatively unbroken coast
about thirty miles in extent whose "headlands are composed of primary
and metamorphic rocks, principally granite, with clay slate in nearly
vertical strata, while sandstone, conglomerate, shale, limestone, and
occasionally beds of gypsum and red and yellow marl occur on the
intervening shores."[5] Here, then, there are not long strands and
sand banks. Cape North is a headland of slate one thousand feet
high.[6] Dr. Gustav Storm, of the University of Christiania, in his
well-known book, _Studier over Vinlandsreiserne, etc._, page 42,
points out a resemblance between Cape Breton and Keel Cape, and states
that the eastern shores of Cape Breton Island are "specially described
as low-lying and sandy." According to the United States Hydrographic
Office Report, No. 99, page 289, the southeast coast of Cape Breton
Island from Michaux Point to Cape Gabarus "is low and has a barren and
rocky appearance, and the shore is broken into numerous lakes and
ponds, protected from the sea by beaches of gravel and some small
rocky islands and ledges.... From Cape Gabarus to Cape Breton, a
distance of fifteen miles, the land is of moderate height and the
shore broken into coves and small harbors." Between Louisburg and Cape
Breton, eight miles beyond, "there are three small harbors, too
intricate and rocky in their entrances to admit vessels of any
burden," and Cape Breton itself is "low and rocky and covered with
grassy moors." This is unlike the open, harborless coast with long
strands and sand banks of the Sagas. Within the Gulf of St. Lawrence
the capes which jut to the north are Cape St. George,[7] with rocky,
precipitous cliffs six hundred feet above the sea; North Point,[8] on
Prince Edward Island, which is broken about five miles down the coast
by Tignish River, and beyond that by the red sandstone cliff of Cape
Kildare; Escuminiac Point,[9] at the entrance to Miramichi Bay, a
broken coast with low sandstone cliffs; and Birch Point,[10] on Miscou
Island, with a steep cliff of sandstone ten feet high.
[Footnote 5: United States Hydrographic Office Report, No. 99,
1897, p. 315.]
[Footnote 6: Ibid., p. 314.]
[Footnote 7: United States Hydrographic Office Report, No. 100,
1897, p. 70.]
[Footnote 8: Ibid., pp. 130, 152.]
[Footnote 9: Ibid., p. 157.]
[Footnote 10: Ibid., p. 173.]
Campobello is a rocky island, and Cape Ann is rocky and has no long,
harborless coast.
Cape Cod[11] juts to the north with open water west of it, and beyond
that again land. It has also a long, harborless coast on the east,
with strands and sand banks, and is scored with bays toward the south.
[Footnote 11: United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, General
Chart of the Coast, No. VII.]