These two points of departure--the student's interest in his own personality and the community influences that have molded it, and the comparative study of a primitive group--should harmonize the two chief rival views of teaching sociologists; namely, those who urge the approach to sociology through anthropology and those who find the best avenue through the concrete knowledge of the _socius_. Moreover, it lays a foundation for a discussion of the antiquity of man, his kinship with other living things, and his evolution; that is, the biological presupposition of human society. Here let me testify to the great help which Osborn's photographs[36] of reconstructions of the Pithecanthropos, Piltdown, Neanderthal, and Crô-Magnon types have rendered in clearing away prejudices and in vivifying the remote past. Religious apprehensions in particular may be allayed also by referring students to articles on race, man, evolution, anthropology, etc., in such compilations as the _Catholic Encyclopedia_ and Hastings' _Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics_. The opening chapters in Marett's little book on _Anthropology_ are so sanely and admirably written that they also clear away many prejudices and fears.
With such a concrete body of facts contrasting primitive with modern civilized social life the student will naturally inquire, How did these changes come about? At this point should come normally the answer in terms of what practically all sociologists agree upon; namely, the three great sets of determining forces or phenomena, the three "controls": (1) the physical environment (climate, topography, natural resources, etc.); (2) man's own nature (psycho-physical factors, the factors in biological evolution, the role of instinct, race, and possibly the concrete problems of immigration and eugenics); (3) social heredity (folk-ways, customs, institutions, the arts of life, the methods of getting a living, significance of tools, distribution of wealth, standards of living, etc.) A blackboard diagram will show how these various factors converge upon any given individual.[37]
The amplification of these three points will ordinarily make up the body of an introductory course so far as class work goes. Ethnography should furnish rich illustrative material. But to make class discussions really productive the student's knowledge of his own community must be drawn upon. And the best way of getting this correlation is through community surveys. The student should be required as parallel laboratory work to prepare a series of chapters on his ward or part of his ward or village, covering the three sets of determining factors. The instructor may furnish an outline of the topics to be investigated, or he may pass around copies of such brief survey outlines as Aronovici's _Knowing One's Own Community_ or Miss Byington's _What Social Workers Should Know about Their Own Communities_; he may also refer them to any one of the rapidly growing number of good urban and rural surveys as models. But he should not give too much information as to where materials for student reports may be obtained. The disciplinary value of having to hunt out facts and uncover sources is second only to the value of accurate observation and effective presentation. If the aim of a sociology course is social efficiency, experience shows no better way of getting a vivid, sober, first-hand knowledge of community conditions. And there is likewise no surer way of compelling students to substitute facts for vapid wordiness and snap judgments.