THE FIELD OF RURAL SOCIOLOGY 611 



and he judges everything by the criterion of its effect on human 

 personality. 



One of the first obstacles which confronts the sociologist is 

 to clear the path so that the real end may be distinguished from 

 the means for the accomplishment of that end. The besetting 

 sin of a great deal of our present conduct of life is that we are 

 prone to regard as the ends of all our endeavors those things 

 which are merely means to higher ends. We hear it said that 

 the end for which we are working in agriculture is to make 

 farming more productive and more profitable. When we have 

 attained that end, however, we have reached only a way station ; 

 the terminal lies beyond, and more prosperous farming becomes 

 the means to enable the farmer to share more largely in the 

 higher enjoyments of civilization. We seek better farming 

 that we may have better farmers; we aspire to greater material 

 resources that we may add to the abundance of human resources. 

 What we have just said means that there is recognized a dis- 

 tinction between what are primarily economic considerations and 

 what are primarily sociological considerations. 



We may carry the discussion a step further in the hope of 

 making our point a little clearer. Economics was early defined 

 as the science of wealth. Sociology was first defined as the sci- 

 ence of society. Economics takes for its field the consideration 

 of the effect of all the processes on the production, distribution, 

 and consumption of wealth. Sociology claims as its province 

 the effect of all the processes on the human beings themselves. 

 This is a rather broad distinction, and closer analysis will show 

 many points of contact. It is apparent that the sociologist and 

 the economist must both deal with the same sorts of things, but 

 from different points of view. Transportation interests the 

 economist because of its bearing on the economic activities of 

 farming. It interests the sociologist because it is a means of 

 communication, of social intercourse, of promoting the asso- 

 ciational activities of the people, and of increasing the satisfac- 

 tions of life. The economist may be interested in good roads 

 because of their effect on land values, on the costs of production 

 and distribution, or on the type of farming which may be prac- 

 ticed. The sociologist is interested in good roads because they 

 determine the amount of concourse of a neighborhood; the 



