Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/354

 THE MEANING OF THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT.

THE term "Social Movement" is already a cant phrase both in Europe and America. It once had dignity. It is so com- mon now that it is falling into contempt. The social move- ment was that dawning of national consciousness which produced the series of revolts from hierarchic sway called the Reforma- tion. The social movement was the growth of the third estate from a name to a power. The social movement was the abolition of political privilege, the enlargement of religious toleration, the extension of industrial opportunity.

The social movement is, an unfriendly observer might say, a confusion of fussy, fidgety folk, blocking each other and every- body else by their foolishness. Here it is free soup, and there it is demand for a work-test instead of free soup. It is industrial education here, it is there a trade-union practice to prevent people from learning trades. It is importunity for more law, and it is clamor for no law. It is in one group the prescription of political machinery, and in another the proscription of political machinery. It is in one party outcry for more democracy, and in another it is a wail for revival of aristocracy. The social movement on the whole seems at best a tuning of the orchestra. Many are the doubters whether there will be any symphony. Let us not be cynics. Let us try to be fair and appreciative. The "social movement " of our time is not a proper butt for ridicule. It will not be arrested by pointing out its contradictions, any more than the waves of the sea will be stilled by showing that they do not all keep the same tempo.

Let us try to represent the social movement candidly. So long as men have lived they have at times showed two opposite dispositions ; first, to calmly take life as they found it ; second, to try to better themselves. It would be altogether distorted to represent past times as controlled by the former impulse, and

340