Lester Frank Ward

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Lester Frank Ward
Lester Frank Ward

Lester F. Ward (June 18, 1841–April 18, 1913) was an American botanist, paleontologist, and sociologist. He served as the first president of the American Sociological Association. Ward was born in Joliet, Illinois.

By the early 1880s the new field of sociology had become dominated by ideologues of the left and right, both determined to claim "the science of society" as their own. The champion of the conservatives and businessmen was Herbert Spencer; he was opposed on the left by Karl Marx. Although Spencer and Marx disagreed about many things they were similar in that their systems were static: they both claimed to have devined the inmutable stages of development that a society went through and they both taught that mankind was essentially helpless before the force of evolution.

With the publication of Dynamic Sociology in 1883, Lester Ward hoped to restore the central importance of experimentation and the scientific method to the field of sociology. For Ward science wasn't cold or impersonal, it was human centered and results oriented. As he put it in the Preface to Dynamic Sociology: "The real object of science is to benefit man. A science which fails to do this, however agreeable its study, is lifeless. Sociology, which of all sciences should benefit man most, is in danger of falling into the class of polite amusements, or dead sciences. It is the object of this work to point out a method by which the breath of life may be breathed into its nostrils."

Ward theorized that poverty could be minimized or eliminated by the systematic intervention of society. Mankind wasn't helpless before the impersonal force of nature and evolution -- through the power of Mind, man could take control of the situation and direct the evolution of human society. This theory is known as telesis. Also see: meliorism, sociocracy and public sociology

A sociology which intelligently and scientifically directed the social and economic development of society should institute a universal and comprehensive system of education, regulate competition, connect the people together on the basis of equal opportunities and cooperation, and promote the happiness and the freedom of everyone.

Ward was a strong advocate for equal rights for women and even theorized that women were naturally superior to men, much to the scorn of mainstream sociologists. Ward is now considered a feminist writer by historians such as Ann Taylor Allen.

While Marx and communism/socialism never really caught on in the United States, Spencer and his theories of social Darwinism (note: Ward disliked the term social Darwinism and objected to Darwin's name being applied to theories advocated by Spencer and his supporters. See Discussion page for a quote by Ward on this issue.) became famous: he was the leading light for conservatives and the power elite. Ward placed himself in direct opposition to Spencer and Spencer's American disciple, William Graham Sumner, who had become the most well known and widely read American sociologist by single-mindedly promoting the principles of laissez faire and survival of the fittest. To quote the historian Henry Steele Commager: "Ward was the first major scholar to attack this whole system of negativist and absolutist sociology and he remains the ablest.... Before Ward could begin to formulate that science of society which he hoped would inaugurate an era of such progress as the world had not yet seen, he had to destroy the superstitions that still held domain over the mind of his generation. Of these, laissez faire was the most stupefying, and it was on the doctrine of laissez faire that he trained his heaviest guns. The work of demolition performed in Dynamic Sociology, Psychic Factors and Applied Sociology was thorough."

Ward died in Washington, D.C..

Contents

[edit] Quotes

"Every implement or utensil, every mechanical device...is a triumph of mind over the physical forces of nature in ceaseless and aimless competition. All human institutions--religion, government, law, marriage, custom--together with innumerable other modes of regulating social, industrial and commercial life are, broadly viewed, only so many ways of meeting and checkmating the principle of competition as it manifests itself in society." --Lester Ward

"Thus far, social progress has in a certain awkward manner taken care of itself, but in the near future it will have to be cared for. To do this, and maintain the dynamic condition against all the hostile forces which thicken with every new advance, is the real problem of sociology considered as an applied science" --Lester Ward

"And now from the point of view of intellectual development it self we find her side by side, and shoulder to shoulder with him furnishing, from the very outset, far back in prehistoric, presocial, and even prehuman times, the necessary complement to his otherwise one-sided, headlong, and wayward career, without which he would soon have warped and distorted the race and rendered it incapable of the very progress which he claims exclusively to inspire. And herefore again, even in the realm of intellect, where he would fain reign supreme, she has proved herself fully his equal and is entitled to her share of whatever credit attaches to human progress hereby achieved." -- Lester Ward

[edit] Literature

  • Burnham, John C. Lester Frank Ward in American thought. Washington, D.C., 1956.
  • S. Chugerman, Lester F. Ward, The American Aristotle (1939, repr. 1965).
  • Rafferty, Edward C. Apostle of Human Progress. Lester Frank Ward and American Political Thought, 1841/1913. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford, 2003.
  • Chapter 4 of Hofstadter, Richard. Social Darwinism in American Thought (original 1944, 1955; reprint Boston: Beacon Press, 1992).
  • Chriss, James J. (2006): "The Place of Lester Ward among the Sociological Classics," Journal of Classical Sociology 6 (1): 5-21.
  • Commager, Henry Steele; The American Mind; Chapter 10: Lester Ward and the Science of Society; Yale University Press; 1950.
  • Becker, Ernest; Escape From Evil; Free Press, reissue edition; 1985.
  • Finlay, Barbara; Lester Frank Ward as a Sociologist Of Gender: A New Look at His Sociological Work; Gender & Society, Vol. 13, No. 2, 251-265 (1999) http://gas.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/2/251
  • Ravitch, Diane; Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms; Simon & Schuster; Chapter one: The Educational Ladder http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/r/ravitch-back.html
  • Mers, Adelheid; Fusion (graphic art, needs to be magnified) http://adelheidmers.org/aweb/fusion.pdf
  • Rafferty, Edward C.; “The Right to the Use of the Earth:” Herbert Spencer, the Washington Intellectual Community, and American Conservation in the Late Nineteenth Century; http://www.historians.org/annual/2006/06program/precirculated/Session145_Rafferty.pdf
  • Coser, Lewis; A History of Sociological Analysis, Basic Books, New York http://www.sociology.ccsu.edu/adair/american_trends_by_lewis_coser.htm

[edit] External links

[edit] Major works

Notice: If the Geocities' links below are unavailable try this site: Ward pdfs

[edit] See also

History of feminism

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