THE LAW OF FUTURE SPECIFIC AND SOCIAL 



EFFICIENCY^'^ 



By Arthur Allin. 



The social significance of education is manifest when looked at 

 in the lio-ht of historical development. Upon careful consideration 

 it will be seen that the educational process, far from being a tem- 

 porary arrangement for present social needs, is the important factor 

 in a general law of universal application. This law is the Law of 

 Future Specific^') and Social Efficiency. 



In the preceding discussion it became evident that sociality has 

 its foundations laid deep and broad in the organic life of the species, 

 that is, in instinct, and that in the realm of the social or extra-organic 

 the principle of sociality is if anything intensified as observable in 

 the phenomena of the division of labor. It was seen to be not so 

 much a question of "ought" and "should" as a question of "is" 

 and " was." In other words it is a matter of historical accuracy as 

 to what kind of conduct has survived and as to what kind of conduct 

 will be most serviceable in the future in order to insure survival. 



Based on the calculus of survival then the biologist and sociolo- 

 gist must grant that parental conduct taken in its wider, larger 

 meaning is the "open sesame" of success, the sine qua non of sur- 

 vival, the essential condition of the life process. Propagation and 

 providence, according to these two standards, are the nations judged 

 in the Weltgericht. Goethe says with some truth: 



^''Warum treiht sich das Volk so und schreitf Es will sich er- 



naehren^ 



Kinder zeugen, und die naehren so gut es vermag. 

 ********* 



Wetter hringt es kein Mensch, stelV er sich wie er auch wiliy 



(1) By the courtesy of the Editors reprinted from the Journal of Pedagrogy, Dec, 1902. 



(2) The term specific as used in this connection refers obviously to species. 



