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PART ONE--INTRODUCTORY

PART TWO--LIFE IN THE FAMILY GROUP

PART THREE--SOCIAL LIFE IN THE RURAL COMMUNITY

PART FOUR--SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CITY

PART FIVE--SOCIAL LIFE IN THE NATION

XL. THE BUILDING OF A NATION 300

INDEX 373

SOCIETY: ITS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT

PART I--INTRODUCTORY

CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL LIFE

As an individual his primary interest is in self, but he finds by experience that he cannot be independent of others. His impulses, his feelings, and his ideas are due to the relations that he has with that which is outside of himself. He may exercise choice, but it is within the limits set by these outside relations. He may make use of what they can do for him or he may antagonize them, at least he cannot ignore them. Experience determines how the individual may best adapt himself to his environment and adapt the environment to his own needs, and he thus establishes certain definite relationships. Any group of individuals, who have thus consciously established relationships with one another and with their social environment is a society. The relations through whose channels the interplay of social forces is constantly going on make up the social organization. The readjustments of these relations for the better adaptation of one individual to another, or of either to their environment, make up the process of social development. A society which remains in equilibrium is termed static, that which is changing is called dynamic.

The true valuation of activities is to be determined by their social utility. The employment of working men in the brewing of beer or the manufacture of chewing-gum may give large returns to an individual or a corporation, but the social utility of such activity is small. Business enterprise is naturally self-centred; the first interest of every individual or group is self-preservation, and business must pay for itself and produce a surplus for its owner or it is not worth continuing from the economic standpoint; but a business enterprise has no right selfishly to disregard the interests of its employees and of the public. Its social value must be reckoned as small or great, not by the amount of business carried on, but by its contribution to human welfare.

Take a department store as an illustration. It may be highly profitable to its owners, giving large returns on the investment, while distributing cheap and defective goods and paying its employees less than a decent living wage. Its value is to be determined as small because its social utility is of little worth. When the value of activity is estimated on this basis, it will be seen that among the noblest activities are those of the philanthropist who gives his time and interest without stint to the welfare of other folk; of the minister who lends himself to spiritual ministry, and the physician who gives up his own comfort and sometimes his own life to save those who are physically ill; of the housewife who bears and rears children and keeps the home as her willing contribution to the life of the world; and of the nurses, companions, and teachers who are mothers, sisters, and wives to those who need their help.

The history of human folk shows that achievement has been gradual, and much of it without conscious planning, but the great inventors, the great architects, the great statesmen have been men of vision, and definite purpose is sure to fill a larger place in the story of achievement. Purposive progress rather than unconscious, telic rather than genetic, is the order of the evolution of society.

The highest achievement of the race is its moral uplift. The man or woman who has a noble or kindly thought, who has consecrated life to unselfish ends and has spent constructive effort for the common good, is the true prince among men. He may be a leader upon whom the common people rely in time of stress, or only a private in the ranks--he is a hero, for his achievement is spiritual, and his mastery of the inner life is his supreme victory.

Human beings associate because they possess common interests and means of intercourse. They are affected by the same needs. They have the power to think in the same grooves and to feel a common sympathy. Members of the same race or community have a common fund of custom or tradition; they are conscious of like-mindedness in morals and religion; they are subject to the same kind of mental suggestion; they have their own peculiar language and literature. As communication between different parts of the world improves and ability to speak in different languages increases, there comes a better understanding among the world's peoples and an increase of mutual sympathy.

Social control begins in the individual mind. Instincts and feelings are held in the leash of rational thought. Intelligence is the guide to action. Control is exerted externally upon the individual from early childhood. Parental authority checks the independence of the child and compels conformity to the will of his elders. Family tradition makes its power felt in many homes, and family pride is a compelling reason for moral rectitude. Every member of the family is restrained by the rights of the others, and often yields his own preferences for the common good. When the child goes out from the home he is still under restraint, and rigid regulations become even more pronounced. The rules of the schoolroom permit little freedom. The teacher's authority is absolute during the hours when school is in session. In the city when school hours are over there are municipal regulations enforced by watchful police that restrict the activity of a boy in the streets, and if he visits the playground he is still under the reign of law. Similarly the adult is hedged about by social control. Custom decrees that he must dress appropriately for the street, that he must pass to the right when he meets another person, and that he must raise his hat to an acquaintance of the opposite sex. The college youth finds it necessary to acquaint himself with the customs and traditions that have been handed down from class to class, and these must be observed under pain of ostracism. Faculty and trustees stand in the way of his unlimited enjoyment. His moral standards are affected by the atmosphere of the chapter house, the athletic field, and the examination hall. In business and civil relations men find themselves compelled to recognize laws that have been formulated for the public good. State and national governments have been able to assert successfully their right to control corporate action, however large and powerful the corporation might be. But government itself is subject to the will of the people in a democratic nation, and public opinion sways officials and determines local and national policies. Religious beliefs have the force of law upon whole peoples like the Mohammedans.

Social control is exercised in large measure without the mailed fist. Moral suasion tends to supersede the birch stick and the policeman's billy. Within limits there is freedom of action, and the tacit appeal of society is to a man's self-control. But the newspaper with its sensation and police-court gossip never lets us forget that back of self-control is the court of judicial authority and the bar of public opinion.

The result of the constant exercise of control is the existence of order. The normal individual becomes accustomed to restraint from his earliest years, and it is only the few who are disorderly in the schoolroom, on the streets, or in the broader relations of life. Criminals make up a small part of the population; anarchy never has appealed to many as a social philosophy; unconventional people are rare enough to attract special attention.

Through such social processes as these--through unconscious suggestion, through communication and discussion that mould public opinion, through changes in environment and the influence of new leaders of thought and action--the evolution of folk life has carried whole races, sometimes to oblivion, but generally out of savagery and barbarism into a material and cultural civilization.

In the same period modes of thinking have changed. Scientific discoveries and the principles that have been based on them have wrought a revolution. Evolution has become a word to conjure with. Scholars think in terms of process. Biological investigation has opened wide the whole realm of life and emphasized the place of development in the physical organism. Psychological study has changed the basis of philosophy. Sociology has come with new interpretations of human life. Rapid changes are taking place at the present time in education, in religion, and in social adjustments. The rate of progress varies in different parts of the world; there are handicaps in the form of race conservatism, local and individual self-satisfaction and independence, maladjustments and isolation; sometimes the process leads along a downward path. On the whole, however, the history is a story of progress.

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UNORGANIZED GROUP LIFE

Unconsciously the working man and his friend are moving toward each other. The attention and discrimination of each man is brought into play with every person that he meets, but there is no recognition of acquaintance until each comes within the range of vision of the other. They greet each other with a hail of good-fellowship and a cordial hand-shake and stop for conversation. An analysis of the psychological elements that enter into such an incident would make plain the part of sense-perception and memory, of feeling and volition in the act of each, but the significant fact in the incident is that these mental factors are set to work because of the contact of one mind upon the other. It is the mental interaction arising from the moment's association that produces the social phenomenon. What are the social phenomena of this particular occasion? They are the acts that have taken place because of association. The individual would not greet himself or shake hands with himself, or stop to talk with himself. They are dependent upon the presence of more than one person; they are phenomena of the group. Why do they shake hands and talk? First, because they feel alike and think alike, and sympathy and like-mindedness seek expression in gesture and language, and, secondly, because their mode of action is under the control of a social custom that directs specific acts. If the meeting was on the continent of Europe the men might embrace, if it was in the jungle of Africa they might raise a yell at sight of each other, but American custom limits the greeting to a hand-clasp, supplemented on occasion by a slap on the shoulder. In Italy the language used is peculiar to the race and is helped out by many gestures; in New England of the Puritans the language used would be of a type peculiar to itself, and would hardly have the assistance of a changing facial expression. To-day two men have formed a temporary group, group action has taken place, and the action, while impulsive, is under the constraint of present custom. What happens next?

"The East is East and the West is West And never the twain shall meet,"

yet through missionary efforts people of very different races and habits of living and thinking have been brought to cherish the same beliefs and to adopt similar customs. Thousands of such people in all parts of the world constitute a unified group because of their mental interaction, though they may never meet and are not organized in common. The only medium through which one section has influenced another may be a single missionary or book, but the electric current of sympathy passes from one to another as effectively as the wireless carries a message across leagues of space. In the same way sentiment and opinion spread and reproduce themselves, even through long periods of time. Before the middle of the nineteenth century Chinese sentiment was so strong against the importation of opium from India that war broke out with England, with the result that the curse was fastened upon the Orient. The evil increased, spreading through many countries. Meantime international fortunes brought the United States to the Philippines and trade carried opium to the United States. Foreigners in China combated the evil. The nation took a determined stand, and finally, through international agreement under American leadership, the trade and the consumption of opium were checked. Similarly slavery was put under the opprobrium of Christendom, public opinion in one nation after another was formed against it, laws were passed condemning it, and at last it received an international ban. At the present time, through agitation and conference, a world sentiment against war is increasing, and pacifists in every land constitute an expanding group of like-minded men and women who are determined that wars shall cease in the future. These are all examples of unorganized associations or incomplete groups.

The third kind of unorganized group is an abnormality in the midst of civilization, a relic of the primitive days when impulse rather than reason swayed the mind of a group. Such is the crowd that gathers in a moment of excitement and yields to a momentary passion to lynch a prisoner, or a revolutionary mob that loots and burns out of a sheer desire for destruction. Such a group has not even the value of a safety-valve, for its passion gathers momentum as it goes, and, like a conflagration, it cannot be stopped until it has burned itself out or met a solid wall of military authority.

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PART II--LIFE IN THE FAMILY GROUP

FOUNDATIONS OF THE FAMILY

It is the long experience of the race that has made plain the fundamental importance of the marriage relation, and history shows how step by step man and woman have struggled toward higher standards of mutual appreciation and co-operation. From past history and present tendencies it is possible to determine values and weaknesses and to point out dangers and possibilities. As the family group is fundamental to an understanding of the community, so the relation of man and woman are essential to a comprehension of the complete family, and investigation of their relations must precede a study of the social development of the child in the home, or of the economic relations of the farmer and his assistants. Nothing more clearly illustrates the factors that enter into all human relations than the story of how the family came to be.

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THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY

During this period of social development, when the mother's presence constituted the home and the children were regarded as belonging primarily to her, descent was reckoned in the female line, the children were attached to the maternal clan of blood relatives, and such relatives began to move in bands, for the same reason that animals move in packs and herds. Some writers speak of it as a matriarchal period, but it does not appear that women governed; it is more proper to speak of the family as metronymic, for the children bore the mother's name and maternity outweighed paternity in social estimate.

Another variety of marriage that has been less common than polygyny is polyandry. It is a term that signifies the marriage of one woman to several husbands, and seems to have occurred, as in the interior of Asia, only where subsistence was especially difficult or women comparatively few. Neither polygyny nor polyandry were universal, even where they were a frequent practice. Only the few could afford the indulgence, much the largest percentage of the people remained monogamous.

The story of human progress shows that in the social conflict those groups survive which have become best adapted to life conditions and so are fitted to cope with their enemies. In the story of the family male leadership proved most useful and was perpetuated, but the practice of polygyny and polyandry proved in the long run to be hurtful to success in the sturdy struggle for existence.

There are moral advantages in monogamy that alone are sufficient to insure its permanence. It is to the advantage of society that altruistic and kindly feelings should outweigh jealousy, anger, and selfishness. Monogamy encourages affection and mutual consideration, and in that atmosphere children learn the graces and virtues that make social life wholesome and attractive. Welcomed in the home, they receive the care and instruction of both parents and become socialized for the larger and later responsibilities of the social order. In the altruism thus developed lie the roots of morals and religion. It is well agreed that the essence of each is the right motive to conduct. Love to men and to God is an accepted definition of religion, and ethics is grounded on that principle. Love is the ruling principle of the monogamic family; from the narrower domestic circle it extends to the community and to all mankind.

At present marriage laws in the United States agree generally on the following provisions:

Every marriage must be licensed by the State and the act of marriage must be reported to the State and registered.

Marriage is not legal below a certain age, and consent of parents must be obtained usually until the man is twenty-one and the woman eighteen.

Certain persons are forbidden marriage because of near relationship or personal defect. Such marriage if performed may be annulled.

Remarriage may take place after the death of husband or wife, after disappearance for a period varying from three to seven years, or a certain time after divorce.

In the twenty-year period between 1886 and 1906 covered by the United States Census of Marriage and Divorce slow improvements were made in legislation, but a number of States are far behind others in the enactment of suitable laws, and most of the States do not make the provisions that are desirable for law enforcement. Yet there is a limit of strictness beyond which marriage laws cannot safely go, because they hinder marriage and provoke illicit relations. That limit is fixed by the sanction of public opinion. After all, there is less need of better regulation than of the education of public opinion to the sacredness of marriage and to its importance for human welfare. Without the restraints put upon impulse by the education of the understanding and the will, young people often assume family obligations thoughtlessly and even flippantly, when they are ill-mated and often unacquainted with each other's characteristic qualities. Such marriages usually bring distress and divorce instead of growing affection and unity. Without education in the obligation of marriage many well-qualified persons delay it or avoid it altogether, because they are unwilling to bear the burdens of family support, childbearing, and housekeeping. Society suffers loss in both cases.

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THE MAKING OF THE HOME

The home has a story of its own, as has the family. In primitive days there was little necessity of a dwelling-place, except as a nest for young or a cache for provisions. A cave or a rough shelter of boughs was a makeshift for a home. Thither the hunter brought the game that he had killed, and there slept the glutton's sleep or went supperless to bed. When the hunter became a herdsman and shepherd and moved from place to place in search of pasture, he found it convenient to fashion a tent for his home, as the Hebrew patriarchs did when they roamed over Canaan and as the Bedouin of the desert does still.

A settled life with a measure of civilization demanded a better and a stationary home, the degree of comfort varying with the desire and ambition of the householder and the amount of his wealth. To thousands home was little more than a place to sleep. Even in imperial Rome the proletariat occupied tall, ramshackle tenements, like the submerged poor who exist in the slums of modern cities. In mediaeval Europe the peasant lived in a one-room hovel, clustered with others in a squalid hamlet upon the estate of a great landowner. The hut was poorly built, often of no better material than wattled sticks, cemented with mud, covered over with turf or thatch, usually without chimneys or even windows. The place was absolutely without conveniences. Summer and winter the family huddled together in the single room of the hut, faring forth to work in the morning, sleeping at night on bundles of straw, each person in the single garment that he wore through the day, and at convenient intervals breaking fast on black bread, salt meat, and home-brewed beer. There was no inducement for a landless serf to spend care or labor upon houses or surroundings; pigs and babies were permitted to tumble about both indiscriminately.

Peasant homes in the Orient are little if any better now than European homes in the Middle Ages. The houses are rude structures and ill-kept. In the villages of India it is not unusual to occupy one house until it becomes so unsanitary as to be uninhabitable, and then to move elsewhere. Even royal courts in mediaeval Europe moved from palace to palace for the same reason. It is a mistake to suppose that the squalid conditions found in the slums are peculiar to them; they are survivals of a lower stage of human existence found in all parts of the world, due to psychical, social, and economic conditions that are not easily changed, but conspicuous in the midst of modern progress.

The home was frequently a school of moral and religious education. Selfishness in all its forms was discountenanced. There was no room for the idler, no time for laziness. Social hygiene and domestic science were not taught as such, but young people learned their responsibilities and grew up equipped to establish homes of their own. Parents were faithful instructors in the homely virtues of truthfulness, honesty, faithfulness, kindness, and love. Religion in the family was by no means universal, but in hundreds of homes religion was recognized as having legitimate demands upon the individual; religious exercises were observed at the mother's knee, the table, and the family altar; all the family attended church together, and were expected to take upon themselves the responsibilities of church membership.

It is well understood that the home environment has most to do with shaping individual character. If the homely virtues are not cultivated there, society will suffer; if cold and cheerlessness are characteristic of its atmosphere, there will be little warmth in the disposition of its inmates toward society. Every home of the right sort is an asset to the community. It is an experiment station for social progress. Every married couple that sets up housekeeping starts a new centre of group life. If they diffuse a helpful atmosphere social virtues will develop and social efficiency increase. On the other hand, many homes are a menace to the community, because an ill-mated pair, poorly equipped for the struggle of existence, create a centre of group life in which the individual is handicapped physically and morally and too often becomes a curse to society at large. When it is remembered that the home is at the same time the power-house that generates the forces that push society forward, and the channel through which are transmitted the ideas and achievements of all the past, it will seem to be the supremely important institution that human experience has devised and sanctioned.

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