This conception of Sergi's is precisely one of the scientific aspects of biographic histories that is of the highest importance, provided that they could be recorded in so simple a manner as to render the researches practically possible, and provided, also, that they could be gathered with a scientific uniformity of method designed to render international researches harmonious. We are certainly still very far removed from the time when international pedagogical congresses will be held for the purpose of establishing a single model form of biographic chart for each of the various grades in school; and also an agreement as to the technical method of taking the anthropological measurements! Before arriving at this point it will be necessary to make many tentative efforts and experiments.
But a truly scientific sociology, as well as pedagogy, ought to emanate from such a study of human beings in the course of formation, because such an enormously large number of observations as could be gathered in school, will reveal to us the biologico-social mechanism through which those activities are formed that are destined to promote the progress of humanity and civilisation (the new generations).
Medicine and the biological sciences in general entered upon a new era of exceedingly rapid progress when the microscope made possible the study of histology and bacteriology; well, the researches in regard to the individual constitute the histology and bacteriology of social science! When Le Play, in his great work, Les Ouvriers Européens, instituted the "family monograph," i.e., the study of household accounts as a basis for "positive sociology," he was considered as the founder of a true social science. Because the true needs of men, the mechanism through which are determined the various personalities that afterward react upon society as creative or destructive forces, can be discovered only through studying minutely such needs and mechanisms, individual by individual, family by family. If Le Play's method, and consequently positive social science, have not as yet made much progress, this is because of the difficulty of penetrating within the family in order to study it.
From the bio-psychological point of view, if not from that of the family account book, the biographic chart of the schools is nevertheless a practical means of contributing to social histology; it is a field open to research and one which must be crossed by every one of the individuals who constitute society. Furthermore, it constitutes a foundation for social embryogeny; because in the school we may study the genesis of separate individuals; the causes which molded their congenital personality, and those which brought about its definitive formation. In the words of Le Play, indorsed by Bodio, this is the only positive material from which the legislator may draw his inspiration in order to become a true dispenser of justice to the people and to conduct the far-sighted reforms that are really necessary for the welfare of society.
Consequently, the anthropologic movement in pedagogy marks an aspect of scientific reform which is universal.
A direct contribution to pedagogy and at the same time to scientific sociology is given by the biographic charts in the "Children's Houses." Since this is a case of school within the home, where the mistress, being domiciled with her scholars, has them under her charge from the age of two or three years, and where there is a permanent resident physician to aid in the compilation of the biographic charts, it is evident that there is a chance of practically applying both the pedagogic plans for studying the pupil, and the social plans of Le Play, who by means of family monographs based upon the family account book, proposed to obtain nothing more nor less than an index of morality, culture, and individual needs! And as a matter of fact, the manner of spending the salary, the savings, the squanderings, the purpose for which money is spent, whether it is for low vices, or for vanity, or for æsthetic or intellectual pleasures in general, etc., reveal the state of civilisation and morality in which people live. In the "Children's Houses" such a study of the family is easy because it is revealed of its own accord, since the families are in contact with the school; consequently, these "Children's Houses" may serve to lay a true and practical foundation for embryogenesis and social histology. In short, the importance of research regarding the individual goes far beyond the school; it leads the way to every kind of social reform.
Even medicine, like every other science, is going to build up a firmer scientific basis through the help of the biographic charts of the schools: Professor De Sanctis has drawn up models for examinations, mainly of a medical nature, to be used in his asylum-schools for defectives; and by thus following the development of the pupils, he has succeeded in throwing positive light upon the biopathological mechanism through which an abnormal psychopathic or neuropathic personality develops; while psychiatry or neuropathology formerly recorded nothing more of such an abnormal personality than the episode of the moment at which the adult patient presented himself at the clinic. Even the individual criminal has now come to be studied in relation to his genesis, and jurists who are seeking a scientific basis for their enactments, should not neglect the individual studies that are being compiled in the schools for defectives. The biographic chart introduced into the government reformatories in Italy will also furnish a direct contribution to social histology, in regard to the genesis of criminal personalities.
Consequently, the reform which has begun with the introduction of an anthropological movement into the school and the establishment of biographic charts, is nothing less than a reform of science as a whole. Medicine, jurisprudence, and sociology as well as pedagogy, are laying new foundations upon it.