Otthein Rammstedt was an outstanding sociologist who spent most of his life editing Georg Simmel’s Gesamtausgabe, or collected works. Rammstedt gave much of his strength and energy to get this important publication completed. In 1993, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Simmel’s death, we put together a selection of his works and the articles written in his honor which was published in 1994 in the second issue of the Sociological Journal. Rammstedt then provided us with his manuscript on Simmel which we are going to republish in the Sociological Education section of our quarterly. His manuscript deserves to be published anew, not just for sad reasons — in the last issue, we announced that Ramstedt passed away after having completed his huge body of work — but also for reasons that are quite substantial. Classical sociology may seem to be a completed project, but it is still a resource that has not been fully exhausted or fully evaluated. The article by Rammstedt, who was experienced not only in the history of sociology but in its theory as well and was the long-term dean of the Faculty of Sociology in Bielefeld University, one of the most renowned sociological institutions in Europe, allows us to see how much we can take from the legacy of the classics. His text has obviously retained its considerable suitability, but, like many classical sociological writings, it needs a new revision or even perhaps a new translation. In any case, we hope this publication will give a new impetus to the study of Simmel’s writings as well as of sociological classics, while at the same time paying a debt of gratitude to the prominent German sociologist, Otthein Rammstedt