ABSTRACT
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) is best known as one of the founding fathers of sociology. He developed the fi rst European university department of sociology in 1888 and started one of the earliest journals devoted to the science of sociology in 1898. His major professional concern was how societies were organized and how they functioned. He wrote about how the diff erent parts of a society operated independently and interdependently, and recognized that educational institutions were one of the most important parts of a society because they insured the passing of societal values from generation to generation.
