Methods of social study / by Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

  • Sidney Webb
Date:
1932
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Methods of social study / by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    80/284 (page 68)
    cisms, even to the extent of forcing one’s self both to feel and to express gratitude for the most destructive demolitions of one’s own pet ideas. The Misuse of the Questionnaire A record of misadventure is often of greater value to future explorers than a tale of unchecked advance. In our first investigation, that into the Trade Union Movement, we made a false start. What could be more promising than to open the campaign of in¬ vestigation by elaborating a list of questions to be answered by those who knew the facts? We might thus, it seemed, avoid a sea of troubles—unnecessary journeys to and fro, and endless conversations with all sorts and conditions of men. So proud were we of these hundred and twenty questions, to which we had given a full week’s work, displayed under twenty separate headings, on separate detachable sheets, with spaces left for the answers, that, with¬ out even estimating the cost, we forthwith ordered a thousand copies to be printed off. We visualised trade union officials sitting down to write detailed answers to these elaborate questions, whilst em¬ ployers and government inspectors would turn over the leaves of our questionnaire, duly impressed with the impartiality and perspicacity of the Webbs, and convinced of the worthwhileness of correcting or supplementing their already extensive knowledge of the relations between employers and employed. Alas for the blank wall of self-complacency! Lest