THE ANDOVER REVIEW: A RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY. VOL. VIII. - ·DECEMBER, 1887.- No. XLVIII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS. I HAVE elsewhere ("The Independent," January 14, 1886,) tried to call attention to the study of our social questions as a proper part of University discipline. It seemed to me that this whole range of movements, looking toward philanthropy and reform, and forming so conspicuous an element in modern social life, ought to be accepted as new material in a liberal education. No sooner do young men or young women leave their colleges than they are called, in the present state of American society, to an interest in these affairs. Such a student must take his part in the charities of his town, or must give his vote concerning temperance, or finds himself thrown into the midst of a labor agitation, or is called to some service for the cause of the Indian. To separate himself from such questions is to withdraw himself altogether from the larger life and broader interests of his community. The moment one takes his place in the organism of social life he discovers a demand such as has never been felt before for intelligent and disciplined views in such affairs. He finds not only that these are the burning problems of the time, but that if they are not frankly faced they are likely to become its tragic problems. A very few years ago they were the concerns of specialists in philosophy or in political economy, but they are now questions concerning which every educated person must have an opinion, however crude it may be. A few years ago, for instance, the administration of charity had seemed to be systematized under a few beneficent institutions and the mechanism of State Boards, but now a new science of charity has been developed, with principles never fully recognized before, and with methods which demand a new accession of intelligent sympathy. A few years ago the problems of marriage and divorce seemed to be Copyright, 1887, by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co. matters for legal experts and legislative action. Now they are seen to be questions involving our whole national life, threatening that unit of civilization which has lain since prehistoric times in the institution of the family, and depending, not on technical action in a single profession, but on a quickened public sentiment concerning the sanctity of the home. Temperance agitation is manifesting in these very years so amazing an increase of rational method that no educated man or woman can now escape the responsibility of a personal decision and influence. The discipline of the criminal classes, the regulation of the Indian tribes, these again are matters which have been taken out of the hands of specialists and have been seen to involve the intelligence and the conscience of the whole community. The transition is most marked, though not more real, in what we call the labor question. A few years ago the relations between employers and employed seemed finally determined at the hands of the economists. They had their inevitable adjustments and their invariable laws. Political economy appeared to be so completed a science that in 1876 the Hon. Robert Low declared that it seemed to him to have no more work to do. Now, with a sudden and startling uprising in all civilized countries, these same discussions have taken on a new meaning. They have been snatched by plain people from the economists' hands. The victims of these necessary laws cry out against them. They will either break these laws, iron though such laws may be, or they will counteract them with new laws, born of the new time. Thus, throughout Europe and America has spread a startling gospel of discontent, creating its mass of inflaming literature, inculcating a crude creed for the ignorant, involving the prosperity and permanence of our social life, and finding among us a great moral and intellectual unpreparedness to meet the situation. In such a state of things the duty of the colleges is clear. It is in them that the hope of discriminating, far-sighted, and intelligent views must lie. A man has grave disadvantages who begins these studies amid the pressure and prejudices of his active interests. It is in the calmness and the untainted atmosphere of academic life that the first principles of such studies can best be found. Fortunately for our future, the colleges and the seminaries of the country are rapidly recognizing the new demand made upon them by these new problems of social life. In a half dozen of our universities, instruction more or less thorough and explicit is already directed to this end, and a new department of liberal education appears to be forming |