The first of these two divisions is self-explanatory, and would probably be accepted without question. The second division, the one analyzing the specifically social facts, calls for explanation.

The proposal that these social facts should be analyzed in terms of relational groupings is based on a new conception of personality. Personalities are highly composite entities, each being a constellation of more or less developed sentiments integrated into an organic system. And since the sentiments are all threaded upon relationships between the self and environing selves, institutions, and ideas, the personality is a web-like creation of a self interacting with other selves. As this idea gains ground we shall talk less of the individual as a solid and self-contained unit, moving and acting in an environment of other solid and self-contained units, all mutually distinct and external. We shall talk more of defining relationships, of motivations among lives that interpenetrate. If this is true, then what we ordinarily think of as the personality of a client appears and is developed in the interplay of character forces between himself and others first in one and then in another of the various groups of people which help to create and enrich his social life, each relationship giving scope and stimulus to some special aspect of his nature.

It is within these various groupings that a man's values in life take shape. The things he prizes, his guiding sentiments of love, of family dignity, of ambition, of religion, of friendship, of citizenship, sentiments which "integrate" and give purpose to his life, are all formed by the joint activity of his mind with other minds, organized into circles that conserve and reinforce those values.

The relationships radiating from the self may reach to any of three distinct levels of interest: the level of other persons, the level of institutions, and the level of ideas. Within each field of relationship-that of sex, of occupation, of recreation, etc.-the level actually spanned by the web of sentiment depends on the vividness with which the personality has realized the potential values in that field. In two respects social case workers have a unique opportunity to further the application of psychological research to social science. First, their efforts to rehabilitate persons who for one reason or another are out of adjustment with their surroundings bring them into an intimate knowledge of the trials and struggles of these persons with their families, their work, their companions, extending over a considerable period of time -over months or even years. Second, the difficulties or maladjustments in the lives of clients are difficulties which in lesser degree are universal. They are merely conspicuous or exaggerated instances of failure in personal adaptation or in social machinery which are the same in kind as those which we all experience. As Mr. Wallas puts it, they may be thought of as society's analysis of its maladaptations. Analysis must begin with our

recording, and our histories must be written,

of as at present in storiette sequence. oblem which must be factored out

propose are the familiar ones guided case workers in their first, that workers should tions between client and tld dictate their material hese relational categories bout case histories and

will at first take more time on the part of older workers. To compensate for this it holds promise, because of the sharper thinking that it induces, of more practical help to clients and of a steadily advancing professional insight.

As an illustration of the sort of analysis which I have in mind let me discuss the family relationships in the cases of three unmarried mothers, drawing comparisons on the social training which each girl received in her home and which laid the foundation of her social nature and her ideals. By social training in this connection I mean her education in sensitivity to public opinion-in the nature of society's approvals and disapprovals and also in the way in which she should expect to see approval and disapproval expressed. It is to be remembered that the family is not a single relationship, but a field of relations corresponding to its network of sentiments. There is the relation between the parents, between parents and children, among the children themselves to all of which the advent of grandchildren will add a new set. Any one member of a family may be thought of in several relations, each involving its appropriate sentiment. The father is provider, protector, mirror of public opinion, to his children; the mother is housekeeper and priestess of the home; the children are family pets, future bread-winners, budding citizens, etc. By exemplifying all these rôles the persons in a family sustain between them the distinctive sentiments in the family field; and, since these sentiments are motivating forces for all concerned, we have reason to expect that in a family where a daughter has been unchaste something impaired or abortive will be found among the family relationships. Whatever shall appear among the data in the case to affect the functioning of sentiments that sway the girl's social thinking will be a clue of the scientific sort that we hope to see recognized in our future social work. Our observation, that is, will here aim to identify clue-aspects in the state of the girl's self-family relations.

All three of the unmarried mothers here considered were healthy girls; two of them were normal in intelligence, while one was perhaps slightly subnormal. The fathers of all three were of the grade of small proprietors. One of them owned his own fishing-craft, the other two their farms. All three were industrially stable and all the families had lived a number of years each in a detached house. The neighborhoods in which they lived might be described as being one rural, one semirural (within city limits but in farming country) and one outskirt (a part of the city just beyond the more thickly populated center). In all three instances both mother and child ended by becoming happily absorbed into the community. At this point the resemblances that concern our study end. In their family relations the three daughters had three distinct types of handicap that were contributory to their social lapse.

In the first family the facts bearing on our comparison were as follows: the father, although a sober man, was habitually ugly and abusive at home, giving rein to a violent temper and beating the children severely. They were much afraid of him, as was also his wife. For example, when the latter learned of her daughter's pregnancy, she appeared indifferent except to the possibility of her husband's finding it out. Overworked, with numerous children, the wife kept an untidy home and made no attempt to cope with her husband or to control her boys and girls. The latter quarreled among themselves. The girl in question said that her father times kind to the others, never to her, and she therefore avoided hi She can recall no show of affection from either parent during her wh

airly reliable indication that the parents did not get joy out of their children. In ch a family group the father, who should have exemplified to his children the provals and disapprovals which they would meet in social groupings other than the mily, failed in his function as a representative to them of the community. Parental iger had no significance because it was incalculable, immoderate, prompted not by ntiments but by nerves. Missing on the one hand the intimations of a fostering arental concern and on the other the incipient signs of demurring, the children eveloped no fineness of response. They might be described as socially hard of earing. In this connection it may not be fanciful to point out that when it came to he girl's love affairs, her sex impulses showed themselves with as little subtlety as had her father's anger. Her flirtations might be described as crass. What else could be expected of a young person who had never been initiated into that common social language of quiet looks, gestures, intonations, through which most of us learn to sense the feelings of others, and to express our own various shades of approval and disapproval? The social worker who knows this girl well speaks of her as being markedly "obtuse to public opinion." In the home of a foster mother she would hang around listening to conversations that did not concern her, and could not seem to take in the fact that she was not wanted. She was entirely untroubled and unashamed at the prospect of bearing a child out of wedlock and for a long time could not seem to grasp the fact that her standing with such a child was any different from that of a married woman. It is of interest to record that her marriage to a respectable man who knows nothing of her lapses is apparently sensitizing her social perceptions and awakening in her sentiment of family integrity. She is now anxious to keep her past concealed. The facts in this girl's family situation disclose two distinct aspects of the parentalfilial web that are important as clues not only to her case but to others in which they are likely to recur. They are, first, the socially irrelevant anger and, second, the deficient parental joy. Each of these represents an impairing of the function of a sentiment which contributes to right living.

In the second family the mother, a handsome, vigorous woman, was probably unfaithful to the father at one period; the sister's marriage was belated; two brothers have been pilferers. They do wrong, but they all apparently rebound; the mother and sister are leading unimpeachable lives, the brothers seem to be going perfectly straight. In their life at home this family enjoy each other. Every Sunday the married daughter, her husband, and children come to spend the afternoon with her parents-all of them, parents, brothers, and sisters, sitting together for talk. The mother is devoted to her illegitimate grandchild, as is also her husband; she gives it the best of care and passes it for her

The daughter in question "fell" said, fully instructed in sex matters her child began on slight acquaintance least sentiment between them, or even a Nor had the man suggested marriage. W answered that she did it "to please him." Th her said her head seemed filled with the idea of bei ceremony. Neither she nor her family took her si they appeared highly

turned against the marriage. Their one concern was to keep the incident concealed from neighbors.

These facts, together with the sister's belated marriage and the mother's probable lapse from fidelity, indicate this family's attitude towards marriage. They apparently looked upon a husband as a supporting male a good enough notion so far as it goes, but, taken by itself, a notion on the infra-personal level. Their cheerfulness over the prospect of a marriage brought about under what would ordinarily be considered unpropitious and humiliating conditions suggests that in their minds sex-gratification was a sufficient guaranty of happiness. Their idea of sex attraction was what Wilfred Lay would call an immature or disintegrated conception, since it included neither affection nor companionship and therefore did not rise to the sentiment of love. As a correlative to this family lack in sex sentiment was the mother's apparent lack of respect for marriage as an institution. She fell short in her function as priestess of the home.

In this illustration family life, admirable on the personal level, is accompanied by an unsocialized attitude towards marriage which was apparently a factor in the daughter's uncontrol. The two outstanding aspects in her family situation were, first, that her mother failed as a steadying symbol of wedlock to the girl's inchoate sex-promptings, and, second, that the very congeniality of the whole family group made them self-sufficient and inattentive to outside opinion. These aspects may be conveniently termed maternal symbol of wedlock and self-sufficient family group.

The third family, respectable elderly people, fond of each other, not only took the greatest joy in their daughter but gave her religious instruction and all the educational opportunities their means would allow. The girl was of a pliant, affectionate disposition and fully returned their devotion, spending most of her time out of school or working hours at home. This she did in spite of being very popular among the church people and neighborhood. The community contained few young people, and the two or three young men in town the girl knew but slightly. When she became pregnant the only men whose names were suggested as possibly responsible were several old friends of the parents, in age two to three times that of the girl. Although one of these men had paid her considerable attention the mother said he could not possibly be responsible because she herself had always been present when 1. The two had never been alone. She remarked when expressing her g that she had hoped no one would ever want to marry the girl keep her for herself. The responsible man was married. It was standing familiar affection developing into something more.

In this case the daughter was apparently thought of as a house maid rather than as a person who was to assume adult responsibil nature was sensitized to a quickness of sympathy and readiness in that made her everywhere beloved-and then her parents wished to l field of family relationship to the filial senti

took their one opportunity towards wideni

The phrase which I suggest as giving

is affectional parental monopoly.

In judging the validity of these analyses histories were not written nor were the facts view. Moreover, the social vocabulary used by

notably in the use of descriptive adjectives, that in spite of careful checking up I may still have received mistaken impressions. In fact, any advance in the scientific standing of case work is conditioned upon a refining of our descriptive vocabulary. It is with this in mind that I am attempting to supply such interpretative terms as self-sufficient family life, affectionate parental monopoly, etc., to identify clue-aspects for each relationship. As one case history follows another, all analyzed on the same general plan, these terms will begin to take on an explicitness of meaning which at present they lack. Meanwhile even the vague terms with which we begin will have the effect of leading workers to observe with more discrimination and to note more alertly the significant indications of interplay between endowment and milieu. Such improvised terms as socially irrelevant anger, affectionate parental monopoly, do at least this: they supply a worker with a set of expectations as to the possibilities within a case. And she will work with the inspiriting conviction that she is testing her observations by ideas destined to count in a science of society.

B. METHODS OF ASSEMBLING MATERIAL

Caroline S. Bedford, Assistant General Secretary, Associated Charities, Minneapolis

The difficulty of sorting out important information from a mass of unrelated details is not a new one. Experiments have been made along two lines, one in keeping unessential items out of the record, the other in gathering into usable form information scattered through pages of rambling history. The former method makes a stronger appeal, as being more scientific and more economical of time and effort, but is attended by greater dangers.

In some societies for child care this end has been attained by waiting until the completion of the investigation, or of each phase of treatment before recording it. Another method of securing the same results is by lengthening the intervals between dictation. Either method calls for the use of notes and a daybook for the intervening period lest there be gaps in the record and slips in treatment. Others have experimented with divided records, one for material of permanent value, the other for temporary jottings. Until we shall have perfected a better technique or until we can keep our visitors longer in training, most of our efforts must be devoted to the d line experimentation, ny that of making available the information now uring the visitor a working knowledge of it