The Place of Introductory Sociology in General Education

Abstract

OR more than one hundred years, general survey courses in science have come and gone and have taken many forms in our liberal-arts colleges. The first wave of them was associated with the science of the nineteenth century. Then came broad introductory courses in sociology. In recent decades we have seen a wave of social-science survey courses. From the observations and speculations of moral philosophers, historians, and philosophers of history, there gradually emerged a notion of society and of human groups as aggregates with characteristics sufficiently variable from society to society and sufficiently determinable and important to be studied. This idea was then linked witlh the magic associated with the terms and methods of the physical and biological scientists, and Vico in I725 called it the new Others labeled it the science of society (Condorcet), and the science of man (St. Simon). In an 1836 essay, J. S. Mill noted this need for a generalizing science. Calling it political economy, he offered as synonyms philosophy, natural history of society, speculative politics, and econ omy, among others. What Mill calle, political economy was then ordinar ily spoken of as social science, an political economy was narrower. Between 1840 and I890 ther flowered in this country a an! intellectual development termed th science movement. Thi involved agitation for an! intellectual reforms, a popular con troversial literature, college textbook from about i85o on, and the America: Social Science Association of i865I909. The latter was the societ from which arose directly or indirectl; such powerful recent professiona bodies as the American Prison Associ ation, the National Conference c Social Work, the American Historico Association, the American Economi Association, the American Politica Science Association, and the Amen' can Sociological Society. The chic historians of this change say: Witl the absorption of the Social Scienc Movement into the other sci ences and the establishment of Soci ology as its chief successor . . . th movement as such came to an en soon after igoo.1