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CHAPTER XL

INSTITUTIONALIZATION

IN its broadest sense a social institution is, to use the words CHAP. IL

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."

Types of

It is well to discriminate between the regulative institution and Two the operative institution. The former is a mould to which the Institution 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.

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 "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

Inspection,

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 judg ment. 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

Public

1. The institution economizes the attention of the public. The Saving 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-
gently

Fitted to
Its Work

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
Service

of the
Institution
Is Not

Casual or
Spasmodic

The

Institution
Lacks

Flexibility

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 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

of doing its work, it may have to obtain the consent of superiors CHAP. XL or an amendment to its fundamental law.

The

Becomes

ical

2. The specialized personnel of the institution is liable to drift Institution into a perfunctory and mechanical way of doing its work. It is often not fire fighters or coast guards who are subject to this, but those Mechanwho deal continually with immature or dependent human beings. It is not only business corporations that "have no souls"; the defect is likely to show itself in any definite social structure. It seems as if professionals, who give all their time to a personal ministry, are sooner drained of their spontaneous interest and affection than volunteers, who give only their spare time to the work. The orphanage loses touch with child life, so that it is found far better to "place out" dependent children in individual homes. Teachers become routinary and lose their power to inspire. A clergy becomes more intent on ritual, orthodoxy and observance than on kindling religious fervor. Professional charity workers develop a cold matter-of-fact manner which chills and repels the poor. Of course all government departments and bureaus are operative institutions and elsewhere I have described the formalism and red tape to which they are subject.

THE REMEDY FOR INSTITUTIONALISM

icine for

tionalism''

The medicine for all these maladies is personality. Continu- The Medous dosing with personality dissolves the lime about the joints "Institu of institutions and makes them again supple and active. When Is Perthe church has become ecclesiastical or creedal, make bishops out of its real saints and then stand aside. When the charity has become mechanical and forbidding, put at its head some Greatheart like Vincent de Paul or John Howard and give him scope When schools have become lifeless, commit them to a Pestalozzi or a Montessori. The gifted in each field of service never allow mechanism to come between them and their ministry, but usually they know how to use mechanism for their purposes. In their hands the structure becomes again human and plastic. It may be, as Emerson says, that "an institution is the lengthened shadow of one man," but it need not be always the shadow of the same man. Under the stimulus of vital personalities an ossified or decadent institution may be, as it were, reborn, and start on a fresh career.

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