SCIENCE IN PHILANTHROPY. 



BY CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON. 



[Charles Richmond Henderson, associate professor of sociology in the University of 

 Chicago, is one of the world's foremost authorities on scientific philanthropy; he is a 

 graduate of the old University of Chicago and of the University of Leipsic; he has 

 traveled extensively in Europe and America investigating applied philanthropy more 

 especially in regard to prison conditions; he is probably the best known American 

 writer on philanthropic subjects.] 



Those who look on only occasionally at the methods of 

 dealing with the so-called degenerate classes often declare 

 that nothing is really known, that guesswork reigns, that one 

 plan is as good as another. This cynical despair of social 

 science is not justified by the facts. As the science of life 

 borrows data and suggestion from the hospital practitioner, 

 ,so the student of normal society finds a laboratory in the in- 

 'stitutions of defectives. Comte long ago said that sociology 

 comes nearer actual scientific experiment in dealing with the 

 defective than with the normal classes. In prisons and asy- 

 lums we can more nearly control conditions than we can with 

 free self governing families and communities. Social pathol- 

 ogy offers an important side light on normal human relatitjns, 

 because the laws of disease seem to "be the seamy side of the 

 laws of health, and show them in larger pattern. 



Those who scoff at the possibiHty of building a social 

 philosophy should recognize the fact that every attempt to 

 concentrate all the forces of a commonwealth upon the solution 

 of any specific problem more or less consciously proceeds upon 

 some sort of theory of the ends and the resources of the com- 

 monwealth. The art of statesmanship, the organization of 

 a school system or of a system of charities and corrections, 

 imply a theory of the community which would properly be 

 called a sociology, if it were more accurate and complete. It 

 ought not to be regarded as a presumptuous attempt for special 

 scholars to bring out into clearer light, with reinforcement of 

 knowledge at every point and from every special science, a 

 view of society as a whole, when every rural legislator and 

 every superintendent of schools is actually proceeding on the 



40 



