Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/125

 THE MONOGRAPH UF THE COMMUNITY I I I

different directions as there are different personalities among them- selves. There could only result from such a course a number of isolated studies possessing a certain value as independent products, but quite incapable of being compared with each other in such manner as to furnish a basis for trustworthy induction. But if the investigators follow a uniform schedule, these local monographs, each preserving its individual flavor, will have been cast in a common mold, and will there- fore be comparable with each other. They will readily lend themselves to fruitful coordinations, and thus furnish ground for general conclusions by which the true significance of seemingly aberrant phenomena may be more readily determined.

The schedule for the monograph of the family was given by Le Play himself. But in the absence of a schedule especially adapted to the purposes of the monograph of the workshop, the present writer was emboldened to take the initiative in proposing one designed to supply the deficiency. Like conditions have led him to make the attempt to perform a like service for the monograph of the community. The schedule presented below has already been submitted to several learned societies and has been encouragingly received." Partly because of the nature of these receptions it is again submitted in this place, not as a finished thing, but as a rough outline, criticism upon which is earnestly requested from all who believe in the real value of such researches.

Before giving the full text of the schedule it may be well to put before the reader a brief outline of its main features. A short but comprehensive survey of a community's past is of great advantage in enabling one to gain a thorough understanding of its present. In confining oneself too closely to the present there is a certain danger of missing the historical and logical relations of facts, and of mistaking for fortuitous accidents phenomena having a legitimate origin in con- ditions prevalent in former days. Hence the advisability of prefacing the monograph proper by a historical introduction embracing the following chapters : (i) General history. — Here is set forth whatever is of historical interest in the part which the community in question has played in the great movements of the national life. (2) Demographic

'In l8g6 the Soci^t^ des Agriculteurs de France, after making a thorough examination of M. Cheysson's schedule, approved it and offered a prize of a thousand francs to be given to the author of the best monograph prepared under the specifica- tions of the schedule during the year. For a full report of the results of the contest thus instituted see the article by M. Cheysson, himself the secretary of the awarding committee, in La Riforme sociale of August 16 and September I, 1897.