EXACT METHODS IN SOCIOLOGY. 159 



formed maj be necessary. It might be erroneous to say that 

 there had been no great increase of interest in prize fighting if it 

 were discovered that the increase had occurred in two or three 

 Commonwealths only, but that in them it had been phenomenal. 

 The method itself, however, reveals the necessity for correction 

 in such eases and measures the error; for, obviously, a phenomenal 

 increase or decrease in any one enumeration unit would be dis- 

 closed by a dropping of the intermediate symbols between © and 

 -ff-. That is to say, small minorities would become majorities, or 

 great majorities would become small minorities, within an inter- 

 val during which lesser changes were occurring elsewhere. 



Thus, by taking a little trouble, the historian can apply one 

 constant measure to his judgments of increase and decrease, as he 

 reviews social changes. He must subdivide his community into 

 enumeration units, and against each unit, at each convenient date, 

 he must enter a record of his judgment that the trait, activity, 

 interest, or relation imder investigation can be predicated of a large 

 or of only a small majority, of a large or of only a small minority, 

 of the individuals composing the enumeration unit. He must 

 then count up the changes from minority to greater minority or 

 to majority, or from majority to minority. Conscientiously fol- 

 lowing this method, the historian ;nay often make comparisons of 

 great precision, when otherwise his comparisons, made without ref- 

 erence to a common measure, would be little more than suppo- 

 sitions. 



Following such methods as these, the writers of descriptive and 

 historical monographs can increase our approximately exact socio- 

 logical knowledge. Constructing and filling out such tables as 

 have been described, they can bring to light serious gaps in our 

 numerical statistics, and they can thereby suggest and stimulate 

 new statistical inquiries. Thus co-operating, the descriptive writ- 

 ers, the historians, and the statisticians can in time perfect our 

 descriptive sociology, and, co-operating with those students who are 

 completing the analysis of fundamental concepts, they can gradu- 

 ally give precision to our formulations of sociological law. 



Bishop Creighton, o£ London, has characterized the present English 

 idea of education as embodying the supposition that " all the child had to do 

 was to sit still like a pitcher under a pump while an expert hand poured 

 in the proper amount of material for it to hold." His own view was that 

 the only education anybody really obtained was that which he gave him- 

 self. " The idea prevailing at the beginning of the century was that men 

 should read a good book, master its contents, and pursue for themselves the 

 lines of thought it suggested, and talk it over and make its ideas the sub- 

 ject of discussion among themselves. tNo system could surelj' be better." 



