THE PROBLEM OF THE FAMILY 721 



sciences so far at least as to concentrate attention on its study and 

 discover that the home contains within it the great secrets of all the 

 social sciences. Indeed, if this be true, the problems of the several 

 social sciences themselves depend on this work for the home. Es- 

 pecially is it true of the problems of government, economics, religion, 

 and pedagogy, that they all need a scientific knowledge of the home 

 as an indispensable condition of their solution. 



Take certain problems in religious organization for an illustration. 

 The churches of the simpler type of organization, those of the inde- 

 pendent polity especially and those closely approaching it, are facing 

 the problem of reducing their heterogeneous collection of societies and 

 committees to order. For a century these internal organizations of 

 the communal type have been growing up until the distraction and 

 overlapping of their work have led to confusion and waste, and the 

 energies of pastors are scattered in so many directions that they can 

 do almost nothing at all thoroughly The pastor is the one man and 

 the church is the one institution in the community that have profited 

 least by the modern method of specialization of work and the organ- 

 ization of the corporation that brings specialization about. As has 

 already been pointed out, the absorption of the ecclesiastical mind 

 on the development of communal forms of association in the minor 

 societies has led to neglect of the family as an agency of the greatest 

 importance to the church. And the church is in need of the aid of 

 sociological study. Its problems of polity are at bottom sociological 

 problems and demand sociological treatment. The historical and 

 comparative methods have an inviting field in the study of the struc- 

 ture and function of our social institutions as they are to-day. The 

 church, for example, needs to see itself, its structure, and working in 

 comparison with the town, the school, and the shop or other industry. 

 The church needs to see how it has within it all the essentials of the 

 municipal problem, and that the solution of the two problems - - the 

 ecclesiastical and the municipal - - must go on together. 1 



Two forms of social institutions need study above all others. 

 These are the domestic and the communal - - what are very nearly 

 the cell and the tissue of modern society. Both have received much 

 attention in their archaic forms. The early village community has 

 been pretty thoroughly exploited by the students of primitive 

 society. So, too, has the early history of the family. But we 

 have, somewhat prematurely I must think, jumped the next 

 proper step and turned to the wider problems of race and the like, 

 instead of mastering the present constitution of society, especially 

 in the domestic and communal forms of to-day, in a scientific way. 



1 The insurance scandals have, since the above was written, greatly intensi- 

 fied interest in the problems of public service corporations and subsidiary organ- 

 izations. But we have yet to see that some of our churches are not lacking in 

 either of these forms of social organization, with possibly similar dangers. 



