Page:George Soule - The Intellectual and the Labor Movement.djvu/22

 is useful. Geology, economic geography and anthropology will add perspective to the scientific outlook.

History, taught not as a succession of dynasties and dates, but as a development of social and economic forces and institutions, would be of extraordinary help.

Next, a knowledge of psychology, and especially of social psychology, is essential to a solution of many of the most vexed economic problems. Sound experimental psychology is still in its early stages, but a survey of this field should be profitable.

With such a background it will be safe to approach economics. Academic economics, as it has been taught in the past and is still taught in many colleges, is little but an aggregation of dogmas and unsubstantial hypotheses, based upon prejudice, interest, or the experience of a vanished economic order. But a background of experimental science and psychology will enable the student to apply the proper criticism to this old economic mythology, and to welcome the new method of modern economists, who refuse to draw conclusions as to unalterable "economic law" without adequate quantitative measurement of phenomena.

Combined with such correctives, the study of "sociology" or the "science of society" is not likely to prove harmful, though it is yet in an extremely primitive stage, and should not for the most part be accepted as established truth. Taught by an able and open-minded man, it will be stimulating.

Mathematics is essential to.an understanding of anything beyond elementary statistics which is an indispensable tool in any scientific inquiry.

Such a basis as the preceding is desirable on which to build concrete professional training, whether in engineering, journalism, accountancy, law, or applied economics, especially if the profession is to be practiced in the interests of labor. It is not meant to be inclusive, or to underestimate.the value of such subjects as literature or philosophy.

The history and present status of the labor movement may be studied in some colleges, that part of it which can be