The social sciences press: France.

The article comments on the role of scientific periodicals in France. In giving a brief account of the various social science periodicals, people should begin by recalling certain features which characterize the organization of these sciences in France and their place within the university system and institutionalized research. Note should therefore be taken of the fact that the social sciences have not been given a specific place within the French university structure, in which their position is only a precarious one. Due also to the fact that there is reluctance to accept them among the scientific disciplines taught in universities, the social sciences are less studied as sciences in France than they are in other countries. They are cultivated more for the practical results they may be expected to yield than for the development of their theory. In the social sciences, the people engaged in teaching or the promotion of research and studies are less often pure scholars working within their own speciality than is the case in other branches of science. The political scientist is, of course, the first to claim that political science is quite a different thing from politics and that, if he happens to take part in the political life of his country, lie does this as a citizen, in the same way as the physicist or the chemist.