The Subject Matter of Sociology in College Education.

The subject matter of sociology in college education. Sociology today is a generally accepted course in under-graduate curricula, but nobody can say what the proper subject of sociology really is. Some teachers hold that this is clue to the fact that sociology as a science is so young that it has not yet succeeded in circumscribing its area, but that in due time the true meaning of sociology, will emerge out of the growing compilation of figures and facts. Others accept the situation without scepticism or challenge, taking one of the textbooks of sociology and following the guidance of its author, or discussing all problems of actual interest in the field of the social sciences which do not have any other adequate place. They aim at drawing general conclusions from a broad variety of experiences. The results obtained are extremely meager, colorless, and trivial. They have brought about the opinion prevalent among social scientists who are not sociologists, that everything sociologists have to say is a bundle of banalities and that sociology is a science which tries to prove what everyone knew before anyway.