THE MODERN CHALLENGE

A logical step in the direction of a scientific understanding of human relations has been taken by the University in the establishment of a Division of Sociology. The new Division will absorb the present Department of Sociology and Social Ethics and will also include many courses now given in the Division of History, Government, and Economics. To these it will add many new courses of its own. Yale, in its Institute of Human Relations, and the University of Chicago have already realized the need for official recognition of a field which has grown steadily since the first impetus given by the rapid rise of psychology. And Harvard now feels the time ripe to follow suit.

The difficulty of organization due to the lack of a hard and fast criterion to apply to the selection of material for the Division, has necessitated a long study before this plan could be put into effect. Professor Sorokin, who has conducted this preliminary research, will bring great ability and a keen interest in his work to the Division which he is to head.

Many advantages should result from the independent establishment of the Division of Sociology. The study of people from the human point of view rather than through their institutions and cultural traditions, is placed on an equality with the other sciences. The consequent prestige should draw more teachers and a greater number of students into the field. Organizing the Division as an entity gives the study of Sociology unity due to the integration of the courses comprising it. Also the full-time professors in the new department having more time to devote to their specialty and fewer restrictions will be able to develop their own ideas and methods of teaching unhampered by the limitations of another Division. Above all there will be greater opportunity for the presentation of new material in a field in which Harvard has been particularly weak in the past.

That the time is now ripe for the emancipation of Sociology is evident when one considers the present seriousness of the labor questions and the problems of crime which challenge solution. The government has tried to meet the situation by means of crime commissions, labor committees, and social legislation, but its solution is inadequate chiefly because its attempts have lacked organization. The problem of rationalizing mechanical methods of production to modern life still remains as a direct inheritance from the industrial revolution. Sociology is the modern device for finding an intelligent answer to the question.