in their social behavior, and out of human experience it must gather whatever it is to offer a socially retarded civilization. Mental hygiene is influencing men and women in their social relationships in a practical way that makes an observer question whether it is not the nearest approach to an applied sociology that actually functions. That the home is in trouble no one doubts. It has by no means passed its crisis. In spite of its lessening importance, it is still the strategic source of social control, the institution that chiefly forms personality. Its condition challenges the science that is most concerned with problems of social welfare. More difficult to study than other institutions, because of its privacy and reticence, its problem is the one that thoughtful people wish better understood. The sociologist, in dealing with it, has the same obligation that the psychiatrist found in the prevalence of mental disease. There is the same imperative necessity of bringing science in popular form to a great multitude who in their everyday life need the help it has to give. If home life is to be conserved, it must have the advantages of applied science. DISCUSSION THOMAS D. ELIOT May I first mention two points in his paper at which I hope Dr. Groves would not disagree with me, but in which I feel another impression might be received. 1. The contrast between the irresponsible, materialistic, or merely physical union on the one hand, and marriage with parenthood (the true family) on the other, may not seem so great when mitigated by social recognition of what has been called the "companionate." 2. Schools should not supersede the home, and need not. Social case work in the educational system is only called in when and after the family has failed to function, and in order to make it function properly. Our monograph methods (intensive case studies) have been applied largely to abnormal families. This is also true, except for the most superficial facts, of the statistical method. We need "control observations" analogous to those of the biologists, viz., equally intensive and extensive facts about normal families and family life. The work of the Bureau of Social Hygiene in this connection is only a beginning, though encouraging. Our study of the family has been like the old fable of the blind men de scribing the elephant. Each feels and interprets only the small part of the problem with which he is in direct contact, and thinks he is describing the whole. Sociology should not monopolize the family, nor the problems of the family. We are coming to recognize that, at least in the social sciences, the problem, not the "subject," is the unit. To each real problem the academic "subjects" offer each their characteristic approaches, representing the several abstract phases of a group of phenomena in reality inseparable. Some day we may have, instead of departments of sociology, biology, or geography, units specializing on the race problem, the food problem, or the family, and including students of every aspect of the particular situation in its integrity. An adequate symposium on the family would, it seems to me, include contributions from several academic and technical fields not always recognized as having such contributions, as well as from one or two whose exponents have occasionally assumed somewhat naïvely a pre-eminence in the exposition of the subject. The subjects are here named in what seemed a logical order: I. Origins a) Animal behaviorists b) Archaeologists c) Ethnologists II. Developments a) Historians b) Ethnologists III. Functions a) Biologists b) Economics and domestic scientists c) Educators d) Psychologists and psychiatrists e) Ethnologists and sociologists IV. Maintenance a) Eugenists b) Physicians c) Economists and domestic scientists d) Sociologists e) Statisticians f) Ethicists g) Lawyers h) Politists i) Social workers j) Police k) Architects 1) Sanitarians m) Employers n) Educators o) Recreators p) Ministers q) Mental hygienists r) Arts and letters V. Future a) Historians b) Economists f) Sociologists h) Ethicists i) Religionists j) Aestheticists The future of the family may be controlled more by taste than by morals. There is observable in the programs of this Society an admirable tendency to ignore artificial barriers of academic departmentalization, and to invite speakers from any field relevant to a particular topic. Sociology is perhaps peculiarly fortunate in this respect. It may be that, at some future meeting at Christmas time, we shall listen to some such symposium, in which all of the wise men of the East, and the West, too, may lay their gifts at the feet of the Holy Family. EFFICIENCY IN SOCIALIZATION JOHN C. ALMACK Associate Professor of Education ABSTRACT Socialization and efficiency defined. How point of view differs from that of psychology of individual differences. The problem stated. Factors upon which efficiency in socialization is dependent. Summary of investigations in the field. Original data given covering choice of associates, selection of leaders, and controlling ideals. Conclusions are that efficiency is dependent upon presence and co-operation of the group, the best group is composed of those whose traits reinforce and supplement the others, dynamic leadership voluntarily selected must be present, and there must be identity of ideals and purposes. Special consideration stated. Limitations to conclusions, final summary. Professor Ross in Principles of Sociology defines socialization as the development of the we-feeling among associates and their growth in capacity and will to act together. Interpreting somewhat freely, we can ascribe to Giddings the theory that the essence of socialization is found in the concert of individual minds arising from the action of socializing forces. It is to be noticed that in both cases emphasis is put upon state or condition and not upon results. It is true that there are dynamic possibilities in this state or condition, but an expression of energy, or the realization of a defined objective or goal is by no means necessary to give meaning to socialization. In the definition of Professor Cooley we find particular stress laid upon the co-operative and cumulative aspects of social effort. In Social Process he maintains: The act of larger intelligence need not take place all at once or in the mind of only one individual. It is usually co-operative and cumulative, the work of many individuals, all of them, in some measure, thinking from the point of view of the whole and building up their ideas and endeavors in a continuing structure. For present purposes a definition of socialization comprising elements from many sources may be framed. Socialization is the process by which a group co-operates in the improvement of human welfare. The social motive is inherent in (1) the objective or goal and in (2) the social activity itself. The first may be called identity of purpose, the second identity of feeling. The presence of an objective is what distinguishes the process of socialization from random, incidental, and aimless effort. It is the goal that gives cohesion and drive to the group. The unit of investigation which is therefore implied is the organized group. The presence of a common purpose of which individuals are conscious is the criterion of organization. Given, therefore, an organized group whose members possess abilities so distributed that their sum total equals the requirements for the realization of the objective, we have the situation that makes for efficiency in socialization. At this point issue is taken with the psychology of individual differences. It is maintained here that the chief problem is not the discovery and the development of the genius, but instead the combination of individuals into efficient working groups. This is simply a repetition of the old maxim that two heads are better than one. It is maintained that out of the concert of several minds may eventuate a product superior to the product of the effort of any one of the group working in isolation. Moreover, the contention is that a mediocre or inferior person may make a unique contribution to the solution of a problem that baffles the best minds, and that a proper combination of the average may give us an intelligence superior to that of the individual who ranks high on the intelligence scale. This position is the exact opposite of that held by the psychologist who is concerned with individual differences. Without injustice we may cite Thorndike whose early views of psychology remain practically unchanged today. He would say truly that society could well afford to give millions to reward the genius who discovered a way to universal peace, a preventive of a disease such as cancer, or an inexpensive metal with the properties of radium. He does not admit the possibility of a combination of individual minds which would give us in fact this supermentality. He would subscribe with Carlyle to hero-worship and declare with Emerson that an institution is only the lengthened shadow of a great man. |