Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/849

 WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER 835

"practical sociology" at all, and in the effort to distinguish his conception of sociology from the several divagations which the term has come to cover in the years since Spencer's beginnings he was accustomed for some time to use the term "societology." It was his idea that more investigation and less theorizing should be done in sociology; this view comes out in his answer to the questionnaire propounded several months ago by this Journal. In that same connection he remarked, in his usual effort to avoid what he called "tampering with other people's business," that he did not know how sociology at Yale would be taught after his retirement. He really knew as well as I do that we shall continue to teach here what the boys call "Sumnerology." For to us who have worked side by side with him, there is mingled with the sorrow for the warm-hearted and considerate mentor and friend the conviction that we have in Sumner's system of the science of society the work of a master-mind of the first order.