Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/94

 78 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

development has suggested a new interpretation of the culture- epoch theory, the correspondence between the stages in the development of the individual and the three great stages in the development of the race being too significant to escape atten- tion. The fundamental interests in both the individual and the race grow out of the food process ; hence the fundamental activities are determined by these fundamental needs. The intellectual and moral life assumes organized form on the basis of the activities in question, both in the individual and in the race. A comparison between the individual and the race from the intellectual side only, a passing from sense perception to reason, lacks foundation without a consideration of the social and industrial life of which it is the outgrowth. The parallel- ism frequently traced on the moral side, from blind impulse to moral freedom, is likewise of little value when taken out of its setting in the whole life process. It is because the culture- epoch theory in its current form is confined to the historic peo- ples only, neglecting the ages of accomplishment that lay back of these, and in whose light the historic peoples must be inter- preted, and because the whole industrial and, to a great extent, the social development is ignored, that the theory is inadequate to the purposes it should serve. By the adoption of the theory from the anthropological standpoint both objections would be met. The working out of the theory on the anthropological basis will be given in a future paper.

The services that anthropology can render the educational cause are thus many and varied. Education can no longer be isolated ; it is identifying itself more and more closely with the general movements of the time. In this movement anthropology is destined to play an increasingly important part. If the pecu- liar character of the present educational need will in any degree stimulate anthropological research ; if it can give it a new direc- tion and focus ; if it can create a wider interest in it on the part of the general public, it can in part repay the services it hopes to

receive at the hands of that science.

Nina C. Vandewalker.

Milwaukee State Normal School.