CHAP. XXXVIII The Company Is Not Amenable to the Professional Spirit It Should Be Regulated tween right and wrong in trade practice, it is possible for them by joint action to expose or punish the dishonest competitor until he is no longer a menace to them. In so fluid a medium as business, indeed, war to the knife is the only honorable reply men can make to the silent sapping and supplanting to which they are subjected by unscrupulous rivals. The crooks are not in the least obliged to fight the honorable men in order to eliminate them from the business; but the honorable men must openly and relentlessly fight the crooks if they are to escape ruin. In this struggle the public has so keen an interest that it should endeavor in every way - by laws, by rulings of trade and commerce commissions and by boycott - to help the champions of good practices to gain the victory. When it comes to making the large commercial corporation a tractable social servant, the difficulty of control from within becomes insuperable. The ultimate authority is, of course, the will of the stockholders, but in most cases the stockholders are too numerous, remote and scattered, too ignorant of the business and too little acquainted with one another to have any definite opinion as to the right and wrong of the practices of their corporation or to make such opinion effective if they had it. However excellent their character, their virtues do not extend to and purify their corporation. However richly developed their personality, about the only part of them influential in the management of their corporation is their quite natural and innocent hankering for dividends. Because in the end this incessant hankering triumphs over every other force within the enterprise, little is to be done by attempting to foster the professional spirit in the officers and managers of business corporations. It may just as well be recognized first as last that the structure of such entities furnishes a poor soil for disinterested motives, just as alkali furnishes a poor soil for orange trees. Regularly the corporation will follow the line of what appears to be maximum profits for the long run unless it is constrained by an outside force. While in the true profession the practitioner is made into a faithful servant of society by control from within, the business corporation requires control from without by means of law, railroad commission, public utilities commission, labor organization, shippers' association or other outside agency. CHAPTER XL INSTITUTIONALIZATION IN its broadest sense a social institution is, to use the words CHAP. XL of Cooley, "a definite and established phase of the public mind, not different in its ultimate nature from public opinion, though often seeming, on account of its permanence and the visible customs and symbols in which it is clothed, to have a somewhat distinct and independent existence." It is well to discriminate between the regulative institution and the operative institution. The former is a mould to which the relations, attitudes or behavior of individuals are required to conform; or, if you like, a channel in which activity must flow. Thus the intimate relations of a man and a woman are canalized in marriage, which is fixed and sanctioned in law and in public opinion. So the relations between parents and children are moulded to a standard by the institution of the family. Property and contract are regulative institutions which normalize the relations and conduct of individuals in respect to objects of ownership. In this sense ancestor-worship is a social institution in the Far East; caste in India; blood vengeance in Arabia; duelling in the army circles of old Germany; fagging in the "public schools of Britain; treating in the convivial circles of America. When a relation or activity is characteristic of a certain society but not obligatory — as the bull-fight in Spain, foot-binding in old China, hari-kiri in old Japan, widow-burning in old India, the chivarari, drinking healths and betting on horse races in old America - it is known as social custom rather than institution. Two Types of Institution A Social Custom Is Not an Institution THE OPERATIVE INSTITUTION tionaliza When society is intent on obtaining a service rather than canal- Institu izing individual conduct, it resorts to the operative institution, tion 1" Social Organization," p. 313. CHAP. XL i.e., a special organized personnel working under an authority, charter or constitution and provided with continuous support. Whether this support comes from taxes, gifts or fees makes no great difference. The essential thing is that the institution is bound to render what is believed to be a service of public importance. The Theater Might Well Be come a Social Institution Institutionalizing of ForestGuarding Food In the ordinary American city the social settlement, the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian Association, although they are independent of government, are valued and supported by the public and controlled by public judgment. The theater, on the other hand, may be quite as potent in the community as these others, but it has not been recognized as a social institution. It is as yet little more than a shop for selling a certain kind of sweet, a sweet, moreover, which, like other candies, is often adulterated and unwholesome. Those who see the tremendous possibilities of the stage in refining and uplifting a people wish the theater to be something else than a pure "commercial proposition." If it could obtain a guaranteed support from the public, it could be taken away from the sordid and brutal type of profiteers so frequent now in the theatrical business and conducted by men on a level, in respect to intellect and morals, with our city superintendents of schools. The conversion of businesses into "public utilities" subject to legal regulation in respect to accommodation, charges, obligation to render continuous service, and to serve all without discrimination, is a kind of institutionalization. It is easy enough to see why a spontaneous social service is handed over to a permanent operative institution. Occasional fires in public forests may be taken in hand by the voluntary activity of settlers. When, however, the stretches of public forest are extensive, the value at stake is great, and settlers are few and scattered, it is found better to establish a fire patrol by men who are forest rangers and nothing else. Thus forest guarding is institutionalized. Social workers, women's clubs and newspaper reporters may, from time to time, inspect in an off-hand, desultory fashion the food offered for sale to see whether it is clean and wholesome. As soon, however, as it is apparent that ordinary commercial motives are bound to unload upon the public a great deal of bad food, it becomes the part of wisdom to institutionalize inspection by creating a pure-food commission clothed with certain legal CHAP. XL powers and provided with funds for maintaining a staff of paid inspectors. This permits the aroused public to transfer its attention to other matters, leaving physicians, district nurses, social workers and dieticians to stand guard over the official inspection service and prod it in case it fails to do its duty. Guidance, Young people selecting among divergent lines of training in Vocational school or leaving school to go to work, have been swayed in their choice of occupations by chance, casual impressions, or the haphazard and often conflicting advice of their parents and friends. Of late, however, the momentous service of vocational guidance has been institutionalized by providing in the school system a department where the requirements, rewards and comparative opportunities of the different callings are known and where the youth's qualifications may be canvassed. The counsel he receives from the expert supplements rather than obscures such light as he may obtain from parents and friends on his problem of choosing a vocation. No doubt this new service will spread rapidly among our city school systems. for Recre Until recently the play of children was in no wise a community Provision concern, but a private or domestic concern. Now, however, the ation provision for play has been institutionalized by the establishment of the public supervised playground, equipped with all needful apparatus, where children frolic under the expert direction of trained adult play leaders. THE ADVANTAGES OF THE OPERATIVE INSTITUTION Saving I. The institution economizes the attention of the public. The Public formation of a charity organization society with office, secretary Attention and friendly visitors releases the charitably disposed from solicitude as to the care of the destitute. Once the budget is covered and the society at work, they are free to turn their minds to other things. A "clean-up" week may be a cheap way of caring for the streets, but it requires far more attention from the citizens than a street-cleaning department. As a means of apprehending malefactors the "hue and cry" is a far greater drain upon the time of a populous community than a police force. 2. The institution is planful and systematic. When young people are trained for their future professions in law schools, medical schools, courses in commerce, schools of journalism, and tution Is Intelli- CHAP. XL teachers' colleges, professional education may be said to be inThe Insti- stitutionalized. Now, in comparing education in these schools with "picking up" one's profession in an office, it is plain that the latter is, generally speaking, planless, casual, and desultory. The work is not laid out to reach a given end in a definite time and, if it were, there is no one responsible for seeing that the work is actually done. Apprenticeship suffers from the same faults, altho in less degree. To judge from the drift of the last two generations, the time will come when the preparation for every serious calling will be institutionalized. The Casual or The Institution 3. The institution ensures steady and continuous service. Formerly in American cities volunteers enrolled in "hose" companies and "hook and ladder" companies and drilled themselves in order to develop speed and skill in putting out fires. However, of necessity such service is fitful and uncertain, so that nearly everywhere has been substituted for such companies a municipal fire department under a chief who enlists and organizes a force of professional fire-fighters. The juvenile court with its staff of paid probation officers is another example of the merits of the institution. Formerly incorrigible youngsters received some helpful attention from school teachers, clergymen, religious workers and kindly neighbors. But, since there was no assignment of cases and no fixation of responsibility, there was no certainty that a bad boy would be regularly looked after. The setting up of a well-staffed juvenile court gives the public reasonable assurance that the youthful delinquent will receive intelligent supervision so long as he needs it. The "boy-scouts" and "camp-fire-girls" organizations, as well as the "big brother" movement, illustrate the turning away from spontaneous and casual service. THE DISADVANTAGES OF THE OPERATIVE INSTITUTION 1. Seeing that it exists to serve the public and often is supported by the public the operative institution cannot be allowed. to run loose. It is obliged to follow the groove cut for it, i.e., to work under a law, charter, constitution or tradition which gives security against its being perverted or confiscated by those who for the time being happen to be in charge of it. But, just for this reason, it is not quickly adaptable to a changed posture of affairs. Before it can “branch out," or adopt a better method |