Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/17

 THE AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

VOLUME XI JULY, IQ05

NUMBER i

A DECADE OF SOCIOLOGY EDITORIAL

The launching of this Journal, ten years ago, was a leap in the dark. The editors were well aware that it was a reckless experiment. Disinterested observers in abundance at once gave ample evidence of unfaltering trust that the rash venture would soon meet the usual fate of attempts to supply a non-existent demand.

The most serious pitfall in the path of the enterprise was not the absence of demand, but the presence of an unintelligent and misguided demand. A very large constituency might be gathered by a journal that would cater to popular interest in air-castle architecture. A large fraction of the earlier sub- scribers to this Journal were evidently of the genus rainbow- chaser. They wanted a spring-board that would land them in Utopia.

On the other hand, the competent thinkers among whom a journal of sociology should seek its constituency were mostly preoccupied with other interests. Many of them were students of social problems from points of view which could not readily adjust themselves to a change of perspective. Philosophers, psychologists, theologians, historians, economists, political scien- tists, moralists, reformers, each for his own type of reason, regarded sociology very much as physicians and surgeons look at " Christian Science."