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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL VI. No. 1194 



comparison. How, then, does this move- 

 ment, which many scientific men have 

 doubtless looked upon as a passing fad, 

 contain the promise and the potency of an 

 adequate method for the social sciences? 

 Science demands world-wide, or universal, 

 generalizations, whereas the survey is a 

 local or community affair. 



Before answering this question it may 

 be well to point out that social workers, 

 though they have popularized it, were not 

 the first to employ the "survey" method. 

 The anthropologists may probably claim 

 that honor. The old-time anthropologist 

 was a laboratory or library worker, relying 

 largely upon the reports of travellers and 

 missionaries for his knowledge of customs 

 and institutions. The new anthropologist 

 is a field worker. Moreover, he works co- 

 operatively, organizing expeditions which 

 undertake extensive "anthropological sur- 

 veys," investigating minutely the customs, 

 institutions, ideas, beliefs, and history of 

 the population of a given region. Such 

 have been, for example, the Jesup North 

 Pacific Expedition and the Torres Straits 

 Expedition. Very valuable scientific re- 

 sults have come from such anthropological 

 surveys, especially when their facts have 

 been compared one with another. 



Now this illustration shows that survey 

 methods are not limited, that surveys 

 properly made are of far more than local 

 significance, and that the most valuable 

 scientific facts and principles can be 

 secured through the careful survey of dif- 

 ferent communities and their comparison. 

 The survey method might, indeed, properly 

 be called the laboratory method of the 

 social sciences; for the world of human 

 beings, the community, whether large or 

 small, is the only possible laboratory which 

 the social sciences can employ. Like 

 laboratory methods in the natural sciences, 

 this intensive study of the social life per- 



mits the isolation of phenomena and at the 

 same time their study by a combination of 

 methods. It is as if nature had set a great 

 many experiments going at once in many 

 different laboratories, and the scientific ob- 

 server had only to devise adeqviate methods 

 of checking up the results. It is not neces- 

 sary, of course, that such inductive study 

 should go on indefinitely for certain re- 

 sults, as some have claimed; on the con- 

 trary, a single accurate observation may 

 give a clue which a comparatively small 

 number of similar observations may suffice 

 to establish as accurate scientific knowl- 

 edge. Neither need the community which. 

 is studied by the survey method be a small, 

 local area. It can be of any size, provided 

 we perfect our methods of observation. 

 Why should not the survey method he ex- 

 tended to the life of the whole nation? 

 The Census Bureau, it may he said, has 

 long undertaken such work, but not on the 

 scale demanded by the social surveyor, 

 much less by the scientific student of 

 society. Moreover, social life is no longer 

 national, but international. "What is 

 needed most of all, of course, is a survey of 

 our whole civilization. Such a vast co- 

 operative undertaking may, at first 

 thought, seem fantastic; but it is surely 

 the logical goal of the social sciences on the 

 side of induction ; and practically we surely 

 need to know much more about the condi- 

 tions of our whole civilization than we have 

 known if rational social control over human 

 life is to be made possible. 



"We are now prepared to see that the 

 survey method is not opposed to the his- 

 torical method of approaching social prob- 

 lems. On the contrary, the survey method 

 includes the historical method as a neces- 

 sary part. The survey must he extended 

 in time if it is to be of scientific value. 

 The statistical method is also evidently a 

 part of any adequate survey work. Exact 



