100 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
method of study is absolutely essential to a comprehensive grasp of educational problems. Whether a conception of the social mind, which the author develops in the first chapter, is adequate to a com- plete theory of education or not, no complete theory of education is possible without the application of such a conception. The value of the treatment to the reader does not depend on his full agreement with the author in viewing " social philosophy as a scientia scientiarum" as presented in the second chapter, and that social philosophy is, therefore, a science of education, but in having explained and empha- sized a new category of educational thought.
The only difficulty in trying to explain the education of the indi- vidual by the conception of the social mind is in the constant effort required to think of two things as one which are constantly spoken of as if they were two. The author guards this point with great care, illustrating again and again that there is no such thing as asocial mind apart from the individual mind. He shows that the social mind is only the individual mind in a condition which "results from the inter- action of communicating minds." All this effort to guard the loca- tion of the social mind in the individual mind raises the question as to whether the most advantageous starting point for educational philoso- phy is not the individual mind rather than the social mind. From this point the individual mind would be traced in its development into and through the social mind. Then social philosophy would appear as a phase of educational philosophy. Then pedagogy would be the scientia scientiarum. This movement, rather than the other, is sup- ported by the fact that there is other mind than social mind, in and through which the individual develops. The social environment is not the individual's only environment, and the question arises as to the complete adequacy of a principle of education which pertains only to one aspect of the pupil's life. Be this as it may, the author shows clearly what he attempts to show, namely, the working value of a social conception as applied to education.
The first fruit of the method is brought out in chaps. 3 and 4, under the titles: "The Development of Social and Individual Thought" and "The Social Mind and Education." In these we have a clear statement of the doctrine of the parallel development of the individual and the race. The author guards well against the dan- ger of making the parallel into definite stages and fixed products ; and thus disarms the criticisms invited by the "culture-epoch" theory as it is usually presented.
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