Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/424

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS.

CONDUCTED BY A. T. FREEMAN, H. A. MILLIS AND J. C. FREEHOFF.

The Gill School City: A New Educational Idea. Mr. Wilson L. Gill, of New York, has worked out a plan for the organization of children in the public schools into a miniature municipality or " school city." The plan was successfully carried out during the months of July and August with the twelve hundred children in a vaca- tion school in the east side of the city of New York. The children were organized into " a perfect miniature municipality, governed exactly like large cities, with a mayor, alderman, police, street-cleaning, and health departments." The officers were elected or appointed as they are in New York, and they performed their duties under the rules of the several departments of the municipal government of that city. The plan not only solves the questions of discipline and control within the school, and of keeping the school buildings and grounds in sanitary condition, but is of the greatest value in teaching by " doing " the duties of citizenship. The plan is now being introduced into two or three of New York's schools and into the Hoffman school of Philadelphia. It is hoped to extend it to the schools of all the large cities of the country. Public Opinion, August 26, 1897.

The Philosophical Basis of Economics A word to the sociologists.

the acts of men in society, social institutions and social changes are the creations of the choices of individuals. Individual choice, however, is governed by the economic law greatest satisfaction with least sacrifice; greatest utility at least cost." This makes economics the fundamental science of man's activities in society. Utility is simply the principle of evolution seen upon its psychical side Ideological evolution. "Economic selection expresses the evolutionary process of psychical life."

I. The Psychical Nature of Man's Activities, both Individual and Social. Modern science is essentially physical science. It has neglected psychical phenomena. These are as real as the physical phenomena, and are separate from them. A denial of this involves a denial of the possibility of any knowledge, for they rest upon the common basis of all knowledge the unproved but universal assertion of individual minds.

'All factors in a result are causes, and the human will which organizes physical and social forces to achieve certain results, is clearly one of these causes." Psychical causation must be written in terms of human will. " The efficient cause is man's choice. To make social activity intelligible to us, therefore, science must so explain it Man's will thus becomes the dominating element in social causation."

II. The Individualistic Nature of Psychical Activities Social Organization Created by the Individual. " The individual, with his wants, his choices, and his self- directed activities, is the starting point in the scientific investigation of social phenom- ena and the end, of all social science as well. The reason for this lies near at hand. Since human choice is the large, the controlling force in social causation, we must per- force take the individual as the integral unit, for there is no choice, but individual

choice The individual recognizes himself in a threefold sphere of relations,

viz., (i) to himself, (2) to others like himself the social environment and to (3) his physical or cosmic environment."

"All social action is a resultant of the forces set in motion by individual wills, and science can only explain these activities by tracing them to their starting point in the choices of individuals." Society must also be explained on basis of individual choice. Social institutions are merely individual choices hardened into habits.

III. Utility, i. e., Economic Selection, the Law of Individualistic Activities; Social Causation Teleological. Utility is the general principle of individual choice in all activities, whether for preservation or development. As the law of psychical evolution, "utility," is identical with "fitness," as the law of physical evolution. "The direction

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