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Max Horkheimer (Hrsg.): Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 4. Jg 1935, Heft 1 |
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The growth of the social Sciences as systematic subjects in the United States have accompanied the growth of state and private universities which have made funds available to specialists. As generally in Europe, persons of independent and private means have given little attention to investigation and thought in any of the fields — economics, politics, history, and sociology. Of history, perhaps, an exception should be made, for the work of Rhodes, Henry C. Lea, Beveridge, George Fort, Milton, Bowers, and other non-professional historians who occupy an important place in American historiography. A few economists, such as Stuart Chase, have also operated outside university circles. But judging by volume, if not by quality, American writings in the social sciences are, in the main, academic products. The names of Walker, Clark, Hadley, Jameson, Veblen, Mitchell, Merriam, Lester F. Ward, Giddings, Ross, and Boas, for instance, illustrate the general rule. The United States have produced no Herbert Spencer operating alone on resources not derived from institutions of higher learning. On the whole it may be said with safety that research and writing in the social sciences have fallen into professorial hands and that apart from history few distinguished systematic works in this domain have come from independent amateurs.
To some extent this situation may be explained historically. It has been often said that American citizens were too busily engrossed in conquering and subduing a continent to give much attention to the humanities and the arts. In a certain measure this is true, but it contains a large element of falsehood also. For more than two hundred years there have been large fortunes in the United States, and descendants of the original accumulators have had abundant leisure to devote to studies in the humanities. It is a simple fact that most of them have gone into the business world or sports, pleasures, and loafing. Men and women of wealth in this country have preferred to give money rather than
Max Horkheimer (Hrsg.): Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 4. Jg 1935, Heft 1. Librairie Felix Alcan, Paris 1935, Seite 61. Digitale Volltext-Ausgabe bei Wikisource, URL: https://de.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Seite:Zeitschrift_f%C3%BCr_Sozialforschung_-_Jahrgang_4_-_Heft_1.pdf/63&oldid=- (Version vom 21.8.2022)
