Plot: 4/9. It’s absurd but a little comical. I would give a higher score if what Searles did could be put in more detail.
Halloway, the president and dean boorishly demanded Wilton Caswell, the head of Halloway’s Sociology department, to produce something tangible. So over a lunch, they decided to experiment Caswell’s formula for the snowball on the Watashaw Sewing Circle by informing Searles, its natural leader, of the formula.
Four months later, Halloway who wondered the progress found astonishingly that the Sewing Circle evolved into welfare meeting. By the fifth month, it added a mutual babysitting service and a nursery school. It issued a full-fledged scheme for slum clearance at the first day of the sixth month and hence attracted more industries and business. By the second week, the club had incorporated itself as the Watashaw Mutual Trade and Civic Development with all the local real estate promoters joining en masse.
So at the end of the month, Halloway phoned Caswell to congratulate his victory and intended to stop the experiment. But Caswell said since he didn’t complicate the formula with negatives, the only way to stop it was by waiting for their natural inner crumple owing to the size and the population of the small town. But Halloway thought Caswell ignored people’s ingenuity for they had already changed their topic and opened a new branch in New York.
Caswell then blamed the current uncontrollable scenario on Halloway who had pushed him for a demonstration at first. So after Halloway figured out it might conquer the world in 12 years or so, he decided to forget about all of it.
Core: 2/9. It’s centered on the usage of Sociology. However, it has some flaws:
- How could Caswell ensure it’s his simple formula other than Searles’ effort or special condition that contributed to the success? He jumped to the conclusion without even monitoring or analyzing it postmortem especially when something unexpected happened.
- If Caswell had such an impossible capability to boost organizations, he would be wanted by every company or organization naturally. Why did he not experiment on his own school or help Halloway soliciting more students or funds?