Author Information
Beatrice Webb Social Reformer
Beatrice Potter was a sickly child who read a lot. During her youth she was greatly influenced by the sociologist Herbert Spencer who often visited her father. She took up social work in London where she was dismayed by the general failure to get at the roots of poverty. During her research she was advised to get in touch with another British social economist, her future husband Sidney James Webb; she was told he was a "mine of information."
Before Sidney met Beatrice, George Bernard Shaw introduced him to the Fabian Society. Sidney wrote a tract for the society,Facts for Sociologists, wherein he succinctly argued that public knowledge of the social facts of industrial society is essential to effective reform. Then he met Beatrice and they married. While on their honeymoon, the Webbs investigated trade union records in Glasgow and Dublin.
The Webbs lived on Beatrice's inheritance and publications. They were both prolific writers and historical researchers. Beatrice, for example, wrote the Minority Report, an early outline of the welfare state, wherein she spelled out an universal social insurance scheme (1911). Yet their greatest influence was on the practical development of social institutions, especially schools. For instance, Beatrice founded the London School of Economics.
The Webbs used their "permeation" strategy to permeate the offices of influential people and convert them to Fabian views regardless of their political affiliation. The Webbs had a strong influence on the Labor Party, but their influence on the Fabians diminished when it fell under the spell of the socialist novelist H.G. Wells and the left-winger G.D.H. Cole.
In 1932 the Webbs travelled to the U.S.S.R. and "fell in love" with what they saw, then wrote Soviet Communism: a New Civilization?Since that time they appeared to have abandoned their long-standing policy of gradual reform.
In their working relationship, Sidney provided the facts, Beatrice the insight. They really got along toether famously, and that irritated some people.
- Beatrice was impressed by Francis Galton's statement: "Did I ever tell you," he said, "that I have always made it a habit to pray before writing anything for publication, that there be no self-seeking in it, and perfect candor, together with respect for the feelings of others?" Life of Francis Galton by Karl Pearson
- She applied William James' Will to Believe and H. Vaihinger's As If notions to her work with the understanding that, if a hypothesis must be adopted to proceed with a social endeavor, then it is best to pick the one which yields the richest results in the pursuit of happiness. This is the proper course to follow because "...there is a spirit of love at work in the universe..."
- "Very early in my life as a social investigator I realized that science deals only with the processes of life. It has little to say of the purpose of life. We can learn through science how best to kill... to cure... but no amount of personal observation or statistical inquiry will tell us whether we ought to kill or to cure."
- As a social reformer Beatrice was caught up in the controversy between religion and science. She remarked, "Like the majority of the human race I have an incipient religious temperament, the yearning for the mental security of a spiritual home. She quoted Professor Whitehead's statement: "Religion is the vision of something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized." She responded, "This vision... is associated in my experience with an intuitive use of prayer." She attributed the decline of religion in part to its efforts to impose its mythical facts of past and future events on science, such as the six days of creation and the apocalypse, instead of sticking to its own domain, the spiritual needs of humankind. The interference caused religion to be scoffed at and discredited. Her moderate view was not appreciated by extremists on either side, hence she was an outcast to both.
- "But why should we try to describe the invisible world?" Beatrice asked. "All we can do is to explain our own state of mind, so that we may enter into communion with those of like temperament, and thus encourage and strengthen each other in our common pilgrimage through life."
- "Men of science endowed with the religious temperament are to-day reinterpreting the mystical meaning of the universe, and it is they who may bring about a new synthesis between our discovery of the true and our self-dedication to the beautiful and the good."
- According to Beatrice, the statistical "average man" provides us with a working concept of what is common to all men; but we do not bump into the average man on the street: in a sense, his existence is mystical. But the actual individual man is an exception to the common man, hence the individual man shall always be outside the scope of social science. The influence of exceptional men and groups on society make history unpredictable. However, she said, "Woe betide the great man, be he prophet or warrior or statesman, who forgets not only that the common man exists, but also that it is with the common man he has to deal."
- She believed abstractions such as "equality" and "justice" must be defined in sociological terms; that is, in statistical terms derived from first-hand experience with actual conditions in the field. Conclusions derived from field research should be the basis for experiments designed to change the conditions. For instance, we must do something about poverty at its roots, not simply wait for the poor to apply for relief. We should not threaten people with the workhouse because they apply for relief, but should seek them out and remove the cause of their unemployment. We should welcome every child to school and make sure she or he is healthy; mothers should be instructed in childcare, parents should be prosecuted for wilful neglect.
- The reforms advocated by Beatrice Webb and like-minded activists were disparaged, yet after the reforms were in place for 30 years, statistics vindicated them. For example, the death rate for babies dropped by fifty percent.
