In studying biology it is convenient to make cross-sections of laboratory specimens in order to determine structure, and to watch plants and animals grow in order to determine function. There seems to be no good reason why social life should not be studied in the same way. To take a child in the home and watch it grow in the midst of the life of the family, the community, and the larger world, and to cut across group life so as to see its characteristics, its interests, and its organization, is

1. Man and His Social Relations. —A study of society starts with the obvious fact that human beings live together. The hermit is abnormal. However far back we go in the process of human evolution we find the existence of social relations, and sociability seems a quality ingrained in human nature. Every individual has his own personality that belongs to him apart from every other individual, but the perpetuation and development of that personality is dependent on relations with other personalitie

28. The Fundamental Importance of the Family. —Social life can be understood best by taking the simplest organized group of human beings and analyzing its activities, its organization, and its development. The family is such a group and is, therefore, a natural basis for study. It illustrates most of the phases of social activity, it is simple in its organization, its history goes back to primitive times, and it is rapidly changing in the present. Family life is made up of the interactions of in

97. Broadening the Horizon. —Out of the kindergarten of the home the child graduates into the larger school of the community. Thus far through his early years the child's environment has been restricted almost entirely to the four walls of the home or the limits of the farm. His horizon has been bounded by garden, pasture, and orchard, except as he has enjoyed an occasional visit to the village centre or has found playmates on neighboring farms. He has shared in the isolation of the farm. The ho

177. Enlarging the Social Environment. —In the story of the family and the rural community it has become clear that the normal individual as he grows to maturity lives in an expanding circle of social relations. The primary unit of his social life is the family in the home. There the elemental human instincts are satisfied. There while a child he learns the first lessons of social conduct. From the home he enters into the larger life of the community. He takes his place in the school, where he t

314. Questions of the Larger Group. —In any study of social life we have to find a place for larger groups than the family and the neighborhood or even the city. There are national units and even a certain amount of international unity in the world. How have they come to exist? What are the interests that hold them together? What are the forms of association that are practicable on such a large scale? Is there a tendency to stress the control of the group over its individual members, even its ar

358. Constant Factors in Social Phenomena. —Our study of social life has made it plain that it is a complex affair, but it has been possible to classify society in certain groups, to follow the gradual extension of relations from small groups to large, and to take note of the numerous activities and interests that enter into contemporary group life. It is now desirable to search for certain common elements that in all periods enter into the life of every group, whether temporary or permanent, so