Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter vi social progress Socialization is not a mere accompaniment of material civilization, nor is it an absolute goal toward which social evolution is moving by its own momentum. On the contrary, the socializing process is functional and relative to the group situation. By functional, I mean that socialization is dynamic and not static in human progress, that it plays an effective part in social change. The relativity of socialization signifies that the coarticulating of individuals into the social consciousness and social will of any given time tends to assume a form which is functionally related to the contemporary group situation. In the preceding chapters we indicated that social organization or the mental interrelation and interaction of the members of a group is an essential condition to progress; it is now our purpose, not only to indicate that socialization plays a dynamic role in human evolution, but also that the socialization of the individual is of qualitatively different types in different historical periods and within different classes, and that the criteria of socialization are relative to the group situation within the limit permitted by human nature. The concrete basis for the support of this further step in the thesis is to be found in the resume of the history of a people viewed as a process of socialization. The outstanding facts of social evolution in England, as presented in the recent social and industrial histories, have been selected to illustrate the character of socialization in the typical stages in human progress. No claim for originality in the presentation of this material is made except in so far as its interpretation from the standpoint of socialization may give a new meaning to old facts. At the...