Stephen G. Rich Pupil Government in Secondary Schools. Nelson A. Jackson Questions in the Recitation The Use of. A. E. Brown Rural School and the Community. A. K. Getman Rural School District, The History of a. Frank Deerwester 553 286 537 548 568 521 305 Rural School Teacher, The Personality of the. Catherine A. Dole Rural Schools and Good Farming. Kenyon L. Butterfield School Organization, New Ways in German. Edmund Venzlaff Socialized Recitation, The. Charlotte Rafter Sociology, Education in Recent. J. T. Williams Thought Presentation in Oral Reading. Fred S. Sorrenson Trade Education, Some Experiences with. A. W. Forbes Vocational Training, Developing Leadership as a Part of. Olive University College, Nottingham. Adam Willis Kirkaldy 19 McMurry and Parkins GEOGRAPHY ELEMENTARY ADVANCED THESE HESE books present the latest available geographical information and are accurate in every particular regarding scientific fact. The organization of material, the problem method of presentation, and the general pedagogy of the subject are the result of life work on the part of the authors-both recognized teachers—and twenty years experience in successful geography making on the part of the publishers. THE equipment of maps and illustrations is of un paralleled excellence. The mechanical features are distinctive in many respects and, as well as the content, render the series an able contribution to effective instruction in the subject of geography. NOW READY FOR DISTRIBUTION IN QUANTITY Educators are invited to make an immediate THE MACMILLAN COMPANY New York Chicago San Francisco EDUCATION Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature VOL. XLII. of Education Education in Recent Sociology J. T. WILLIAMS, DRURY COLLEGE, SPRINGFIELD, Mo. P IV. ** CHARLES A. ELLWOOD. 20¤÷ROFESSOR ELLWOOD writes from the view-point of social psychology. He would prefer to call it psycho, or psychological sociology, but social psychology has become the accepted term. It is a study of human relationships in mental terms. The members of a society are related in inter-subjective ways. When two or more persons make up a society, what is significant is the relation between their minds. The social life is essentially psychic, and sociology is essentially a psychic science. The development of human culture has been a socio-psychic process, not capable of interpretation in mere objective terms. Social life is essentially psychic. From Comte onward most sociologists have recognized that it is the psychic elements that constitute the social. We cannot think of society without refer 1921, For three previous articles in this series, see EDUCATION for March, April and June, The Editor. • Professor Ellwood has published several books, "An Introduction to Social Psychology," "Sociology in its Psychological Aspects," "Sociology and Modern Social Problems," and "The Social Problem; also various magazine articles. The first book mentioned is the most important for social theory and for the purpose of this article, ence to consciousness. "Any situation in the social life of humanity will be found, upon analysis, to consist of conscious activities, mental attitudes, ideas, feelings, beliefs, interests, desires, values, and the like. Customs, usages, traditions, social standards, civilization itself, all resolve themselves into elements which are essentially psychical." In fact, it is the inter-mental life in a group of individuals which makes social life possible. It is mental interaction, or the functional interdependence of individuals on the psychic side, which constitutes society. A society then may be defined as a group of individuals who carry on a common life by means of mental interaction. The significance of this view to educational theory is obvious. Social life is to be interpreted in psychic terms, in other words in terms of instinct, acquired habit, feeling and emotion, desire, love, hatred and also intelligence. It is just these psychic factors with which education has to do. They provide the data for the educational process. Education is based upon instincts, it breaks and develops habits, it evaluates and harmonizes the emotions, and it trains the intellect. Researches in social psychology are evidently of fundamental interest to the solution of educational problems. Man lives, we are told, not in a perceptual, but in an ideational world; or let us say, man builds himself up out of a perceptual world, with which he began, into an ideational world. Growth in social tradition, also called social heredity, has meant a gradual accumulation of knowledge, ideas, beliefs, standards and values, and therefore a gradual substitution of a psychical environment for an environment of physical objects. This does not mean that the world of real objects has become smaller to civilized man, but rather that his world of ideas has enlarged. He approaches the physical world with a set of values already built up in the social tradition. "Higher civilization is, therefore, in many respects, the substitution of what we may call a 'subjective environment' for an objective environment. Every developed type of civilization, therefore, is dominated by certain ideas, beliefs or standards, which give it, so to speak, its particular form and color. These 1 Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 5. |