The introductory course the vital point of contact between student and the department
For many reasons the most serious problems of teaching sociology center about the elementary or introductory course. Advanced undergraduate and graduate courses usually stand or fall by the inherent appeal of their content as organized by the peculiar genius of the instructor. If the student has been able to weather the storms of his "Introduction," he will usually have gained enough momentum to carry him along even against the adverse winds of bad pedagogy in the upper academic zones. Since the whole purpose of sociology is the very practical one of giving the student mental tools with which to think straight on societal problems (what Comte called the "social point of view"), and since usually only a comparatively small number find it possible to specialize in advanced courses, the introductory course assumes what at first sight might seem a disproportionate importance. Only one or two teachers of sociology, so far as I know, discount the value of an elementary course. The rest are persuaded of its fundamental importance, and many, therefore, consider it a breach of trust to turn over this course to green, untried instructors. Partly as a recruiting device for their advanced courses, partly from this sense of duty, they undertake instruction of beginners. But it is often impossible for the veteran to carry this elementary work: he must commit it to younger men. For that reason the remainder of this chapter will be given over to a discussion of teaching methods for such an elementary course, with younger teachers in mind.
Teaching suggestions for the introductory course
First, two or three general hints. It is unwise, to say the least, to attempt to cover the social universe in one course. Better a few simple concepts, abundantly illustrated, organized clearly and systematically. Perhaps it is dangerous to suggest a few recurrent catch phrases to serve as guiding threads throughout the course, but that was the secret of the old ballad and the folk tale. Homer and the makers of fairy tales combined art and pedagogy in their use of descriptive epithets. Such a phrase as Ward's "struggle for existence is struggle for structure" might furnish the framework of a whole course. "Like-mindedness," "interest-groups," "belief-groups," and "folk-ways" are also convenient refrains.
Nobody but a thoroughgoing pedant will drag his students through two weeks' lectures and a hundred pages of text at the beginning of the course in the effort to define sociology and chart all its affinities and relations with every other science. Twenty minutes at the first class meeting should suffice to develop an understanding of what the scientific attitude is and a tentative definition of sociology. The whole course is its real definition. At the end of the term the very best way of indicating the relation of sociology to other sciences is through suggestions about following up the leads obtained in the course by work in biology, economics, psychology, and other fields. This correlation of the student's program gives him an intimate sense of the unity in diversity of the whole range of science.
If the student is to avoid several weeks of floundering, he should be led directly to observe societal relations in the making. This can perhaps be accomplished best through assigning a series of four problems at the first class meetings.
Problem I: To show how each student spins a web of social relationship. Let him take a sheet of paper, place a circle representing himself in the middle of it, then add dots and connecting lines for every individual or institution he forms a contact with during the next two or three days. He will get a figure looking something like this:
Problem II: To show how neighborhoods are socially bound up. Let the student take a section, say two or three blocks square, in a district he knows well, and map it,—showing all the contacts. Again he will get a web somewhat like this:
