Now a word as to the social sciences in general. The course I have spoken of is an introduction to sociology, not an introduction to the social sciences. I think, though, that there may well be a Social Science I. It was this course that Professor Small referred to1 in discussing the introductory course. Such a course should be an introduction to the whole field of social science, and every student of social science ought to take it. This should be followed, moreover, by courses in several of the social sciences before the student begins to specialize in any one of them.2 Co-operation between the social science departments will be necessary for the proper working-out of such a program.

We need organization in our own departments of sociology, also. Not only should we agree on a basic course, but we should differentiate graduate from undergraduate courses, or college from university courses, or elementary from intermediate, and the latter from advanced courses.

We have started on a very interesting problem, and I hope we may continue to follow it up. The formlessness and lack of coherence in sociology is much more apparent to the younger instructor and the student than it is to the older sociologist, and so it may be that this problem should be referred to the younger men for solution.

'American Journal of Sociology, XVI, 789.

'The Department of Political Economy at the University of Chicago is planning just such a program.

REVIEWS

Work Accidents and the Law. By CRYSTAL EASTMAN. New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1910. Pp.

16345. $1.50.

The second volume of the findings of the Pittsburgh Survey is Miss Eastman's study of industrial accidents. It is based on an analysis of 526 fatal work accidents which occured in Allegheny County from July 1, 1906, to June 30, 1907, and of 506 non-fatal accidents which occurred during three months of that same year.

The book is divided into three parts. The first is devoted to the causes of work accidents. That 95 per cent of all work accidents are due to the carelessness of the workmen is the popular belief in Pittsburgh and elsewhere but a careful, impartial analysis shows that 29.97 per cent of the fatalities of the year studied can be attributed solely to the employers or those representing them in positions of authority; that 27.85 per cent are due to the carelessness of the injured man or his fellow-workmen, 15.91 per cent jointly to the employer and the employee, while 26.27 per cent are the unavoidable accidents which follow from the hazardous character of the trade.

In thus fixing responsibility, the employer is rightly regarded as responsible for accidents which were caused by the carelessness of some one too young, too ignorant, or too weak to use the necessary judgment or caution; for those which were due to a failure. to work out a proper signal system; and for those accidents which came as the result of "long hours, high speed, and unremitting tension the remedy is again in the hands of the employer." In the past the energy and intelligence of the employing class has not been directed to the prevention of work accidents and "in the face of unremitting pressure for output the motive for prevention can never be compelling until to each injury and death is affixed a uniform and unescapable penalty." Since society has neglected to do this the final responsibility for a very large percentage of work accidents rests with the community at large.

In Part II the economic cost of work accidents is considered. Here investigations showed that 53 per cent of the surviving widows and children of the married men who were killed in

Allegheny County during the year studied were left by the employer to bear the entire loss and "assuming that all the unknown amounts paid were large and that all the damage suits pending would be decided for the plaintiff, in only 30 per cent of the cases did the widows and children receive more than $500." For non-fatal accidents "compensation varied without any constant relation either to the need or the period of disability." The general conclusion reached is that, although the workmen are responsible for only about one-fourth of the accidents, they and their families bear almost the whole economic loss which follows. Comment on the injustice of this is unnecessary.

Part III is a very brief discussion of our common-law doctrine of employers' liability and its "by-products" and of the English, French, and German laws on the subject. This part of the book is disappointing. A very large number of people have concluded that the burden of these accidents should be borne by the industry or through it by the public and they are asking how this can best be accomplished in the United States. Miss Eastman's conclusions in regard to the present law are that it is "in many of its principles unjust; in operation it uses up time, money, and good will to little purpose" and that because of its uncertainty "it furnishes small incentive for the prevention of work accidents and leaves well nigh the whole burden to be borne by the injured workman and his dependents." A new law is urged as a substitute for the old fellow-servant and contributory-negligence rules, which will "make every serious accident a certain and considerable expense to the employer"; will "shift the burden of economic cost to the industry and reduce the possibilities of dispute between the parties to a minimum." But whether all this can best be done by the German scheme of industrial insurance or by legislation similar to the English Workmen's Compensation Act the reader is not told and the discussion does not give any new material by which he may judge for himself.

The special value of Miss Eastman's work is the analysis of the cause of work accidents in a great industrial center. The stories of the hundreds of accidents that occurred on the railroads, in the mines, and in the steel mills are typical of those that are occurring everywhere. If the unconverted will read so large a volume the demand that some modification of the present system be made should become insistent.

The appendix contains material of interest to the student of the question. A considerable portion of the Report of the New York Employers' Liability Commission, the voluntary-relief plans of the United States Steel Corporation and the International Harvester Co., and a number of additional Pittsburgh tables are given. GRACE ABBOTT

CHICAGO, ILL.

Mélanges d'histoire des religions. Par H. HUBERT ET M. MAUSS, Directeurs adjoints a l'Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1909. Pp. xlii+236.

These studies in the history of religions constitute a volume in Travaux de l'année sociologique publiés sous la direction de M. E. Durkheim. They consist of three essays: (1) "On the Nature and Function of Sacrifice," pp. 1-130; (2) "The Origin of Magical Powers in Australian Societies," pp. 131-87; (3) "The Representation of Time in Religion and Magic," pp. 189–229.

A sacrifice always implies consecration, but sacrifice and consecration are not identical. In sacrifice, consecrations bestow their effects on the object consecrated, whether man or thing. The faithful who provides the victim or object of consecration is not at the end of the operation that which he was at the beginning; he has acquired a religious character which he did not have or he has divested himself of an unfavorable character with which he was afflicted; he is elevated to a state of grace or purged from a state of sin; in the one case, as in the other, he is religiously transformed. The maker or bestower of the sacrifice is now an individual and now a group. If a group, such as a family, clan, tribe, nation, or secret society, one of its members is delegated to act for the group, and so the social significance of sacrifice becomes as wide as the co-operative or collective aspirations of man. The immense significance of sacrifice in early society lies in the imputed power of communicating a favorable character to thing, person, or community of persons, or of removing an unfavorable one. Sacrifices, therefore, relate to houses, land, alliances, and all conceivable forms of human existence and interests.

"One may see, the way being opened, how many beliefs and social practices which are not directly religious are found in relation with sacrifice. Sacrifice has been successively a question of

contract, of redemption, of punishment, of gift, of abnegation, of ideas relating to the soul and immortality which lie at the basis of a common morality" (p. 130). Thus Messrs. Hubert and Mauss suggest the importance of the notion of sacrifice for sociology. But in the work before us they do not profess to have followed all its developments nor traversed all its ramifications.

ISAAC A. Loos

STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

La sociocratie. Essai de politique positive. Par EUGÈNE FOURNIÈRE. (Collection des doctrines politiques, XVI.) Paris: V. Giard & E. Brière, éditeurs, 1910. Prix broche; Fr. 250; relié, Fr. 3.

In this brief essay on positive politics, we have an attempt to present the sociological view of society according to which neither individualism nor socialism promise an ultimate solution of the problems of government. Both individualism and socialism are recognized as making their contributions to social progress. Democracy, the historical instrument of socialism, must be superseded or transformed to satisfy the double want of individualism and co-operation, both essential characteristics of social development. This object must be attained through division and association of labor in such a way that all kinds of social activity will be carried forward by means of associations whose diverse forms will assure to the individual many-sided activities. The public power or powers must be brought under the control of this same principle of association and thus realize what Mr. Fournière calls la sociocratie, that is, social self-government by means of association.

ISAAC A. Loos

STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

The Origin of the Land Grant Act of 1862 and Some Account of Its Author, Jonathan B. Turner. By PRESIDENT EDMUND J. JAMES. The University [of Illinois] Studies, Vol IV, No. I.

This is a short study of the origin and development of the idea of national aid to the cause of industrial education. Jonathan B. Turner of Illinois College is shown to have been the originator