Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/149

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NOTES AND ABSTRACTS
137

torical and concrete — is, it is contended, for the sociologist a specialism as definitive and legitimate as any of the other larger and more important specialisms of science. — Abstract of two papers — I, by Professor Durkheim, and II, by Mr. Branford presented at a meeting of the Sociological Society at the School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, June 20, 1904. (Note. — The writer of the second paper desires to call particular attention to the two following among existing classifications of the social sciences: (a) that in use in the Année sociologique; and (b) that adopted from Professor Geddes by Dr. Haddon in his Presidential Address to the Anthropological Institute, 1903.)


The Education of the Stranger. — The problem, the solution of which is attempted in the education of the Filipinos, is a unique one. Nothing less is undertaken than to bring into political co-operation members of two distinct races. Behind the mental life of the individual Filipino of today there lies the background of centuries of racial ideas and instincts. This traditional intellectual attitude is primarily barbarous, but is covered with a thin coating of European influence and civilization. It is upon this foundation that American education in the islands must be built.

From the first a policy of repression, such as that adopted by the Dutch in Java, was most carefully avoided. Filipino ability and ambition were provided with every opportunity for development. One of the greatest needs, especially in the stimulation of industrial achievement among the natives, is the presence of practical examples of modern industrial life round about him. In the absence of such examples, his interest in things industrial flags.

The most important step in the educational program which has been taken thus far is the opportunity provided the natives for learning the English language. The strong desire for its mastery which was manifested gives promise of most happy results in the breaking up of the prevailing narrowness and provincial jealousy which followed the absence of a common speech. Another advantage which may be looked for is the possibility of a political regime of a popular character, involving and interesting the natives of all parts of the islands. Through American books and periodicals knowledge of the spirit of our institutions and of the progress of civilized thought will become at once accessible.

Every legislative act is, of necessity, more or less of an experiment. In devising an educational system for the Filipinos, it was specially difficult to forecast all of the conditions under which it would be required to operate. The transformation of education from a religious to a secular function, in accordance with the American doctrine of the separation of church and state; the substitution of a new language; the transportation from beyond the seas of teachers some of them women who should lay the foundations of free education and civilization in a semi-barbarous land these truly were momentous steps in the solution of a great and vastly significant problem.

The great civilizations of the past have succumbed either to an invasion or to a recrudescence of barbarism, and the final perpetuity of civilization can be made certain only by such an extension of the dominant culture to the hitherto unreached races as shall render these calamitous recurrences impossible. — Bernard Moses, in International Quarterly, March-June, 1904.

E. B. W.

Labor Problems of the Twentieth Century. — Democracy has made legal great combinations both of capital and of labor, and thus far has placed few obstacles in the path of their becoming increasingly monopolistic in their respective spheres. By means of the joint agreement it is possible for the labor and capital of a given industry completely to control the price of their commodity, limited only by the consuming power of the public. This method of abstinence on the part of the consumer is the only real limit to the power of such combinations. Where the necessaries of life arc involved, the danger is a serious one; and it is possible that the legislatures which created the right of association will hereafter limit that right, or restrict the purposes for which the right shall be exercised. Supervision of the operations of railroads, steamship companies, banks, insurance