86 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
having not only the dominant economic approach, but many correlative ones, survives from the time of David Hume and Adam Smith, Ferguson and Miller, Robertson and Kames. Con- tinuing this, and also the Scottish tradition of intercourse with continental thought, Professor Geddes began in Edinburgh, about 1880, sociological teaching, which has since grown into an extra- mural school of sociology. Its record of publication is not con- siderable, but its efforts have been rather directed to a combina- tion of speculative and practical work, sociological observation and research being considered as theoretical activities, which have been given their full cultural value only when conjoined with practical efforts toward social progress, either urban or rural. Hence the usefulness and productivity of this school, in the direc- tion of education and hygiene, housing and art; in a word, by civic rather than literary activities. Its aim in science, and its policy in education, are alike summed up in Professor Geddes' phrase " social survey for social service." This is well seen in its characteristic achievement on the educational side the "Out- look Tower," a sociological station described by Professor Zueblin as "The World's First Sociological Laboratory," in the American Journal of Sociology, March, 1899. Some of the main ideas inspiring the origin and designing of the Outlook Tower are:
1. Sociology, like all other sciences, must be based on factual observations, methodically made, systematically arranged, and generalized by the aid of verifiable hypotheses.
2. The student's observations may best begin with field investigation of the facts of his own region ; and for this he must utilize the resources of the preliminary sciences, commencing with those of geography, passing on through the physical and the biological sciences, and finally calling in the aid of the several social specialisms, economic and other. From this "regional survey " of his immediate environment the student passes on to a comparative study of his own and other regional units, of city and province, nation and empire, language and civilization, till the expanding area of observation and study covers the globe.
3. Observation of contemporary social phenomena soon leads
