The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-11-29

Washington, d. c.. Nov. ga
new type OF professional man. the
social engineer, is about to be in
troduced to the public. II you
think Of sociology, its problems OF
alleys, community centers.. indus
trial relations, and institutions, and
then think of an engineer, per-
son who plans and constructs. you
may have an idea Of the new social
engineer and his Job.
Communities have made remark
able progress in the last 100 years.
When you consider the intricate
machinery that. directs q 1city's &C
tivities you feel complacently that
you are living in an enlightened
age. But there are still still great
defects in management. Most OF
our charities, for instance, are now
widely regarded as evidence of bad
management on the part of COM
munity. II proper preventive meas
ures were taken, we are told, vice,
! crime and disease could be reduc-
ed to q minimum, and the charities
they entail would be largely un-
necessary.
But instead of attacking evils at
the root, communities busily en-
gage in what one social expert calls
"mopping up work" Everyone
knows that alleys and tenements
breed crime and vice, and that they
are in the long run expensive. Yet
millions of dollars are regularly
put up for prison relief, homes for
abandoned mothers and milk for
underfed babies, while tits next to
| impossible to raise money to re-
place tenement conditions with
something better.
The latter course would mean in
many cities great reorganization.
and cities have always shrunk from
| trying to, tackle number of So
cial problems at once. 1t seems
easier to fight vice at one time with
a board and committees of special
lists, and to take another time to
campaign against defective SANTA
ton.
Into this situation comes the So
cial engineer. He is called in by a
city or county to point out the de-
fects in its management and to sug-
gest way to correct these defects.
He surveys the entire social organ
ization, makes a written report, and
leaves the community practical
working plan to be carried out.
| This may we'll seem an enormous
task. We have become so used to
the idea that person must spe-
cialize in a subject before he can
be an authority that we instantly
ask how a man can be specialist
on the entire social structure. The
answer to this is that this new pro-
fessional man is not specialist
He is generalist.
A Practical Generalist.
The social engineer represents a
reaction against tendency toward
over-specializatio Some students
of the world and its affairs say that
specialization has become so acute
/ that few peonle are seeing things
in their true proportion. Too OFTEN
a specialists own cross section OF
knowledge fills his horizon and 9th
er mems work fades into insignifi-
canoe in his opinion. This is one
theory to explain why cities con-
tinue to struggle along with out
worn institutions. The experts do
not have a panoramic view of con-
ditions.
The social engineer. being a prac-
teal generalist, is supposed to gel
a panoramic view, and, what is
more difficult, he is supposed to
make the community's specialists
and workers get it. That is, per
haps. his biggest task. =
This work is quite obviously a