Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/685

 LE PLA Y METHOD OF SOCIAL OBSERVA TION 669

a paragraph already treated. The budgets alone will give pre- cision to the information obtained ; they will permit of verifying its correctness ; they will bring up questions about which one would not have dreamed of making inquiries.

9. It is necessary to adopt uniform valuations in order that they may be comparable. For the questioning of the workingman and even for a first redaction of the budgets, all the estimates of quantities and values must be made with the measures and money of the country. For the definitive redaction, however, the author will convert the local units into metric units, and he will establish their correspondence in a special note.

The information relating to quantities and to values of objects bought or sold, produced or consumed, will relate always to a single year, supposed to be moderately prosperous in what con- cerns the general situation of agriculture, of industry, and of commerce, and the special situation of the domestic hearth which one is considering.

It will often be impossible for the workingman to give the figures of the two budgets and of the accounts annexed for an entire year, whilst he will indicate them easily for a week or for a day. In general the observer ought to seek after every means of avoiding for the members of the family observed any intellec- tual labor to which they are not habituated, and which might trouble the accuracy of their declarations.

10. Origin of notes called elements of the social constitution. The notes entitled " Divers Elements of the Social Constitution " comprise the important facts of social organization, the remark- able peculiarities, finally, the general judgments and conclusions which the author draws from the whole of his studies. The elements of these notes will be furnished by the family and the locality which are the object of the monograph. They will be equally furnished by persons settled for a long time in this locality and knowing well the manners and customs of the popu- lation. But one should never forget to check the declarations obtained by the facts observed.

i i. The supreme virtue far the obscn<er. All the elements of