THE APPLICATION OF THE SOCIAL SURVEY TO SMALL COMMUNITIES JOHN LEWIS GILLIN The social survey is one of the best answers to the assertion sometimes made by ignorant or prejudiced people that sociology is not and cannot be scientific. Here is a beginning at least of the measurement according to objective standards of social phenomena. True it is a movement which has concerned itself chiefly with the measurement of the phenomena of social disorder, rather than with the phenomena of normal social life. It is quite possible also that the ultimate solution of many of the problems which the social survey studies will have to wait until sociology shall have collected certain data in regard to normal social life. Nevertheless, the movement is one which deals with objective phenomena. These can be counted and compared, which is the first requisite of scientific method. While, therefore, in the social survey methods are being devised especially to handle in a scientific manner social phenomena of a so-called "practical" nature, these methods are being adapted to the treatment of other classes of social phenomena for example, that most difficult field of sociology, the social mind. Just as the aspersion that psychology was not a science has been answered by devices which enable men to measure objectively the facts of mentality, so the methods of the sociologist in the social survey applied to the investigation of social evils, and adapted to use in the field of the social mind are refuting the charge that sociology is unscientific. However, although this is true there yet remains much to be done in the development of the exact measurement of social facts. Thus far the social survey has suffered from some glaring defects, some of them inherent in the difficulties of the subject-matter, others due to the crudity of the methods thus far devised. Furthermore, it has failed to take account of those elusive, spiritual facts of the social life which are of greatest importance and hardest to bring under the control of objective methods of treatment. The phenomena of the social mind have thus far for the most part escaped the methods used by the social survey. Perhaps some of this is due to the fact that on the whole the social survey has been applied only to large communities, in which the problem of the genius of the community is very complex and difficult. So often in a large community development of the social mind has only just begun. There is aggregation of population; perhaps there has developed even a unity of opinion in groups in that population; but for the people as a whole there is no public sentiment, not to say opinion. Because of the constant flux of people in and out of any great center of population it is also quite difficult for the promotion of a common feeling and judgment to any large degree. Moreover, the surveys of such places necessarily have been fragmentary. The task of a comprehensive investigation is so formidable that it is next to impossible in the present state of public opinion, unless a man like Mr. Charles Booth devotes a lifetime and a fortune to the task. Consequently only certain features of the social life have received any attention in such surveys. The time has come for the extension of the methods of the survey to the smaller communities. The reasons for this are many. For convenience they may be grouped as follows: 1. Because of the interrelation of social problems it is best that the social survey be made as comprehensive as possible. Mr. Daniels in the National Conference of Charities and Correction in 1910 called attention to the fact that the surveys thus far made lack this characteristic. No group of social facts can be torn out of their setting in a community and studied apart from the other social problems with which they are intertwined. They may be considered by themselves, of course, but the other social phenomena also must be known accurately, else false conclusions will be drawn. For example, housing cannot be studied to the best advantage apart from an investigation of incomes and standards of living. Poverty cannot be understood if studied apart from housing, incomes, household budgets, social customs, and methods of poor relief. Even crime has relationships with poverty, housing, working conditions, recreation facilities, and social traditions. None of the many problems with which sociologists are concerned at present are independent and unrelated. For purposes of investigation, of course, the scientific method of isolation of a phenomenon must be practiced. But with the analysis there must go a synthesis. The contention here is that a comprehensive survey of all the related conditions, a study of all the interconnected problems in the community, rather than that of one problem in one place, and of another in another, the two places often differing as to the way in which the social problems are related, should be the usual method. It goes without saying that the comparison of problems in different cities is profitable. That is already being done. What is gained, however, if we know that the rate of pauperism in one place is ten per thousand and in another twentyfive per thousand, if we know nothing of the related phenomena, the other factors in the problems? Cause and effect must be traced. That is impossible without a consideration of the related social ills and social conditions. The smaller communities lend themselves to this purpose much better than the larger cities in the present development of the social survey. 2. The factors of social life are more easily controlled for the purpose of an investigation in a small community than in a large one. That is, to make a survey of the large community in a comprehensive manner requires a force of investigators and a plan demanding much more elaboration than that required in a small community. It costs much more money, while the facts to be secured, with the exception of certain special phases characteristic of large centers, are of much the same kind as those to be found in a small community. They are in a more complex form and more involved in their relations, of course, but the same general elements are present in both the large and the small communities. On the other hand, it must be recognized that in the small community there is often lacking the number of problems that are to be found in the larger centers of population. For example, not all cities of 25,000 have the immigrant problem in the form it takes in the large centers. For the study of such factors of social life as are not common more or less to all communities the large centers, will offer a better field. In the study therefore of the general problems of social life the small city offers the better field because of the greater ease with which the problem can be controlled, while for special problems and for certain problems in their more special aspects the large city offers the better field. The advantage of the small community from the standpoint of simplicity is most apparent perhaps as the field of investigation for the amateur. The small community offers to the colleges and universities of our country who have their students do actual field work in sociology, as the botanist, or the geologist, has his students doing field work in that subject, opportunities which the academic institutions, whether located in the large centers or in the small, should not overlook. The amateur in the natural sciences is not set at work on special problems first; he is given a general view of the subject and is put to work on the simple aspects of the subject in general. Afterward comes that which is complex and special. That is what the small community offers to the student of sociology. Here he will find the material for first-hand acquaintance with the facts of social life in a simple form. He is then prepared to study with advantage the special problem after he has served his apprenticeship in a study of the more general problems in the smaller and simpler community. 3. Again, the small communities should be investigated by the statistical methods of the social survey because each community has divergences from the general type that are of sufficient interest to warrant their study. It is this difference between the various communities of the country which gives the rich variety to our social life and which creates the difficulties of political unification and action. It is because of these social differences that the politician so often misjudges the opinion of the country. Because of their blind adherence to the idea that every part of this country is essentially like every other in its methods of thought, in its ideals, in its process of making up its mind on public questions of every sort, and in its quickness or slowness of coming to a decision, politicians and statesmen, social students and philosophers so often misjudge the temper and attitude of the people upon ques tions of great moment. Hitherto these differences between communities must be seen and felt by close students of the problem of statecraft chiefly by personal contact. By mingling with the people of different sections of the Middle West through long years Lincoln knew the temper of these people which the leaders of the East did not even guess until those people had expressed their feelings in votes. Then his years in public life which took him also into the East enabled him to know the opinions of that section. Thus at the culmination of his career he had joined together the East and the West because he understood them both. McKinley was another man who by long years of contact with the people in various sections of the country knew their attitudes upon public questions. Such an accomplishment is, however, the work of a lifetime and requires close study and personal contact with the people as well as wide reading in the literature dealing with different sections. It is not in the hope of any short cut to this understanding that I mention the social survey of the various communities of the country in this connection, for personal contact will always be necessary. The contention here is that not until we obtain in some manageable form the facts about our different communities shall we enable those who have not the means or the time to get this at first hand to know our country with a greater degree of accuracy. In the last few years we have seen the publication of a number of books dealing with the American people in which the effort has been made to portray their "spirit." Such have been Bryce's American Commonwealth, Münsterberg's Americans, Maurice Low's The American People, and Van Dyke's Spirit of America, to note but a few examples from among many. They are recognized as partial and approximate delineations of the genius of our people. They are partial for they show the spirit of the American people from different angles. They are but approximations to a faithful delineation of our spirit, because, while they may differ widely one from the other, yet we recognize that they are true in part Though we have so many of them, no one feels that the thing is completed. We wait for others yet to be. The feeling is constantly present that the synthesis is not complete. Some elements |