Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/862

 846 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The looseness of present methods as regards segregation of the weak-minded is seen in the fact that of the 862 individuals in the charitable institutions of Birmingham, over 10 per cent, are feeble-minded. In one Magdalen Home 100 consecutive cases were examined, and 37 were found to be feeble-minded. The obvious deduction is that it would be wiser to provide permanently for such cases from an early age, to insure that such wage-earning capacity as they possess should be made the most of, and that they should be prevented from giving birth to other defectives. MRS. HUME PINSENT, in Charity Organization Review (London), March, 1905. E. B. W.

The Foundations of Social Interest. " You can give a man power to vote by an ordinance of the state, but you cannot in the same sense give a power to be educated." The artisan has still the future of the country in his hands ; how shall he be stimulated to interest in social knowledge? How shall the pre- vailing lack of general interest in social welfare be combated? How shall our present secularized school system be saved from the standards of mere industrial utility, and be provided with really effective civic instruction ? The time seems opportune for the promulgation of some authoritative suggestions as to the line which educational reformers should take in this all-important matter.

My plea, reduced to its simplest terms, is that the foundation of interest in the problems of social well-being with which we are here concerned must be laid in some form of elementary sociological instruction in both secondary and ele- mentary schools.

It can hardly be objected that such elementary civic instruction is impossible, for it has already been introduced into the public schools of at least three great countries which are in the van of civilization France, America, and Japan. Of course, it is essential to distinguish the attempt to impart orderly knowledge of social conditions from the effort to stimulate and build up a real living interest in such conditions. This latter result must be achieved first, and any attempt which reverses the order is foreordained to failure.

Ruskin was not slow to perceive this lack in our English schools. " Our system of education," he says, " despises politics, that is to say, the science of the relations and duties of men to each other ; " and after defining more clearly what he means by politics, he goes on to show how its elements may very well be taught to schoolboys.

The unification of education under the new Education Act has made the initiation of extensive changes by the educational authorities more and more feasible. Plato looked forward for the establishment of his ideal to a philosopher- king. We may look forward for the establishment of ours to a philosophic " acting secretary." Perhaps we have him already.

A further objection may be made to the effect that, although it may be possible to lay the foundation of a new interest in civic ideals in the schools, still it is not properly our work. (This paper was read before a meeting of the London School of Sociology.) But it is quite apparent that the successful teaching of sociology to more advanced students depends upon the presence of the right kind of appercipicnt groups to use a technical expression to which the new teaching may attach. We need the schools to lay the foundation of the interest we seek here to develop.

But this society in " providing lectures and teaching on social science and economics with special reference to social obligation and administration," aims at keeping in the forefront of all its work the idea that the foundation-stones of society are not any mechanical arrangements for the adjustment of external actions, but elements of character ; and these latter rest upon no mysterious inborn principle of obligation independent of the concrete ends and feelings which the course of education and experience gathers together.

The contents of conscience, the direction in which it acts, the group of ideas at to what is of value in life, are the factors which lie at the foundation of that of social obligation which this society strives to inculcate. And these things' higher social and moral tastes, if you please like the taste for art, or or for knowledge of natural objects, must be built up in the school. It more and more necessary to enlist the schoolmaster as our ally.