different sources from which such social evidence must be had, or of the tests that could be applied to assure reliability.

Stuart Courtis, of the New York Committee on School Inquiry, who starts with an effort to test, by measurements based upon arithmetic alone, the efficiency of school and children, arrives finally at two interesting conclusions: First, that life histories alone can make plain the play of those hidden forces which are constantly modifying the results of educational effort; and second, that where marked differences in the social life of the different types of children exist, those differences must be reflected in school methods. For reasoning cannot be taught from a text alone. “Reasoning is a process of adjustment to a situation, and only as children have experienced the fundamental characteristics of a situation can they intelligently make the necessary adjustments to it."

The beginnings of social case work in a field closely allied to education, in vocational guidance, serve to illustrate how, in the enthusiasm of promoting a new discovery, the need of social evidence may be overlooked. In this line of endeavor (though not in some others, where the illustration may still serve as a warning) the oversight was only a temporary one. The first volume of advice addressed to what were to be known as "vocational counselors" gave specimen interviews for their instruction. One of these is with a lad of nineteen in Boston who comes for vocational guidance and says that he wants to be a physician. The following is a part of the counselor's printed report:

He was sickly looking, small, thin, hollow-cheeked, with listless eye and expressionless face. He did not smile once during the interview of more than an hour. He shook hands like a wet stick. His voice was husky and unpleasant, and his conversational power, aside from answering direct questions, seemed practically limited to "ss-uh," an aspirate "yes, sir," consisting of a prolonged s followed by a nonvocal ub, made by suddenly dropping the lower jaw and exploding the breath without bringing the vocal cords into action. He used this aspirate “yes-sir” constantly, to indicate assent, or that he heard what the counselor said. He had been through the grammar school and the evening high; was not good in any of his studies, nor especially interested in any. His memory was poor. He fell down on all the tests

1 Courtis, Stuart A.: The Courtis Tests in Arithmetic (Section D of Subdivision

I of Part II of the Report on Educational Aspects of the Public School Systems of the City of New York), pp. 150-155. City of New York, 1911-12.

2 Parsons, Frank, Ph. D.: Choosing a Vocation, p. 114 sq. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1909.

for mental power. He had read practically nothing outside of school except the newspapers. He had no resources and very few friends. He was not tidy in his appearance, nor in any way attractive. He knew nothing about a doctor's life; not even that he might have to get up any time in the middle of the night, or that he had to remember books full of symptoms and remedies.

The boy had no enthusiasms, interests, or ambitions except the one consuming ambition to be something that people would respect, and he thought he could accomplish that purpose by becoming a physician more easily than in any other way. When the study was complete, and the young man's record was before him, the counselor said:

"Now we must be very frank with each other. That is the only way such talks can be of any value. You want me to tell you the truth just as I see it, don't you? That's why you came to me, isn't it, not for flattery, but for a frank talk to help you understand yourself and your possibilities?"

"When the study was complete!" Psychologists realize now that tests of memory, like most other mental tests, must be repeated to eliminate accidental factors; but assuming that the counselor had made the psychological tests with care, he still has ignored many factors, which though not measurable by tests would yet modify the social diagnosis. He tells the boy that he cannot be a doctor, that he might succeed in some mechanical or manufacturing industry, that he must cultivate a cordial smile by speaking before a glass, that he must read solid books, study to prepare for citizenship, and so on. Such unconstructive vocational guidance the counselor apparently supposed to be a form of social treatment. Had he used his opportunity to acquire social evidence as well as psychological, he might have instituted treatment that would have struck at the root of the boy's difficulty. Here is a boy who has been attending the evening high school for several years. Has he been employed during the day; if so, at what? Is this work of a kind that would account, in part at least, for his failure as a student? Are there removable causes not only for his lack of success but for his physical condition as well? In the case of such a boy, should not a medical diagnosis precede vocational advice? What are his home surroundings? Have his parents plans for him or aptitudes of their own that would suggest possibilities in him? Are any of his family already known to some of the hundreds of social workers in Boston? If so, a summary of this social work experience might be suggestive. The book containing this illustrative 1 For a description of the confidential exchange see p. 303 sq.

interview was written to aid vocational counselors, presumably busy men. Nevertheless the question as to what a boy is to do with his working days for years to come is too vital a one for such summary disposal. The interview here quoted, ignoring the possible aid of other specialists, professes to be complete in itself, whereas a few letters and telephone messages to employers, teachers, confidential exchange of information, and the boy's parents, together with a reference to a competent physician, would have brought to light social and physical factors which contributed to the boy's ill success, and would have indicated how to remove them.

The counselor dealt with symptoms only. He assumed that an examination of the boy as regarded his appearance, speech, and mental reactions, during that brief cross-section of time, would give all the data necessary for treatment. Only to one who was all-wise and all-knowing could a single examination have been thus fruitful. Variations of these same ideas crop up in unexpected places. Scientific shop management has accepted the principle of studying the personal traits of the individual workman and of basing his advancement upon such study, but for lack of social technique its present application of the principle is often too crude and sometimes too undemocratic to illustrate our theme.

It would seem that social evidence is beginning to receive recognition. The endeavors of social workers are bringing to light ways of thinking and doing that prove useful in quite other fields. The fact that law, medicine, history, and psychology, in their effort to break new ground, have been opening the same vein of truth, shows a growing demand for the kind of data that social practitioners gather. The absence of any generally accepted tests of the reliability of such evidence, however, still keeps this new demand itself ill defined and unstandardized. Personal histories which might appear sufficiently authenticated to a shop manager might strike a neurologist as inadequate for conclusions, while they would certainly be open to objections from a court. Progress on the social side of these several fields of endeavor will be hastened as social workers subject their own experiences to a more critical and searching analysis.

It was not to be expected that industry, or education, or juris

prudence, or medical science, or preventive social legislation should wait, before they developed in harmony with the thought of today, until the arts of social diagnosis and treatment had caught up. All of these went forward in their several ways, but their very advance has emphasized the need of skill in this newer art. Technique has not occupied the attention of the social workers themselves so much as has the rapid development of new social specialties, some of them ill considéred, perhaps, but all following inevitably upon that flowering of social ideals in this country which belongs to the last fifteen years. The time has now arrived to take fuller advantage of these new developments.

Attention to the details of social evidence is so new in case work that, in addition to the comparing of case work experiences attempted in Parts II and III of this book, it has seemed necessary to seek light wherever it could be found. Social work has its own approach to evidence, but wherever men of first-rate standing in other professions have discussed, in a way not too technical to be understood by the layman, this subject of evidence, it is worth our while to give attention. As will be seen from the Bibliography,1 free use will be made in these pages of the remarkable contributions of Professor Hans Gross to criminal jurisprudence, of Professor J. H. Wigmore's Principles of Judicial Proof, and of James B. Thayer's Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common Law. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Dr. Paul Dubois, Dr. Richard C. Cabot, and Dr. S. J. Meltzer have all written about medical diagnosis in a way which is suggestive and stimulating even to those who have had no medical training. The modern approach to the study of history is clearly set forth in a book that case workers should all read, the admirable Introduction to the Study of History by Langlois and Seignobos. Alfred Sidgwick's books on logic have also been consulted in the treatment of the subject of inferences. From applied psychology, apart from the measuring scales now in use, we are likely to receive in the future contributions which may, in many important particulars, modify the methods described in this book. Until case workers know more about psychology, however, than they now do, they will not be able even to formulate their needs in 1 See page 483.

a way to command the psychologist's attention. There are, then, tasks of absorbing interest awaiting the social case workers of this and the next generation.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

1. Social evidence may be defined as consisting of all facts as to personal or family history which, taken together, indicate the nature of a given client's social difficulties and the means to their solution.

2. Depending as it does less upon conspicuous acts than upon a trend of behavior, social evidence often consists of a series of facts any one of which would have slight probative value, but which, added together, have a cumulative effect.

3. Social evidence differs from legal evidence in that it is more inclusive and that the questions at issue are more complex. For these reasons, careful scrutiny of the reliability of each item of such evidence is all the more necessary.

4. The usefulness of social evidence outside of what is usually described as social work has been demonstrated in the diagnosis of physical and mental disorders, in the procedure of courts with certain groups of defendants, in the differential treatment of children in the schools, and in their vocational guidance. As tests of its reliability are better formulated and more generally accepted, it will be put to still wider use.

5. Social work has its own approach to evidence, but as regards the testing of its evidential material it has much to learn from law, medicine, history, logic, and psychology.