Original Writings as the Text

T HE two-volume book, The People Shall 7udge,1 is one of a number of current publications which have had their origin in general courses in the social sciences. It is one of a smaller number of publications which consist of original papers, rather than a compendium of textbook variety. But in addition to this, the papers which make up this book have been selected by a staff of instructors on the basis of five years of experimentation and staff discussion. Thus, these readings lay claim to effectiveness on the grounds of being proved through experience rather than through some set of more or less a priori considerations. This claim is certainly not unique but it is sufficiently distinctive, and important, to require elaboration. What were the starting points, the problems encountered, the alternatives weighed, and the conclusions reached which led to making the book what it is? This paper will attempt to answer these questions, not after the fashion of an historical narrative-the interplay of trial and discussion among a cooperating staff is too complex to allow that-but by identifying some of the chief elements in the process. The staff of Social Sciences i worked from the first on the generally prevalent assumption that the purpose of general courses in the social sciences was to develop good citizens and that, whatever else good citizenship embraced, the capacity to think intelligently about social issues was an important part of it. For a starting point in discovering both the real meaning in such a statement and the means of achieving such an end, the staff took as plausible the idea that students could be brought to think intelligently about social issues by the process of re-thinking such issues critically as they were discussed by some of the best thinkers in the American past. Some of the negative implications 'Selected and edited by the various members of the Staff, Social Sciences i, the College of the University of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago PrPQQe IrAAA

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