William F. Ogburn

The Changing Family

T H E dilemma of the modern family is due to its loss of function. Throughout the period of written history the family has been the major social institution. Indeed, in the long period of prehistory, as well as in historical times, the family has been a larger social institution than it is in the Twentieth Century in the United States and western Europe. Prior to modern times the power and prestige of the family was due to seven functions it performed:

The Wolf Boy of Agra

A report in the press of a child near Agra, India, having been reared by wolves was investigated, and the claim was found to be false. The investigation throws light on how myths originate.

On scientific writing.

As science and scholarship are often not clearly differentiated, so scientific writing is frequently not adecuately distinguished from the writing of essays or speeches. In the interest of candidates for the M.A. and the Ph.D. degrees some standards for scientific writing are set forth. These are clarity and the avoidance of distortion. A few observations are also made on how to attain readability, thought this quality is unimportant for science, while at the same time maintaining the necessary standards of scientific language.

TRENDS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE.

Make more knowledge even in less time every day. You may not always spend your time and money to go abroad and get the experience and knowledge by yourself. Reading is a good alternative to do in getting this desirable knowledge and experience. You may gain many things from experiencing directly, but of course it will spend much money. So here, by reading trends in social science, you can take more advantages with limited budget.

Limitations of Statistics

Zeal for statistics sometimes blinds one to its limitations as an instrument of discovery, as a form of language, as a contributor to understanding, as a device for holding factors constant, and as an aid in constructing a composite account; as well as its obvious limitations in fields where the social sciences deal with the unique.

Sociology and the Atom

The influence of the discovery of atomic energy on sociology lies in the field of social change and the social effects of invention. The atomic bomb will cause changes in international organization, in cities, and in many institutions. To attain a lasting world government controlling the use of the bomb and to break up large cities into smaller ones are stupendous efforts in collective action and call for a huge amount of sociological research. The use of atomic energy in machines will usher in the atomic age and more; the scientific revolution and its industrial uses may have even more extensive effects upon society than the industrial revolution, ushered in by the steam. The crisis of atomic energy raises the problem of changed methods of sociology to meet the future.

The Influence of Inventions on American Social Institutions in the Future

The probable influence, during the next twenty-five years, of the new inventions in the many fields of technology and applied science on the state, economic organization, rural life, communities, schools, church, recreational activities, and the family is outlined. The results show that the structure of social institutions is modified greatly by mechanical invention and applied science because of the variability of this influence, as compared with other factors.

Inventions and Discoveries

Many social changes are occasioned by mechanical inventions and scientific discoveries. Although the reporting of discoveries is not well developed, and although it is difficult to forecast their significance, an attempt is made to select 100 inventions and discoveries, largely in applied science, for 1927, and mainly from the United States, which may be socially significant. The list is from the fields of medicine (with 13 listed), vitamins and ultra-violet light (7), medical instruments (4), biology (11), agriculture (9), chemistry (9), metals and mechanical devices (5), engineering (8), physics (4), electricity (3), radio (7), aviation (6), geology (3), safety devices (6), and from miscellaneous fields (7).

Technology and the Standard of Living in the United States

The standard of living of the American people in terms of what money buys has doubled in the first half of the twentieth century as measured by three independent sets of data. The cause of this rise is shown to be very probably due mainly to improvements in technology.

Population, Private Ownership, Technology, and the Standard of Living

The peoples of some countries have higher standards of living than those of others, as shown by what the money earned by an hours labor will buy. As causes of these differences in income, technological development is shown by statistics to be much more important than population density. From an analytical study of a few countries one concludes that communism or private ownership is not very significant in explaining these differences in standard of living, contrary to popular opinion.