322 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
social causes, as Morrison has pointed out in his work on Juve- nile Offenders; and we are not justified in utterly ignoring other individual physical conditions in the present stage of investiga- tion.
This protest of a physiologist must, however, serve to make all the more clear and emphatic a belief expressed in the report, that the director of the laboratory must give special attention to a study of the social surroundings and influences which have led to crime. If this be an important, perhaps the only important, subject of investigation, it follows that the director must have training in sociology and economics as well as in physiological psychology. For the tyro in these subjects is no more compe- tent to analyze the complex social forces than the quack is competent to diagnose disease as a necessary preliminary to treatment by medicine, surgery, or regimen. The phenomena of social life are more obvious and accessible than those of physical life, but they are far more vast, entangled, and compli- cated. It is hardly probable that any one person can be found who will be equally equipped in all three fields of research, and the results of various directors will necessarily have unequal value.
The prison physician in some cases might be able to spend six months in a university laboratory and be able, with his pre- vious knowledge of anatomy and physiology, to use the instru- ments and interpret the results. Advanced students who have been thoroughly trained by modern methods in psychology would find a new and enticing field in an institution whose inmates are under the control of the authorities, and become communicative if they are approached in a sympathetic and tactful way. The number of competent observers would be small at first, but the hope of employment and the opportunity of discovery would soon attract a supply of psychologists.
Both to prison authorities and to candidates for positions the question of salary must be raised. Prisons are public insti- tutions, and unmarried officers are frequently boarded in the establishment. The salary of a young observer might begin at nine hundred dollars, and be increased with experience and
