Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/681

 THE TEACHING OF SOCIOLOGY 667

proper plunge the beginner into difficult abstract matter which is better adapted to the graduate student than to any but the brightest and most mature undergraduates. This has been my own practice and I propose to try a change of order and to arrange my course in "Sociology One" on "the principle of sixteen to one, sixteen parts fact and one part theory."

Most students who register for "Sociology One" expect a treatment of concrete social realities in which they have already at least a general inter- est; and they are surprised to be confronted by a body of undreamed-of abstractions. Besides, the natural development of intellectual interest for an individual or a people, seems to begin with definite realities which we wish to modify or control," and then by discovering that we must have deeper and broader comprehension, in order to secure control, to pass over to those generalities and abstractions which at first were repellent but which become absorbing.

I mean to begin by trying to describe the facts of American social life and the conditions by which they are determined. Our university is located in the country and so I intend to employ the stereopticon to show a large part of what is most instructive, not only in one but in many of our greatest cities, and in the country also, among the mountain whites, the lumber camps and mining camps, New England villages, southern plantations, train yards, harbors, factories, and the congested tenements of our immigrant host. And I think that the results of the numerous sociological investiga- tions now going on should be carefully gathered up by a university and utilized for purposes of instruction. I refer to the investigations supported by the Sage endowment, and to such investigations as are being carried on in this city under the direction of Mr. Marsh, whose results supplied the materials for the congestion exhibit of a year ago, and of Mr. Allen, of the "Bureau of Municipal Research," and of Mr. Laidlaw, of the "Federa- tion of Churches and Christian Organizations." Much of this material is presented in the form of tables and diagrams suitable for wall-charts or lantern slides, which can be reproduced, and in so far as it is accurate, should be valuable teaching material. Presently the students can be set to work upon exercises in computation and tabulation based upon data ob- tained from various sources.

All our presentation of descriptive material and concrete facts will be of value mainly in proportion as it is guided and interpreted by general con- cepts and leads up to comprehensive views. If in normal times there are in our country four million recipients of public charity, if most of the time during the past fifteen years from sixty to a hundred thousand tramps have been deployed over the United States, if these and numerous similar state- ments are true our aim must be not merely to state the facts but also to help the students toward a comprehension of the general situation which occasions the continuous recruiting of the standing army of the miserables.

This proposal to revise the character of the initial course in sociology