NOTES 283 



Formal Opening of Leplay House 



The formal opening of the new home of the Sociological Society, Leplay 

 House, at 65 Belgrave Road, S.W.i, was participated in on June 29 by 

 more than threescore guests. The work of the Society has been carried 

 on under a serious financial handicap since the outbreak of the war, and 

 it is hoped that this new venture in providing it with suitable quarters 

 will attract the support which is necessary in order to establish firmly the 

 position of British scholarship in Sociology. The generation which at the 

 inception of the Society in 1904 gave it generous support, has tended during 

 the last decade to drop into the background, and therefore the situation de- 

 mands that a younger generation should be given the opportunity to take up 

 the work of sociological research and discussion, and give it a fresh impetus. 

 Through its organ, the Sociological Review, the Society aims to offer a common 

 ground for bringing together various sociological schools and traditions, 

 while in Leplay House it is now ready to provide a common meeting-place 

 for workers in every field that is concerned with social phenomena. 



The opening meeting was held in the Council Room of the Society, and 

 the address of the Chairman of the Council, Mr. Victor V. Branford, was 

 an explanation and an interpretation of the decorative frieze which borders 

 the walls of this room. Mr. Branford pointed out first of all that the purpose 

 of calling the new home of the Society " Leplay House " was to emphasise 

 the importance of the somewhat neglected work of the great French sociolo- 

 gist, Frederic Le Play, who had introduced into sociology the tradition of 

 naturalist observation. The prime contribution of Le Play was his con- 

 ception of the valley section, and his detailed examination of physical 

 and spiritual life of each of the great rustic types which are developed by 

 the work of the mine, the forest, the pasture, the field, and the ocean. The 

 rustic formula of the valley section was complemented, Mr. Branford ex- 

 plained, by the civic formula of Auguste Comte, the analysis of the social 

 order into chiefs and people, emotionals and intellectuals. Both these 

 formulas were symbolised in the frieze. One of the conditions that had 

 kept sociology in the stage of abstraction was that it had been insufficiently 

 oriented in time and place: the " Society" it had dealt with had existed 

 too often in the imagination of the thinker who was attempting to analyse 

 it. That was why other sections of the frieze definitely located Leplay 

 House with respect to the environment outside on one hand, and to periods, 

 both past and incipient, on the other. The sciences that treated specially 

 the spiritual and the temporal aspects of society were, respectively, geo- 

 graphy and history. More and more geography tended to be a synthesis 

 of the natural sciences, whilst history gathered together the humanities ; and 

 accordingly the school of sociology that took over the resources of these 

 two sciences was on its way to effecting a synthesis of the various specialisms 

 which had hitherto lost some of their efiectiveness in both thought and 

 action by their isolation. This task of synthesis, this reconcilement of hereto- 

 fore aloof or antagonistic schools of thought, with a renewed application of 

 sociological methods to social life in definite cities and regions, was one 

 of the main contributions which the Sociological Society might hope to make. 



P.R. 



The Proportional Representation Society has issued the thirty-seventh 

 number of its Journal (August 1920) . We are glad to see that this method of 

 representation is coming more and more to the front. In every country or pro- 

 vince where it has been tried, the result has nearly always been successful, 

 and has been warmly applauded. The most notable instance in Canada was in 

 the province of Winnipeg, and the Journal quotes extracts from daily papers 

 of that State as follows : " ' P.R. is a success. That is the consensus of 



