The studies in all school curricula must be evaluated in terms of social worth. For example, what is the purpose of teaching history? Is it to give the pupil a chronology of dates and a catalogue of ignoble kings and bloody battles, or is it to give the pupil the meaning of social evolution, social progress, social inheritances, the rise of social needs?[XXV-13]
Educational sociology holds the theory that training for unselfish social living is as important as training for individual pecuniary success. It is engaged at the present time in working out techniques for introducing every member of the public schools to the sociological viewpoint. The names under which such techniques appear is immaterial, whether as community civics, American history studies, elementary social science, or elementary sociology. The next few decades will undoubtedly be marked by the rapid spread of educational sociology.
Chapter XXVI
The Sociology of Modern Christianity
In a foregoing chapter the invaluable contribution of the Hebrews to social thought was presented; the attack of the prophets on social injustice was the outstanding feature. In another chapter the emphasis by Jesus upon love as a dynamic societal principle was described. In the centuries which followed the beginning of the Christian era, the Church apotheosized beliefs, creeds, dogmas. Near the close of the nineteenth century a renaissance of the social teachings of Jesus occurred.
The trio of writers who brought forward the social ideals of Christianity in a new, positive, and stimulating way in the closing decades of the last century were Washington Gladden, Josiah Strong, and Richard T. Ely. All three of these men began about 1885 to discuss in print the social content of Christianity. These men had been aroused by the apparent impotence of the Christian Church in face of the increasing power of capitalism. While many church leaders allowed themselves to be carried along in the powerful arms of capitalism, there were a few who perceived the wreck of human lives that was often left in the wake of the capitalistic movement. These individuals, while not blind to the social values of capitalism, were in touch with the laboring man, and by these contacts caught the social need of the hour. In this social crisis they heard the still, small voice coming down through the centuries, even the voice of Jesus as he spoke in behalf of the poor and outcast.
It was Washington Gladden who startled and even angered the world of religious and economic thought by protesting against the acceptance of “tainted money.” By this term he referred to money which had been made under a capitalistic system at the expense of the lives of men, women, and little children in the industrial processes. Dr. Gladden weathered the storm of protest and gave the capitalistic world a new concept which, while it aroused anger, also brought introspection and a new type of social conscience into the lives of many Christians.
It was Dr. Gladden’s contention that employer and employee ought to be friends, because they are so closely associated. It is a very large part of the business of the employer to maintain sympathetic relations between himself and his employees.[XXVI-1] If the business man will not let his fellowmen share in his prosperity, he will become in spite of himself a sharer in their adversity.
The attitude of Dr. Gladden toward the acceptance of railway passes by the clergy attracted widespread attention. He came to the conclusion that a railroad company is bound to render an equal service to all the people; its business is not to show special favors to the representatives of either religion or charity.[XXVI-2] “What it has no right to give me, I have no right to take, and for several years I have not taken it; I pay the regular fare as all my neighbors do or ought.”
Dr. Gladden urged the abolition of city slums by governmental action. Inasmuch as slums are rife with moral miasmas and are breeding-places of pauperism and crime, the city has the same right to abate such curses as to drain a morass. Moreover, individuals ought to have no property rights “in premises which breed death and engender vice. When they have proved that they lack the power to keep their property from falling into such conditions, their property must be summarily taken away from them.”[XXVI-3]
Without minimizing the importance of conflict as a principle of social progress, Dr. Gladden stressed the concept of co-operation. For example, in industrial matters he advocated the idea of a true trades union—“the union of employers and employed—of guiding brains and willing hands—all watchful of each other’s interests, seeking each other’s welfare, working for the common good.”[XXVI-4]