Three Obstacles to the Development of a Scientific Sociology

Abstract

naires and the securing of personal histories and other behavior documents. So anxious was Professor Cooley to get at the real flow of life that even when his students used questionnaires (a technique he somewhat distrusted), he always urged them to give the subjects an opportunity to express themselves freely in supplementary paragraphs. As has been pointed out he believed we should keep the 'wholeness of the social entities studied and he therefore looked with particular favor on case studies of persons, groups, small institutions and small communities. It should be reiterated that he believed thoroughly that in all such research objective data should be obtained and treated statistically. He simply felt that, due to the present trend toward greater objectivity, there would be no failure in this regard and that he therefore should concern himself with emphasizing the importance for social research of the subjective elemnents. Statistical treatmenlt in which is retained the wholeness of social entities by means of a preliminary classification into types was regarded by him as offering great possibilities. The fact that Professor Cooley was receptive to the idea of experimental sociology perhaps indicates that he was by no means narrowly conservative in his point of view on research as some of the supporters of the physical science approach would have us think. When Dr. Lowell J. Carr first talked over with him the possibilities in this direction, he expressed a desire that experimental work at least be given a thorough trial. He thought it a not unjustified hope that with talking pictures and properly set up social situations human interactions might be carefully studied in the laboratory.37 Such then is a brief and inadequate sketch of the heritage which social research receives from a great scholar. Those who were so fortunate as to study under his guidance believe it is one of permanent significance to the science of sociology.