354 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Education may be an instrument of progress or of conservatism. 

 When emphasis is laid upon the classical or so-called cultural elements, 

 education becomes a potent force in maintaining the status quo. When 

 the emphasis is placed upon the narrowly practical — purely trade in- 

 struction of a restricted sort — the tendency is to increase the distinc- 

 tion between the different classes in the community. Education only 

 becomes a potent factor in human progress when sociological and psy- 

 chological principles are introduced to determine the proper treatment 

 of each and every child. The social standard of education is progres- 

 sive; the business and the cultural standards are conservative or reac- 

 tionary. 



Social scientists are reaching the long-delayed conclusion that hap- 

 penings in the social and the political sphere are not the result of 

 chance, and individual impulse or willing, or of direct and arbitrary 

 interference of an infinite power. Social and political happenings, like 

 physical and chemical actions and reactions, occur in an orderly and 

 law-abiding manner. Events, movements, reforms, agitations, decay 

 or growth of institutions may, in a measure, be prophesied, directed 

 and aided or retarded. There is, or may be, a social science (or social 

 sciences) as well as physical sciences. Social mechanics, social physics 

 and social chemistry are real terms. 



Science is gathering data for cooperative and purposive action. In- 

 dustrial evolution, city planning, workingmen's insurance, tax reform 

 and socialism are some of the lines along which the infant science of 

 society is slowly feeling its way — like the physical sciences of a few 

 generations ago — in the face of opposition which is often violent, noisy, 

 hypocritical and ignorant. Science has brought order out of chaos and 

 guesswork in the factory. Why can it not do likewise in the nation? 

 To the social scientist rule-of-thumb methods, secrecy, waste of natural 

 and human resources and disregard of social welfare and of race im- 

 provement are criminal. The social scientist is becoming an expert, 

 and is acquiring the professional spirit. He is the future maker of 

 history. 



