Finally, a word about "field work" as a teaching device. Field work usually means some sort of social service practice work under direction of a charitable agency, juvenile court, settlement, or playground. But beginning students are usually more of a liability than an asset to such agencies; they lack the time to supervise students' work, and field work without strict supervision is a farcical waste of time. If such agencies will accept a few students who have the learner's attitude rather than an inflated persuasion of their social Messiahship, field work can become a very valuable adjunct to class work. In default of such opportunities the very best field work is an open-eyed study of one's own community, in the attempt to find out what actually is rather than to reform a hypothetical evil.[38]
[34] In order to secure frank statements, both these autobiographies and the time budgets may be handed in anonymously.
[35] _American Journal of Sociology_, 4:1-20; 7:1-28, 171-187.
[37] See such a diagram in Todd, _Theories of Social Progress_, page 240.
[38] While accepting full responsibility for the opinions herein set forth, I wish to express my appreciation of assistance rendered by a large group of colleagues in the American Sociological Society.
History as a science attempts to explain the development of civilization. The investigator of the sources of history must do his part in a truly scientific spirit. He must examine with the utmost scrutiny the many sources on which the history of the past has its foundation. He reveals facts, and through them the truth is established.
But history is more than a science. It is an art. The investigator is not necessarily a historian, any more than a lumberman is an architect. The historian must use all available material, whether the result of his own researches or that of others. He must weigh all facts and deduct from them the truth. He must analyze, synthesize, organize, and generalize. He must absorb the spirit of the people of whom he writes and color the narrative as little as possible with his own prejudices. But the historian must be more than a narrator; he must be an interpreter. As an interpreter he should never lose sight of the fact that all his deductions should be along scientific lines. Even then he will not escape errors. In pure science error is inadmissible. In history minor errors of fact are unavoidable, but their presence need not seriously affect the general conclusions. In spite of many misstatements of fact, a historical work may be substantially correct in the main things--in presenting and interpreting with true perspective the life and spirit of the people of whom it treats.