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 666 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

suffice always to cause him to distinguish the true from the false. The passion which induces in our time so many good men to defend error, will be thus for social science, as it has been for the physical sciences, the principal force which will conduct men to the truth. It is not to be feared, besides, that this bias will lead to concealing or to knowingly altering the nature of the facts ; this class of dishonesty is sufficiently rare, and, thanks to the means of counter-checking which it contains, the method offers in this matter every guaranty.

A second condition in order to ascertain the facts contained in the framework of a monograph is to gain the confidence of the family which one studies. One must not believe that the bait of a merited remuneration is sufficient for this family to consent to initiate an observer who is often a stranger, during eight or ten days, into the secrets of its inner life. On the other hand, it will yield itself to a minute inquiry, it will bear with docility a prolonged questioning, if it perceives that the observer is seek- ing to know the condition of the working classes only in order to establish through facts the principles which will make pos- sible the bettering of that condition.

4. Means of ascertaining the facts. In order to collect the elements of a monograph, one may employ concurrently three means which are far from having an equal importance. The first consists in observing the facts, the second in interrogating the laboring man upon the things which escape direct observa- tion, the third in obtaining information from persons of the locality who have known for a long time the family or who have an influence upon its existence through relations of patronage.

5. Direct observation. Direct observation ought to reveal the least details, which may appear at first useless, but the necessity of which soon becomes manifest. In general, it is necessary to collect the facts without drawing conclusions from them imme- diately. It is only after having finished the study of the family, after having classified the observations in the framework adopted for the monographs, that one may try drawing from them general inductions.