Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/124

 THE MONOGRAPH OF THE COMMUNITY."

In a former paper' it has been shown that the problems presented by the family can be studied to best advantage in the home. The status of wife, children, and elders; the economic habits; the morals and customs of daily life — these and similar matters should be investi- gated from a position within the circle of the home itself. Again ^ it was claimed that, if a satisfactory statement is to be had of the various questions pertaining to trade organization, division of labor, the rela- tions between employer and employed, scales of wages and prices, adjustment of grievances, etc., etc., the conditions prevailing within the walls of the factory and the workshop may not be overlooked. But with still greater emphasis must it be insisted that the inner nature of the problems of population, immigration, emigration, size of property holdings, centralization of industry, etc., cannot be fully comprehended without a careful study of the individual community.* There lies here a most promising field of research for those who desire to examine closely the fundamental factors of associate life before it has assumed more complex forms; and it is to promote and guide inquiry in this direction that, together with the schedule for the monograph of the family and that for the monograph of the workshop, the schedule for the monograph of the community has been prepared.

However indispensable to the value of the first and the second of the three monographs above mentioned a uniform outline, or schedule, of methods and subjects of investigation may be, it is, if possible, still more necessary to the value of the monograph of the community. The field of phenomena to be observed is larger; the phenomena themselves are of greater complexity and variety. If the investigators of different communities do not confine their labors to the general limits of a uniform outline, their respective researches will take as many

'From the original article by M. Cheysson in La Riforme socialt of December 1 6, 1896. Translated for the American Journal of Sociology by Ralph G. Kimble.

'See this JOURNAL, Vol. II, pp. 662 ff.

3 See La Riforme sociate, December i, 1896.

< The word "community" used here and elsewhere in this article is the French commune somewhat broadly and adaptively translated.

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