OBSERVATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCE. 



7 



must know how to win the confidence of the 

 modest households that we would describe. No 

 remuneration could induce a family for eight or 

 ten days to admit an outside observer to all the 

 secrets of its home-life ; but, on the other hand, 

 if it is understood that the only object of the 

 inquiry is the improvement of the status of the 

 working-classes by first getting at the actual 

 facts of the case, the family will not object to 

 answering the minutest questions. There is a 

 further difficulty, which can only be overcome by 

 the most patient sagacity. Not only is the at- 

 tention of the family wearied by a long process 

 of questioning, but oftentimes these worthy peo- 

 ple have never thought at all about how they 

 live ; and, when they have to reply to the questions 

 touching the minutire of the housekeeping ac- 

 count, we only get a repetition of the dialogue of 

 " The Cobbler and the Financier" ("Le Savetier 

 ct le Financier'') : 



F. — Well, how much do you earn a day ? 

 C. — Sometimes more, sometimes less. 



In the lives of these people, monotonous as 

 they appear at the first glance, there are ever oc- 

 curring a thousand events that disturb the uni- 

 formity — sickness, a marriage, a baptism, a sea- 

 son of idleness, a loss of cattle, the acquisition of 

 a bit of land. Hence it is a work of much diffi- 

 culty to draw up the balance-sheet of an average 

 year. Around each of the budgets thus made 

 out will be grouped a multitude of observations 

 showing the natural conditions of the climate and 

 the soil ; the occupations and industries of the 

 family, its habits and mode of life, its history, and 

 its moral wants. Next come more general ob- 

 servations on the elements of the social consti- 

 tution of the country, as exhibited in the mon- 

 ographs — as spontaneous products of Nature ; 

 methods of husbandry ; mode of procuring labor- 

 ers ; civil and commercial legislation ; ancient 

 communities and modern associations, from the 

 artels of Russia or the bcrgslags of Sweden to the 

 trades-unions of England ; patriarchal rule, feudal 

 institutions, serfdom, emigration, etc. The most 

 interesting facts are precisely those of which the 

 family itself is unconscious, and which statistics 

 as usually collected do not touch. As illustrative 

 of this sort of facts, we might name " subven- 

 tions" of all kinds, such as the free enjoyment 

 of a house, a garden-plot, or a field ; the allow- 

 ances made by employer or landlord for doctors' 

 fees or schooling ; free pasturage, fuel ; the right 

 to fish or to hunt. Then there comes the satis- 

 fying of moral wants, very indefinitely expressed 

 under the general term of " sundry expenses," 



and embracing such subjects as support of 

 churches, education of children, mutual-aid so- 

 cieties, books, newspapers, and recreation. 



It would appear as though nothing could fail 

 to be noted where this method is employed. The 

 plan of the " family monograph," as elaborated 

 and improved by the labors of twenty years, and 

 tested by many subsequent works, fixes in ad- 

 vance the compartments to which the various re- 

 sults of observation belong. Besides — and this 

 is indispensable for documents that are designed 

 to be of any scientific value — all monographs 

 drawn up in this uniform shape are strictly com- 

 parable one with another. 



III. Generalization of the Method, and the 

 Objections urged against it. — He surely would 

 make a notable discovery, who, in deciphering 

 some forgotten palimpsest, should bring to light a 

 monograph of this kind relating to life in ancient 

 times ; who should make us acquainted with the 

 lowly history of some boatman on the Nile, some 

 fisher in the iEgean, some Etrurian potter, or 

 Phoenician trader ; some artisan of Herculaneum, 

 or laborer in Latium ; some Cantabrian miuer, or 

 Gaulish goldsmith. If we could scrutinize in its 

 minutest details the daily life of working-people 

 in all times, we should be enabled thus better 

 than by any other method to get at the centrum 

 vitale of all societies, namely, the relations of the 

 protecting classes to the protected. It would be 

 interesting to sit by the fireside of the serf at- 

 tached to the glebe, or to enter the shop of the 

 burgher proud of his communal liberties, to live 

 their life and think their thoughts. In the ab- 

 sence of statistical documents, would that we 

 possessed some little interior views painted by 

 the hands of masters in olden time ! Thus, when 

 Froissart writes, "I awoke again and went into 

 my smithy, there to work and forge away on the 

 high and noble matter with which I had been 

 busied aforetime," one is disposed to regret that 

 this incomparable story-teller finds room in his 

 tales only for the feats of high and mighty barons, 

 but concerns himself not about a less noble mat- 

 ter to which his genius would have lent an in- 

 comparable charm. One of the most prominent 

 of M. Le Play's disciples has shown us how inter- 

 esting successive studies of one and the same 

 family may be. He has followed, step by step, in 

 the varying fortunes of their period of decline, 

 and in their last struggles, the Melagas, a family 

 of peasants living in the Pyrenees, an instructive 

 account of whose history was given some time ago 

 in these pages. 1 No less interesting would lie a 



1 Rente, des Deux MonrJes, 1S72, 15 Avril, article "La 

 Famille et la Loi de Succession en France." 



