(6) Vierkandt, A. "Die politischen Verhaeltnisse der Naturvoelker," Zeitschrift fuer Sozialwissenschaft, IV, 417-26, 497-510.

(7) Lowie, Robert H. Primitive Society. Chap. x, "Associations," chap. xi, "Theory of Associations," pp. 257-337. New York, 1920.

(8) Zimmern, Alfred E. The Greek Commonwealth. Politics and economics in fifth-century Athens. 2d rev. ed. Oxford, 1915.

(9) Thomas, William I. Source Book for Social Origins. Ethnological materials, psychological standpoint, classified and annotated bibliographies for the interpretation of savage society. Part VII, "Social Organization, Morals, the State," pp. 753-869. Chicago, 1909. [Bibliography.]

B. Secret Societies

(1) Simmel, Georg. "The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies," translated from the German by Albion W. Small, American Journal of Sociology, XI (1905-6), 441-98.

(2) Heckethorn, C. W. The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries. A comprehensive account of upwards of one hundred and sixty secret organizations—religious, political, and social—from the most remote ages down to the present time. New ed., rev. and enl., 2 vols. London, 1897.

(3) Webster, Hutton. Primitive Secret Societies. A study in early politics and religion. New York, 1908.

(4) Schuster, G. Die geheimen Gesellschaften, Verbindungen und Orden. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1906.

(5) Boas, Franz. "The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians," U.S. National Museum, Annual Report, 1895, pp. 311-738. Washington, 1897.

(6) Frobenius, L. "Die Masken und Geheimbuende Afrikas," Abhandlungen der Kaiserlichen Leopoldinisch-Carolinischen deutschen Akademie der Naturforscher, LXXIV, 1-278.

(7) Pfleiderer, Otto. Primitive Christianity, Its Writings and Teachings in Their Historical Connections. Vol. III, chap, i, "The Therapeutae and the Essenes," pp. 1-22. Translated from the German by W. Montgomery. New York, 1910.

(8) Jennings, Hargrave. The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries. 3d rev. and enl. ed., 2 vols. London, 1887.

(9) Stillson, Henry L., and Klein, Henri F. Article on "The Masonic Fraternity," The Americana, XVIII, 383-89. [Bibliography.]

(10) Johnston, R. M. The Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy and the Rise of the Secret Societies. Part II, "The Rise of the Secret Societies," Vol. II, pp. 3-139, 153-55; especially chap. ii, "Origin and Rites of the Carbonari," Vol. II, pp. 19-44. London, 1904. [Bibliography.]

(11) Fleming, Walter L. Documentary History of Reconstruction. Vol. II, chap. xii, "The Ku Klux Movement," pp. 327-77. Cleveland, 1907.

(12) Lester, J. C., and Wilson, D. L. The Ku Klux Klan. Its origin, growth, and disbandment. With appendices containing the prescripts of the Ku Klux Klan, specimen orders and warnings. With introduction and notes by Walter L. Fleming. New York and Washington, 1905.

(13) La Hodde, Lucien de. The Cradle of Rebellions. A history of the secret societies of France. Translated from the French by J. W. Phelps. New York, 1864.

(14) Spadoni, D. Sette, cospirazioni e cospiratori nello Stato Pontificio all'indomani della restaurazioni. Torino, 1904.

(15) "Societies, Criminal," The Americana, XXV, 201-5.

(16) Clark, Thomas A. The Fraternity and the College. Being a series of papers dealing with fraternity problems. Menasha, Wis., 1915.

C. Social Types

(1) Thomas, W. I., and Znaniecki, F. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. Monograph of an immigrant group. Vol. III, "Life Record of an Immigrant." Boston, 1919. ["Introduction," pp. 5-88, analyzes and interprets three social types: the philistine, the bohemian, and the creative.]

(2) Paulhan, Fr. Les caracteres. Livre II, "Les types determines par les tendances sociales," pp. 143-89. Paris, 1902.

(3) Rousiers, Paul de. L'elite dans la societe moderne. Son role, etc. Paris, 1914.

(4) Bradford, Gamaliel, Jr. Types of American Character. New York, 1895.

(5) Kellogg, Walter G. The Conscientious Objector. Introduction by Newton D. Baker. New York, 1919.

(6) Hapgood, Hutchins. Types from City Streets. New York, 1910.

(7) Bab, Julius. Die Berliner Boheme. Berlin, 1905.

(8) Cory, H. E. The Intellectuals and the Wage Workers. A study in educational psychoanalysis. New York, 1919.

(9) Buchanan, J. R. The Story of a Labor Agitator. New York, 1903.

(10) Taussig, F. W. Inventors and Money-Makers. New York, 1915.

(11) Stoker, Bram. Famous Impostors. London, 1910.

D. Community Organization

(1) Galpin, Charles J. "Rural Relations of the Village and Small City," University of Wisconsin Bulletin No. 411.

(2) ——. Rural Life. Chaps. vii-xi, pp. 153-314. New York, 1918.

(3) Hayes, A. W. Rural Community Organization. Chicago, 1921. [In Press.]

(4) Morgan, E. L. "Mobilizing a Rural Community," Massachusetts Agricultural College, Extension Bulletin No. 23. Amherst, 1918.

(5) "Rural Organization," Proceedings of the Third National Country Life Conference, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1920. Chicago, 1921.

(6) Hart, Joseph K. Community Organization. New York, 1920.

(7) National Social Unit Organization, Bulletins 1, 2, 2a, 3, 4, 5. Cincinnati, 1917-19.

(8) Devine, Edward T. "Social Unit in Cincinnati," Survey, XLIII (1919), 115-26.

(9) Hicks, Mary L., and Eastman, Rae S. "Block Workers as Developed under the Social Unit Experiment in Cincinnati," Survey XLIV (1920), 671-74.

(10) Ward, E. J. The Social Center. New York, 1913. [Bibliography.]

(11) Collier, John. "Community Councils—Democracy Every Day," Survey, XL (1918), 604-6; 689-91; 709-11. [Describes community defense organizations formed in rural and urban districts during the war.]

(12) Weller, Charles F. "Democratic Community Organization," An after-the-war experiment in Chester, Survey, XLIV (1920), 77-79.

(13) Rainwater, Clarence E. Community Organization. Sociological Monograph No. 15, University of Southern California. Los Angeles, 1920. [Bibliography.]

TOPICS FOR WRITTEN THEMES

1. Biological Accommodation and Social Accommodation.

2. Acclimatization as Accommodation.

3. The Psychology of Accommodation.

4. Conversion as a Form of Accommodation: A Study of Mutations of Attitudes in Religion, Politics, Morals, Personal Relation, etc.

5. The Psychology and Sociology of Homesickness and Nostalgia.

6. Conflict and Accommodation: War and Peace, Enmity and Conciliation, Rivalry and Status.

7. Compromise as a Form of Accommodation.

8. The Subtler Forms of Accommodation: Flattery, "Front," Ceremony, etc.

9. The Organization of Attitudes in Accommodation: Prestige, Taboo, Rapport, Prejudice, Fear, etc.

10. Slavery, Caste, and Class as Forms of Accommodation.

11. The Description and Analysis of Typical Examples of Accommodation: the Political "Boss" and the Voter, Physician and Patient, the Coach and the Members of the Team, the Town Magnate and His Fellow-Citizens, "The Four Hundred" and "Hoi Polloi," etc.

12. Social Solidarity as the Organization of Competing Groups.

13. Division of Labor as a Form of Accommodation.

14. A Survey of Historical Types of the Family in Terms of the Changes in Forms of Subordination and Superordination of Its Members.

15. Social Types as Accommodations: the Quack Doctor, the Reporter, the Strike Breaker, the Schoolteacher, the Stockbroker, etc.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. How do you distinguish between biological adaptation and social accommodation?

2. Is domestication biological adaptation or accommodation?

3. Give illustrations of acclimatization as a form of accommodation.

4. Discuss phenomena of colonization with reference to accommodation.

5. What is the relation of lonesomeness to accommodation?

6. Do you agree with Nieboer's definition of slavery? Is the slave a person? If so, to what extent? How would you compare the serf with the slave in respect to his status?

7. To what extent do slavery and caste as forms of accommodation rest upon (a) physical force, (b) mental attitudes?

8. What is the psychology of subordination and superordination?

9. What do you understand to be the relation of suggestion and rapport to subordination and superordination?

10. What is meant by a person "knowing his place"?

11. How do you explain the attitude of "the old servant" to society? Do you agree with her in lamenting the change in attitude of persons engaged in domestic service?

12. What types of the subtler forms of accommodation occur to you?

13. What arguments would you advance for the proposition that the relation of superiority and inferiority is reciprocal?

14. "All leaders are also led, as in countless cases the master is the slave of his slaves." Explain.

15. What illustrations, apart from the text, occur to you of reciprocal relations in superiority and subordination?

16. What do you understand to be the characteristic differences of the three types of superordination and subordination?

17. How would you classify the following groups according to these three types: the patriarchal family, the modern family, England from 1660 to 1830, manufacturing enterprise, labor union, army, boys' gang, boys' club, Christianity, humanitarian movement?

18. What do you think Simmel means by the term "accommodation"?

19. How is accommodation related to peace?

20. Does accommodation end struggle?

21. In what sense does commerce imply accommodation?

22. What type of interaction is involved in compromise? What illustrations would you suggest to bring out your point?

23. Does compromise make for progress?

24. Is a compromise better or worse than either or both of the proposals involved in it?

25. What, in your judgment, is the relation of personal competition to the division of labor?

26. What examples of division of labor outside the economic field would you suggest?

27. What do you understand to be the relation of personal competition and group competition?

28. In what different ways does status (a) grow out of, and (b) prevent, the processes of personal competition and group competition?

29. To what extent, at the present time, is success in life determined by personal competition, and social selection by status?

30. In what ways does the division of labor make for social solidarity?

31. What is the difference between social solidarity based upon like-mindedness and based upon diverse-mindedness?

FOOTNOTES:

[221] Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, I, 15, 8.

[222] Social Organization, p. 4.

[223] A teacher in the public schools of Chicago came in possession of the following letter written to a friend in Mississippi by a Negro boy who had come to the city from the South two months previously. It illustrates his rapid accommodation to the situation including the hostile Irish group (the Wentworth Avenue "Mickeys").

Dear leon I write to you—to let you hear from me—Boy you don't know the time we have with Sled. it Snow up here Regular. We Play foot Ball. But Now we have So much Snow we don't Play foot Ball any More. We Ride on Sled. Boy I have a Sled call The king of The hill and She king to. tell Mrs. Sara that Coln Roscoe Conklin Simon Spoke at St Mark the church we Belong to.

Gus I havnt got chance to Beat But to Boy. Sack we show Runs them Mickeys. Boy them scoundle is bad on Wentworth Avenue.

Add 3123a Breton St Chi ill.

[224] From Daniel G. Brinton, The Basis of Social Relations, pp. 194-99. (Courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1902.)

[225] From Dr. H. J. Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System, pp. 1-7. (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1910.)

[226] From Matthew G. Lewis, Journal of a West India Proprietor, pp. 60-337. (John Murray, 1834.)

[227] From "Modern Theories of Caste: Mr. Nesfield's Theory," Appendix V, in Sir Herbert Risley, The People of India, pp. 407-8. (W. Thacker & Co., 1915.)

[228] From Sir Herbert Risley, The People of India, pp. 130-39. (W. Thacker & Co., 1915.)

[229] From Hugo Muensterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 259-64, (D. Appleton & Co., 1914.)

[230] Adapted from Domestic Service, by An Old Servant, pp. 10-110. (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917.)

[231] Adapted from a translation of Georg Simmel by Albion W. Small, "Superiority and Subordination," in the American Journal of Sociology, II (1896-97), 169-71.

[232] Adapted from a translation of Georg Simmel by Albion W. Small, "Superiority and Subordination," in the American Journal of Sociology, II (1896-97), 172-86.

[233] Adapted from a translation of Georg Simmel by Albion W. Small, "The Sociology of Conflict," in the American Journal of Sociology, IX (1903-4), 799-802.

[234] Adapted from a translation of Georg Simmel by Albion W. Small, "The Sociology of Conflict," in the American Journal of Sociology, IX (1903-4), 804-6.

[235] Adapted from Charles H. Cooley, "Personal Competition," in Economic Studies, IV (1899), No. 2, 78-86.

[236] From Robert E. Park, "The City," in the American Journal of Sociology, XX (1915), 584-86.

[237] Translated and adapted from Emile Durkheim, La division du travail social, pp. 24-209. (Felix Alcan, 1902.)

[238] Pure Sociology, p. 16.

[239] Mental Development in the Child and the Race, p. 23.

[240] Supra, pp. 218-19.



CHAPTER XI

ASSIMILATION

I. INTRODUCTION

1. Popular Conceptions of Assimilation

The concept assimilation, so far as it has been defined in popular usage, gets its meaning from its relation to the problem of immigration. The more concrete and familiar terms are the abstract noun Americanization and the verbs Americanize, Anglicize, Germanize, and the like. All of these words are intended to describe the process by which the culture of a community or a country is transmitted to an adopted citizen. Negatively, assimilation is a process of denationalization, and this is, in fact, the form it has taken in Europe.

The difference between Europe and America, in relation to the problem of cultures, is that in Europe difficulties have arisen from the forcible incorporation of minor cultural groups, i.e., nationalities, within the limits of a larger political unit, i.e., an empire. In America the problem has arisen from the voluntary migration to this country of peoples who have abandoned the political allegiances of the old country and are gradually acquiring the culture of the new. In both cases the problem has its source in an effort to establish and maintain a political order in a community that has no common culture. Fundamentally the problem of maintaining a democratic form of government in a southern village composed of whites and blacks, and the problem of maintaining an international order based on anything but force are the same. The ultimate basis of the existing moral and political order is still kinship and culture. Where neither exist, a political order, not based on caste or class, is at least problematic.

Assimilation, as popularly conceived in the United States, was expressed symbolically some years ago in Zangwill's dramatic parable of The Melting Pot. William Jennings Bryan has given oratorical expression to the faith in the beneficent outcome of the process: "Great has been the Greek, the Latin, the Slav, the Celt, the Teuton, and the Saxon; but greater than any of these is the American, who combines the virtues of them all."

Assimilation, as thus conceived, is a natural and unassisted process, and practice, if not policy, has been in accord with this laissez faire conception, which the outcome has apparently justified. In the United States, at any rate, the tempo of assimilation has been more rapid than elsewhere.

Closely akin to this "magic crucible" notion of assimilation is the theory of "like-mindedness." This idea was partly a product of Professor Giddings' theory of sociology, partly an outcome of the popular notion that similarities and homogeneity are identical with unity. The ideal of assimilation was conceived to be that of feeling, thinking, and acting alike. Assimilation and socialization have both been described in these terms by contemporary sociologists.

Another and a different notion of assimilation or Americanization is based on the conviction that the immigrant has contributed in the past and may be expected in the future to contribute something of his own in temperament, culture, and philosophy of life to the future American civilization. This conception had its origin among the immigrants themselves, and has been formulated and interpreted by persons who are, like residents in social settlements, in close contact with them. This recognition of the diversity in the elements entering into the cultural process is not, of course, inconsistent with the expectation of an ultimate homogeneity of the product. It has called attention, at any rate, to the fact that the process of assimilation is concerned with differences quite as much as with likenesses.

2. The Sociology of Assimilation

Accommodation has been described as a process of adjustment, that is, an organization of social relations and attitudes to prevent or to reduce conflict, to control competition, and to maintain a basis of security in the social order for persons and groups of divergent interests and types to carry on together their varied life-activities. Accommodation in the sense of the composition of conflict is invariably the goal of the political process.

Assimilation is a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons or groups, and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a common cultural life. In so far as assimilation denotes this sharing of tradition, this intimate participation in common experiences, assimilation is central in the historical and cultural processes.

This distinction between accommodation and assimilation, with reference to their role in society, explains certain significant formal differences between the two processes. An accommodation of a conflict, or an accommodation to a new situation, may take place with rapidity. The more intimate and subtle changes involved in assimilation are more gradual. The changes that occur in accommodation are frequently not only sudden but revolutionary, as in the mutation of attitudes in conversion. The modifications of attitudes in the process of assimilation are not only gradual, but moderate, even if they appear considerable in their accumulation over a long period of time. If mutation is the symbol for accommodation, growth is the metaphor for assimilation. In accommodation the person or the group is generally, though not always, highly conscious of the occasion, as in the peace treaty that ends the war, in the arbitration of an industrial controversy, in the adjustment of the person to the formal requirements of life in a new social world. In assimilation the process is typically unconscious; the person is incorporated into the common life of the group before he is aware and with little conception of the course of events which brought this incorporation about.

James has described the way in which the attitude of the person changes toward certain subjects, woman's suffrage, for example, not as the result of conscious reflection, but as the outcome of the unreflective responses to a series of new experiences. The intimate associations of the family and of the play group, participation in the ceremonies of religious worship and in the celebrations of national holidays, all these activities transmit to the immigrant and to the alien a store of memories and sentiments common to the native-born, and these memories are the basis of all that is peculiar and sacred in our cultural life.

As social contact initiates interaction, assimilation is its final perfect product. The nature of the social contacts is decisive in the process. Assimilation naturally takes place most rapidly where contacts are primary, that is, where they are the most intimate and intense, as in the area of touch relationship, in the family circle and in intimate congenial groups. Secondary contacts facilitate accommodations, but do not greatly promote assimilation. The contacts here are external and too remote.

A common language is indispensable for the most intimate association of the members of the group; its absence is an insurmountable barrier to assimilation. The phenomenon "that every group has its own language," its peculiar "universe of discourse," and its cultural symbols is evidence of the interrelation between communication and assimilation.

Through the mechanisms of imitation and suggestion, communication effects a gradual and unconscious modification of the attitudes and sentiments of the members of the group. The unity thus achieved is not necessarily or even normally like-mindedness; it is rather a unity of experience and of orientation, out of which may develop a community of purpose and action.

3. Classification of the Materials

The selections in the materials on assimilation have been arranged under three heads: (a) biological aspects of assimilation; (b) the conflict and fusion of cultures; and (c) Americanization as a problem in assimilation. The readings proceed from an analysis of the nature of assimilation to a survey of its processes, as they have manifested themselves historically, and finally to a consideration of the problems of Americanization.

a) Biological aspects of assimilation.—Assimilation is to be distinguished from amalgamation, with which it is, however, closely related. Amalgamation is a biological process, the fusion of races by interbreeding and intermarriage. Assimilation, on the other hand, is limited to the fusion of cultures. Miscegenation, or the mingling of races, is a universal phenomenon among the historical races. There are no races, in other words, that do not interbreed. Acculturation, or the transmission of cultural elements from one social group to another, however, has invariably taken place on a larger scale and over a wider area than miscegenation.

Amalgamation, while it is limited to the crossing of racial traits through intermarriage, naturally promotes assimilation or the cross-fertilization of social heritages. The offspring of a "mixed" marriage not only biologically inherits physical and temperamental traits from both parents, but also acquires in the nurture of family life the attitudes, sentiments, and memories of both father and mother. Thus amalgamation of races insures the conditions of primary social contacts most favorable for assimilation.

b) The conflict and fusion of cultures.—The survey of the process of what the ethnologists call acculturation, as it is exhibited historically in the conflicts and fusions of cultures, indicates the wide range of the phenomena in this field.

(1) Social contact, even when slight or indirect, is sufficient for the transmission from one cultural group to another of the material elements of civilization. Stimulants and firearms spread rapidly upon the objective demonstration of their effects. The potato, a native of America, has preceded the white explorer in its penetration into many areas of Africa.

(2) The changes in languages in the course of the contacts, conflicts, and fusions of races and nationalities afford data for a more adequate description of the process of assimilation. Under what conditions does a ruling group impose its speech upon the masses, or finally capitulate to the vulgar tongue of the common people? In modern times the printing-press, the book, and the newspaper have tended to fix languages. The press has made feasible language revivals in connection with national movements on a scale impossible in earlier periods.

The emphasis placed upon language as a medium of cultural transmission rests upon a sound principle. For the idioms, particularly of a spoken language, probably reflect more accurately the historical experiences of a people than history itself. The basis of unity among most historical peoples is linguistic rather than racial. The Latin peoples are a convenient example of this fact. The experiment now in progress in the Philippine Islands is significant in this connection. To what extent will the national and cultural development of those islands be determined by native temperament, by Spanish speech and tradition, or by the English language and the American school system?

(3) Rivers in his study of Melanesian and Hawaiian cultures was impressed by the persistence of fundamental elements of the social structure. The basic patterns of family and social life remained practically unmodified despite profound transformations in technique, in language, and in religion. Evidently many material devices and formal expressions of an alien society can be adopted without significant changes in the native culture.

The question, however, may be raised whether or not the complete adoption of occidental science and organization of industry would not produce far-reaching changes in social organization. The trend of economic, social, and cultural changes in Japan will throw light on this question. Even if revolutionary social changes actually occur, the point may well be made that they will be the outcome of the new economic system, and therefore not effects of acculturation.

(4) The rapidity and completeness of assimilation depends directly upon the intimacy of social contact. By a curious paradox, slavery, and particularly household slavery, has probably been, aside from intermarriage, the most efficient device for promoting assimilation.

Adoption and initiation among primitive peoples provided a ceremonial method for inducting aliens and strangers into the group, the significance of which can only be understood after a more adequate study of ceremonial in general.

c) Americanization as a problem of assimilation.—Any consideration of policies, programs, and methods of Americanization gain perspective when related to the sociology of assimilation. The "Study of Methods of Americanization," of the Carnegie Corporation, defines Americanization as "the participation of the immigrant in the life of the community in which he lives." From this standpoint participation is both the medium and the goal of assimilation. Participation of the immigrant in American life in any area of life prepares him for participation in every other. What the immigrant and the alien need most is an opportunity for participation. Of first importance, of course, is the language. In addition he needs to know how to use our institutions for his own benefit and protection. But participation, to be real, must be spontaneous and intelligent, and that means, in the long run, that the immigrant's life in America must be related to the life he already knows. Not by the suppression of old memories, but by their incorporation in his new life is assimilation achieved. The failure of conscious, coercive policies of denationalization in Europe and the great success of the early, passive phase of Americanization in this country afford in this connection an impressive contrast. It follows that assimilation cannot be promoted directly, but only indirectly, that is, by supplying the conditions that make for participation.

There is no process but life itself that can effectually wipe out the immigrant's memory of his past. The inclusion of the immigrant in our common life may perhaps be best reached, therefore, in co-operation that looks not so much to the past as to the future. The second generation of the immigrant may share fully in our memories, but practically all that we can ask of the foreign-born is participation in our ideals, our wishes, and our common enterprises.

II. MATERIALS

A. BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ASSIMILATION

1. Assimilation and Amalgamation[241]

Writers on historical and social science are just beginning to turn their attention to the large subject of social assimilation. That the subject has until recently received little attention is readily seen by a mere glance at the works of our leading sociologists and historians. The word itself rarely appears; and when the theme is touched upon, no clearly defined, stable idea seems to exist, even in the mind of the author. Thus Giddings at one time identifies assimilation with "reciprocal accommodation." In another place he defines it as "the process of growing alike," and once again he tells us it is the method by which foreigners in the United States society become Americans. Nor are M. Novicow's ideas on the subject perfectly lucid, for he considers assimilation sometimes as a process, at other times as an art, and again as a result. He makes the term "denationalization" coextensive with our "assimilation," and says that the ensemble of measures which a government takes for inducing a population to abandon one type of culture for another is denationalization. Denationalization by the authority of the state carries with it a certain amount of coercion; it is always accompanied by a measure of violence. In the next sentence, however, we are told that the word "denationalization" may also be used for the non-coercive process by which one nationality is assimilated with another. M. Novicow further speaks of the art of assimilation, and he tells us that the result of the intellectual struggle between races living under the same government, whether free or forced, is in every case assimilation. Burgess also takes a narrow view of the subject, restricting the operation of assimilating forces to the present and considering assimilation a result of modern political union. He says: "In modern times the political union of different races under the leadership of the dominant race results in assimilation."

From one point of view assimilation is a process with its active and passive elements; from another it is a result. In this discussion, however, assimilation is considered as a process due to prolonged contact. It may, perhaps, be defined as that process of adjustment or accommodation which occurs between the members of two different races, if their contact is prolonged and if the necessary psychic conditions are present. The result is group homogeneity to a greater or less degree. Figuratively speaking, it is the process by which the aggregation of peoples is changed from a mere mechanical mixture into a chemical compound.

The process of assimilation is of a psychological rather than of a biological nature, and refers to the growing alike in character, thoughts, and institutions, rather than to the blood-mingling brought about by intermarriage. The intellectual results of the process of assimilation are far more lasting than the physiological. Thus in France today, though nineteen-twentieths of the blood is that of the aboriginal races, the language is directly derived from that imposed by the Romans in their conquest of Gaul. Intermarriage, the inevitable result to a greater or less extent of race contact, plays its part in the process of assimilation, but mere mixture of races will not cause assimilation. Moreover, assimilation is possible, partially at least, without intermarriage. Instances of this are furnished by the partial assimilation of the Negro and the Indian of the United States. Thinkers are beginning to doubt the great importance once attributed to intermarriage as a factor in civilization. Says Mayo-Smith, "It is not in unity of blood but in unity of institutions and social habits and ideals that we are to seek that which we call nationality," and nationality is the result of assimilation.

2. The Instinctive Basis of Assimilation[242]

It is a striking fact that among animals there are some whose conduct can be generalized very readily in the categories of self-preservation, nutrition, and sex, while there are others whose conduct cannot be thus summarized. The behavior of the tiger and the cat is simple and easily comprehensible, whereas that of the dog with his conscience, his humor, his terror of loneliness, his capacity for devotion to a brutal master, or that of the bee with her selfless devotion to the hive, furnishes phenomena which no sophistry can assimilate without the aid of a fourth instinct. But little examination will show that the animals whose conduct it is difficult to generalize under the three primitive instinctive categories are gregarious. If, then, it can be shown that gregariousness is of a biological significance approaching in importance that of the other instincts we may expect to find in it the source of these anomalies of conduct, and of the complexity of human behavior.

Gregariousness seems frequently to be regarded as a somewhat superficial character, scarcely deserving, as it were, the name of an instinct, advantageous, it is true, but not of fundamental importance or likely to be deeply ingrained in the inheritance of the species. This attitude may be due to the fact that among mammals, at any rate, the appearance of gregariousness has not been accompanied by any very gross physical changes which are obviously associated with it.

To whatever it may be due, this method of regarding the social habit is, in the opinion of the present writer, not justified by the facts, and prevents the attainment of conclusions of considerable fruitfulness.

A study of bees and ants shows at once how fundamental the importance of gregariousness may become. The individual in such communities is completely incapable, often physically, of existing apart from the community, and this fact at once gives rise to the suspicion that, even in communities less closely knit than those of the ant and the bee, the individual may in fact be more dependent on communal life than appears at first sight.

Another very striking piece of general evidence of the significance of gregariousness as no mere late acquirement is the remarkable coincidence of its occurrence with that of exceptional grades of intelligence or the possibility of very complex reactions to environment. It can scarcely be regarded as an unmeaning accident that the dog, the horse, the ape, the elephant, and man are all social animals. The instances of the bee and the ant are perhaps the most amazing. Here the advantages of gregariousness seem actually to outweigh the most prodigious differences of structure, and we find a condition which is often thought of as a mere habit, capable of enabling the insect nervous system to compete in the complexity of its power of adaptation with that of the higher vertebrates.

From the biological standpoint the probability of gregariousness being a primitive and fundamental quality in man seems to be considerable. It would appear to have the effect of enlarging the advantages of variation. Varieties not immediately favorable, varieties departing widely from the standard, varieties even unfavorable to the individual, may be supposed to be given by it a chance of survival. Now the course of the development of man seems to present many features incompatible with its having proceeded among isolated individuals exposed to the unmodified action of natural selection. Changes so serious as the assumption of the upright posture, the reduction in the jaw and its musculature, the reduction in the acuity of smell and hearing, demand, if the species is to survive, either a delicacy of adjustment with the compensatingly developing intelligence so minute as to be almost inconceivable, or the existence of some kind of protective enclosure, however imperfect, in which the varying individuals may be sheltered from the direct influence of natural selection. The existence of such a mechanism would compensate losses of physical strength in the individual by the greatly increased strength of the larger unit, of the unit, that is to say, upon which natural selection still acts unmodified.

The cardinal quality of the herd is homogeneity. It is clear that the great advantage of the social habit is to enable large numbers to act as one, whereby in the case of the hunting gregarious animal strength in pursuit and attack is at once increased beyond that of the creatures preyed upon, and in protective socialism the sensitiveness of the new unit to alarms is greatly in excess of that of the individual member of the flock.

To secure these advantages of homogeneity, it is evident that the members of the herd must possess sensitiveness to the behavior of their fellows. The individual isolated will be of no meaning; the individual as part of the herd will be capable of transmitting the most potent impulses. Each member of the flock tending to follow his neighbor, and in turn to be followed, each is in some sense capable of leadership; but no lead will be followed that departs widely from normal behavior. A lead will only be followed from its resemblance to the normal. If the leader go so far ahead as definitely to cease to be in the herd, he will necessarily be ignored.

The original in conduct, that is to say, resistiveness to the voice of the herd, will be suppressed by natural selection; the wolf which does not follow the impulses of the herd will be starved; the sheep which does not respond to the flock will be eaten.

Again, not only will the individual be responsive to impulses coming from the herd but he will treat the herd as his normal environment. The impulse to be in and always to remain with the herd will have the strongest instinctive weight. Anything which tends to separate him from his fellows, as soon as it becomes perceptible as such, will be strongly resisted.

So far we have regarded the gregarious animal objectively. Let us now try to estimate the mental aspects of these impulses. Suppose a species in possession of precisely the instinctive endowments which we have been considering to be also self-conscious, and let us ask what will be the forms under which these phenomena will present themselves in its mind. In the first place, it is quite evident that impulses derived from herd feeling will enter the mind with the value of instincts—they will present themselves as "a priori syntheses of the most perfect sort needing no proof but their own evidence." They will not, however, it is important to remember, necessarily always give this quality to the same specific acts, but will show this great distinguishing characteristic that they may give to any opinion whatever the characters of instinctive belief, making it into an "a priori synthesis"; so that we shall expect to find acts which it would be absurd to look upon as the results of specific instincts carried out with all the enthusiasm of instinct and displaying all the marks of instinctive behavior.

In interpreting into mental terms the consequences of gregariousness we may conveniently begin with the simplest. The conscious individual will feel an unanalysable primary sense of comfort in the actual presence of his fellows and a similar sense of discomfort in their absence. It will be obvious truth to him that it is not good for man to be alone. Loneliness will be a real terror insurmountable by reason.

Again, certain conditions will become secondarily associated with presence with, or absence from, the herd. For example, take the sensations of heat and cold. The latter is prevented in gregarious animals by close crowding and experienced in the reverse condition; hence it comes to be connected in the mind with separation and so acquires altogether unreasonable associations of harmfulness. Similarly, the sensation of warmth is associated with feelings of the secure and salutary.

Slightly more complex manifestations of the same tendency to homogeneity are seen in the desire for identification with the herd in matters of opinion. Here we find the biological explanation of the ineradicable impulse mankind has always displayed toward segregation into classes. Each one of us in his opinions, and his conduct, in matters of dress, amusement, religion, and politics, is compelled to obtain the support of a class, of a herd within the herd. The most eccentric in opinion or conduct is, we may be sure, supported by the agreement of a class, the smallness of which accounts for his apparent eccentricity, and the preciousness of which accounts for his fortitude in defying general opinion. Again, anything which tends to emphasize difference from the herd is unpleasant. In the individual mind there will be an analysable dislike of the novel in action or thought. It will be "wrong," "wicked," "foolish," "undesirable," or, as we say, "bad form," according to varying circumstances which we can already to some extent define.

Manifestations relatively more simple are shown in the dislike of being conspicuous, in shyness, and in stage fright. It is, however, sensitiveness to the behavior of the herd which has the most important effects upon the structure of the mind of the gregarious animal. This sensitiveness is, as Sidis has clearly seen, closely associated with the suggestibility of the gregarious animal, and therefore with that of man. The effect of it will clearly be to make acceptable those suggestions which come from the herd, and those only. It is of especial importance to note that this suggestibility is not general, and that it is only herd suggestions which are rendered acceptable by the action of instinct.

B. THE CONFLICT AND FUSION OF CULTURES

1. The Analysis of Blended Cultures[243]

In the analysis of any culture, a difficulty which soon meets the investigator is that he has to determine what is due to mere contact and what is due to intimate intermixture, such intermixture, for instance, as is produced by the permanent blending of one people with another, either through warlike invasion or peaceful settlement. The fundamental weakness of most of the attempts hitherto made to analyze existing cultures is that they have had their starting-point in the study of material objects, and the reason for this is obvious. Owing to the fact that material objects can be collected by anyone and subjected at leisure to prolonged study by experts, our knowledge of the distribution of material objects and of the technique of their manufacture has very far outrun that of the less material elements. What I wish now to point out is that in distinguishing between the effects of mere contact and the intermixture of peoples, material objects are the least trustworthy of all the constituents of culture. Thus in Melanesia we have the clearest evidence that material objects and processes can spread by mere contact, without any true admixture of peoples and without influence on other features of the culture. While the distribution of material objects is of the utmost importance in suggesting at the outset community of culture, and while it is of equal importance in the final process of determining points of contact and in filling in the details of the mixture of cultures, it is the least satisfactory guide to the actual blending of peoples which must form the solid foundation of the ethnological analysis of culture. The case for the value of magico-religious institutions is not much stronger. Here, again, in Melanesia there is little doubt that whole cults can pass from one people to another without any real intermixture of peoples. I do not wish to imply that such religious institutions can pass from people to people with the ease of material objects, but to point out that there is evidence that they can and do so pass with very little, if any, admixture of peoples or of the deeper and more fundamental elements of the culture. Much more important is language; and if you will think over the actual conditions when one people either visit or settle among another, this greater importance will be obvious. Let us imagine a party of Melanesians visiting a Polynesian island, staying there for a few weeks, and then returning home (and here I am not taking a fictitious occurrence, but one which really happens). We can readily understand that the visitors may take with them their betel-mixture, and thereby introduce the custom of betel-chewing into a new home; we can readily understand that they may introduce an ornament to be worn in the nose and another to be worn on the chest; that tales which they tell will be remembered, and dances they perform will be imitated. A few Milanesian words may pass into the language of the Polynesian island, especially as names for the objects or processes which the strangers have introduced; but it is incredible that the strangers should thus in a short visit produce any extensive change in the vocabulary, and still more that they should modify the structure of the language. Such changes can never be the result of mere contact or transient settlement but must always indicate a far more deeply seated and fundamental process of blending of peoples and cultures.

Few will perhaps hesitate to accept this position; but I expect my next proposition to meet with more skepticism, and yet I believe it to be widely, though not universally, true. This proposition is that the social structure, the framework of society, is still more fundamentally important and still less easily changed except as the result of the intimate blending of peoples, and for that reason furnishes by far the firmest foundation on which to base the process of analysis of culture. I cannot hope to establish the truth of this proposition in the course of a brief address, and I propose to draw your attention to one line of evidence only.

At the present moment we have before our eyes an object-lesson in the spread of our own people over the earth's surface, and we are thus able to study how external influence affects different elements of culture. What we find is that mere contact is able to transmit much in the way of material culture. A passing vessel, which does not even anchor, may be able to transmit iron, while European weapons may be used by people who have never even seen a white man. Again, missionaries introduce the Christian religion among people who cannot speak a word of English or any language but their own or only use such European words as have been found necessary to express ideas or objects connected with the new religion. There is evidence how readily language may be affected, and here again the present day suggests a mechanism by which such a change takes place. English is now becoming the language of the Pacific and of other parts of the world through its use as a lingua franca, which enables natives who speak different languages to converse not only with Europeans but with one another, and I believe that this has often been the mechanism in the past; that, for instance, the introduction of what we now call the Melanesian structure of language was due to the fact that the language of an immigrant people who settled in a region of great linguistic diversity came to be used as a lingua franca, and thus gradually became the basis of the languages of the whole people.

But now let us turn to social structure. We find in Oceania islands where Europeans have been settled as missionaries or traders perhaps for fifty or a hundred years; we find the people wearing European clothes and European ornaments, using European utensils and even European weapons when they fight; we find them holding the beliefs and practicing the ritual of a European religion; we find them speaking a European language, often even among themselves, and yet investigation shows that much of their social structure remains thoroughly native and uninfluenced, not only in its general form, but often even in its minute details. The external influence has swept away the whole material culture, so that objects of native origin are manufactured only to sell to tourists; it has substituted a wholly new religion and destroyed every material, if not every moral, vestige of the old; it has caused great modification and degeneration of the old language; and yet it may have left the social structure in the main untouched. And the reasons for this are clear. Most of the essential social structure of a people lies so below the surface, it is so literally the foundation of the whole life of the people, that it is not seen; it is not obvious, but can only be reached by patient and laborious exploration. I will give a few specific instances. In several islands of the Pacific, some of which have had European settlers on them for more than a century, a most important position in the community is occupied by the father's sister. If any native of these islands were asked who is the most important person in the determination of his life-history, he would answer, "My father's sister"; and yet the place of this relative in the social structure has remained absolutely unrecorded, and, I believe, absolutely unknown, to the European settlers in those islands. Again, Europeans have settled in Fiji for more than a century, and yet it is only during this summer that I have heard from Mr. A. M. Hocart, who is working there at present, that there is the clearest evidence of what is known as the dual organization of society as a working social institution at the present time. How unobtrusive such a fundamental fact of social structure may be comes home to me in this case very strongly, for it wholly eluded my own observation during a visit three years ago.

Lastly, the most striking example of the permanence of social structure which I have met is in the Hawaiian Islands. There the original native culture is reduced to the merest wreckage. So far as material objects are concerned, the people are like ourselves; the old religion has gone, though there probably still persists some of the ancient magic. The people themselves have so dwindled in number, and the political conditions are so altered, that the social structure has also necessarily been greatly modified, and yet I was able to ascertain that one of its elements, an element which I believe to form the deepest layer of the foundation, the very bedrock of social structure, the system of relationship, is still in use unchanged. I was able to obtain a full account of the system as actually used at the present time, and found it to be exactly the same as that recorded forty years ago by Morgan and Hyde, and I obtained evidence that the system is still deeply interwoven with the intimate mental life of the people.

If, then, social structure has this fundamental and deeply seated character, if it is the least easily changed, and only changed as the result either of actual blending of peoples or of the most profound political changes, the obvious inference is that it is with social structure that we must begin the attempt to analyze culture and to ascertain how far community of culture is due to the blending of peoples, how far to transmission through mere contact or transient settlement.

The considerations I have brought forward have, however, in my opinion an importance still more fundamental. If social institutions have this relatively great degree of permanence, if they are so deeply seated and so closely interwoven with the deepest instincts and sentiments of a people that they can only gradually suffer change, will not the study of this change give us our surest criterion of what is early and what is late in any given culture, and thereby furnish a guide for the analysis of culture? Such criteria of early and late are necessary if we are to arrange the cultural elements reached by our analysis in order of time, and it is very doubtful whether mere geographical distribution itself will ever furnish a sufficient basis for this purpose. I may remind you here that before the importance of the complexity of Melanesian culture had forced itself on my mind, I had already succeeded in tracing out a course for the development of the structure of Melanesian society, and after the complexity of the culture had been established, I did not find it necessary to alter anything of essential importance in this scheme. I suggest, therefore, that while the ethnological analysis of cultures must furnish a necessary preliminary to any general evolutionary speculations, there is one element of culture which has so relatively high a degree of permanence that its course of development may furnish a guide to the order in time of the different elements into which it is possible to analyze a given complex.

If the development of social structure is thus to be taken as a guide to assist the process of analysis, it is evident that there will be involved a logical process of considerable complexity in which there will be the danger of arguing in a circle. If, however, the analysis of culture is to be the primary task of the anthropologist, it is evident that the logical methods of the science will attain a complexity far exceeding those hitherto in vogue. I believe that the only logical process which will in general be found possible will be the formulation of hypothetical working schemes into which the facts can be fitted, and that the test of such schemes will be their capacity to fit in with themselves, or, as we generally express it, "explain" new facts as they come to our knowledge. This is the method of other sciences which deal with conditions as complex as those of human society. In many other sciences these new facts are discovered by experiment. In our science they must be found by exploration, not only of the cultures still existent in living form, but also of the buried cultures of past ages.

2. The Extension of Roman Culture in Gaul[244]

The Roman conquest of Gaul was partially a feat of arms; but it was much more a triumph of Roman diplomacy and a genius for colonial government. Roman power in Gaul was centered in the larger cities and in their strongly fortified camps. There the laws and decrees of Rome were promulgated and the tribute of the conquered tribes received. There, too, the law courts were held and justice administered. Rome bent her efforts to the Latinizing of her newly acquired possessions. Gradually she forced the inhabitants of the larger cities to use the Latin tongue. But this forcing was done in a diplomatic, though effective, manner. Even in the days of Caesar, Latin was made the only medium for the administration of the law, the promulgation of decrees, the exercise of the functions of government, the administration of justice, and the performing of the offices of religion. It was the only medium of commerce and trade with the Romans, of literature and art, of the theater and of social relations. Above all, it was the only road to office under the Roman government and to political preferment. The Roman officials in Gaul encouraged and rewarded the mastery of the Latin tongue and the acquirement of Roman culture, customs, and manners. Thanks to this well-defined policy of the Roman government, native Gauls were found in important offices even in Caesar's time. The number of these Gallo-Roman offices increased rapidly, and their influence was steadily exercised in favor of the acquirement, by the natives, of the Latin language. A greater inducement still was held out to the Gauls to acquire the ways and culture of their conquerors. This was the prospect of employment or political preference and honors in the imperial city of Rome itself. Under this pressure so diplomatically applied, the study of the Latin language, grammar, literature, and oratory became a passion throughout the cities of Gaul, which were full of Roman merchants, traders, teachers, philosophers, lawyers, artists, sculptors, and seekers for political and other offices. Latin was the symbol of success in every avenue of life. Native Gauls became noted merchant princes, lawyers, soldiers, local potentates at home, and favorites of powerful political personages in Rome and even in the colonies outside Gaul. Natives of Gaul, too, reached the highest offices in the land, becoming even members of the Senate; and later on a native Gaul became one of the most noted of the Roman emperors. The political policy of Rome made the imposition of the Latin language upon the cities of Gaul a comparatively easy matter, requiring only time to assure its accomplishment. Everywhere throughout the populous cities of Gaul there sprang up schools that rivaled, in their efficacy and reputation, the most famous institutions of Rome. Rich Romans sent their sons to these schools because of their excellence and the added advantage that they could acquire there a first-hand knowledge of the life and customs of the natives, whom they might be called upon in the future to govern or to have political or other relations with. Thus all urban Gaul traveled Rome-ward—"all roads led to Rome."

The influence of Roman culture extended itself much more slowly over the rural districts, the inhabitants of which, in addition to being much more conservative and passionately attached to their native institutions and language, lacked the incentive of ambition and of commercial and trade necessity. A powerful Druidical priesthood held the rural Celts together and set their faces against Roman culture and religion. But even in the rural districts Latin made its way slowly and in a mangled form, yet none the less surely. This was accomplished almost entirely through the natural pressure from without exercised by the growing power of the Latin tongue, which had greatly increased during the reign of the Emperor Claudius (41-54 A.D.). Claudius, who was born in Lyon and educated in Gaul, opened to the Gauls all the employments and dignities of the empire. On the construction of the many extensive public works he employed many inhabitants of Gaul in positions requiring faithfulness, honesty, and skill. These, in their turn, frequently drew laborers from the rural districts of Gaul. These latter, during their residence in Rome or other Italian cities, or in the populous centers of Gaul, acquired some knowledge of Latin. Thus, in time, through these and other agencies, a sort of lingua franca sprang up throughout the rural districts of Gaul and served as a medium of communication between the Celtic-speaking population and the inhabitants of the cities and towns. This consisted of a frame of Latin words stripped of most of their inflections and subjected to word-contractions and other modifications. Into this frame were fitted many native words which had already become the property of trade and commerce and the other activities of life in the city, town, and country. Thus, as the influence of Latin became stronger in the cities, it continued to exercise greater pressure on the rural districts. This pressure soon began to react upon the centers of Latin culture. The uneducated classes of Gaul everywhere, even in the cities, spoke very imperfect Latin, the genius of which is so different from that of the native tongues of Gaul. But while the cities afforded some correction for this universal tendency among the masses to corrupt the Latin language, the life of the rural districts, where the native tongues were still universally spoken, made the disintegration of the highly inflected Roman speech unavoidable. As the masses in the city and country became more Latinized, at the expense of their native tongues, the corrupted Latin spoken over immense districts of the country tended to pass current as the speech of the populace and to crowd out classical or school Latin. As this corrupted local Latin varied greatly in different parts of the country, due to linguistic and other influences, there resulted numerous Roman dialects throughout Gaul, many of which are still in existence.

The introduction of Christianity gave additional impulse to the study of Latin, which soon became the official language of the Christian church; and it was taught everywhere by the priests to the middle and upper classes, and they also encouraged the masses to learn it. It seemed as if this was destined to maintain the prestige of Latin as the official language of the country. But in reality it hastened its downfall by making it more and more the language of the illiterate masses. Soon the rural districts furnished priests who spoke their own Roman tongue; and the struggle to rehabilitate the literary Latin among the masses was abandoned. The numerous French dialects of Latin had already begun to assume shape when the decline of the Roman Empire brought the Germanic tribes down upon Gaul and introduced a new element into the Romanic speech, which had already worked its will upon the tongue of the Caesars. Under its influence the loose Latin construction disappeared; articles and prepositions took the place of the inflectional terminations brought to a high state of artificial perfection in Latin; and the wholesale suppression of unaccented syllables had so contracted the Latin words that they were often scarcely recognizable. The modification of vowel sounds increased the efficacy of the disguise assumed by Latin words masquerading in the Romanic dialects throughout Gaul; and the Celtic and other native words in current use to designate the interests and occupations of the masses helped to differentiate the popular speech from the classical Latin. Already Celtic, as a spoken tongue, had almost entirely disappeared from the cities; and even in the rural districts it had fallen into a certain amount of neglect, as the lingua franca of the first centuries of Roman occupation, reaching out in every direction, became the ever-increasing popular speech.

3. The Competition of the Cultural Languages[245]

Some time ago a typewriter firm, in advertising a machine with Arabic characters, made the statement that the Arabic alphabet is used by more people than any other. A professor of Semitic languages was asked: "How big a lie is that?" He answered: "It is true."

In a certain sense, it is true; the total population of all the countries whose inhabitants use the Arabic alphabet (if they use any) is slightly larger than that of those who use the Latin alphabet and its slight variations, or the Chinese characters (which of course are not an alphabet), or the Russian alphabet. If, however, the question is how many people can actually use any alphabet or system of writing, the Arabic stands lowest of the four.

The question of the relative importance of a language as a literary medium is a question of how many people want to read it. There are two classes of these: those to whom it is vernacular, and those who learn it in addition to their own language. The latter class is of the greater importance in proportion to its numbers; a man who has education enough to acquire a foreign language is pretty sure to use it, while many of the former class, who can read, really do read very little. Those who count in this matter are those who can get information from a printed page as easily as by listening to someone talking. A fair index of the relative number of these in a country is the newspaper circulation there.

A language must have a recognized literary standard and all the people in its territory must learn to use it as such before its influence goes far abroad. English, French, and German, and they alone, have reached this point. French and German have no new country, and practically the whole of their country is now literate; their relative share in the world's reading can only increase as their population increases. Spanish and Russian, on the other hand, have both new country and room for a much higher percentage of literacy.

It is probable that all the countries in temperate zones will have universal literacy by the end of the century. In this case, even if no one read English outside its vernacular countries, it would still hold its own as the leading literary language. German and French are bound to fall off relatively as vernaculars, and this implies a falling off of their importance as culture languages; but the importance of English in this respect is bound to grow. The first place among foreign languages has been given to it in the schools of many European and South American countries; Mexico and Japan make it compulsory in all schools of upper grades; and China is to follow Japan in this respect as soon as the work can be organized.

The number of people who can actually read, or will learn if now too young, for the various languages of the world appears to be as follows:

Number in Millions Per Cent

English 136 27.2 German 82 16.4 Chinese[A] 70 14.0 French 28 9.6 Russian 30 6.0 Arabic 25 5.0 Italian 18 4.6 Spanish 12 2.6 Scandinavian 11 2.2 Dutch and Flemish 9 1.9 Minor European[B] 34 6.8 Minor Asiatic[B] 16 3.2 Minor African and Polynesian[B] 2+ 0.5

Total 473+ 100.0

Notes: [A] Not a spoken language, but a system of writing.

[B] None representing as much as 1 per cent of total.

English, therefore, now leads all other languages in the number of its readers. Three-fourths of the world's mail matter is addressed in English. More than half of the world's newspapers are printed in English, and, as they have a larger circulation than those in other languages, probably three-fourths of the world's newspaper reading is done in English.

The languages next in importance, French and German, cannot maintain their relative positions because English has more than half of the new land in the temperate zone and they have none. The languages which have the rest of the new territory, Spanish and Russian, are not established as culture languages, as English is. No other language, not even French or German, has a vernacular so uniform and well established, and with so few variations from the literary language. English is spoken in the United States by more than fifty million people with so slight variations that no foreigner would ever notice them. No other language whatever can show more than a fraction of this number of persons who speak so nearly alike.

It is then probable that, within the century, English will be the vernacular of a quarter instead of a tenth of the people of the world, and be read by a half instead of a quarter of the people who can read.

4. The Assimilation of Races[246]

The race problem has sometimes been described as a problem in assimilation. It is not always clear, however, what assimilation means. Historically the word has had two distinct significations. According to earlier usage it meant "to compare" or "to make like." According to later usage it signifies "to take up and incorporate."

There is a process that goes on in society by which individuals spontaneously acquire one another's language, characteristic attitudes, habits, and modes of behavior. There is also a process by which individuals and groups of individuals are taken over and incorporated into larger groups. Both processes have been concerned in the formation of modern nationalities. The modern Italian, Frenchman, and German is a composite of the broken fragments of several different racial groups. Interbreeding has broken up the ancient stocks, and interaction and imitation have created new national types which exhibit definite uniformities in language, manners, and formal behavior.

It has sometimes been assumed that the creation of a national type is the specific function of assimilation and that national solidarity is based upon national homogeneity and "like-mindedness." The extent and importance of the kind of homogeneity that individuals of the same nationality exhibit have been greatly exaggerated. Neither interbreeding nor interaction has created, in what the French term "nationals," a more than superficial likeness or like-mindedness. Racial differences have, to be sure, disappeared or been obscured, but individual differences remain. Individual differences, again, have been intensified by education, personal competition, and the division of labor, until individual members of cosmopolitan groups probably represent greater variations in disposition, temperament, and mental capacity than those which distinguished the more homogeneous races and peoples of an earlier civilization.

What then, precisely, is the nature of the homogeneity which characterizes cosmopolitan groups?

The growth of modern states exhibits the progressive merging of smaller, mutually exclusive, into larger and more inclusive, social groups. This result has been achieved in various ways, but it has usually been followed or accompanied by a more or less complete adoption by the members of the smaller groups of the language, technique, and mores of the larger and more inclusive ones. The immigrant readily takes over the language, manners, the social ritual, and outward forms of his adopted country. In America it has become proverbial that a Pole, Lithuanian, or Norwegian cannot be distinguished, in the second generation, from an American born of native parents.

There is no reason to assume that this assimilation of alien groups to native standards has modified to any great extent fundamental racial characteristics. It has, however, erased the external signs which formerly distinguished the members of one race from those of another.

On the other hand, the breaking up of the isolation of smaller groups has had the effect of emancipating the individual man, giving him room and freedom for the expansion and development of his individual aptitudes.

What one actually finds in cosmopolitan groups, then, is a superficial uniformity, a homogeneity in manners and fashion, associated with relatively profound differences in individual opinions, sentiments, and beliefs. This is just the reverse of what one meets among primitive peoples, where diversity in external forms, as between different groups, is accompanied by a monotonous sameness in the mental attitudes of individuals. There is a striking similarity in the sentiments and mental attitudes of peasant peoples in all parts of the world, although the external differences are often great. In the Black Forest, in Baden, Germany, almost every valley shows a different style of costume, a different type of architecture, although in each separate valley every house is like every other and the costume, as well as the religion, is for every member of each separate community absolutely after the same pattern. On the other hand, a German, Russian, or Negro peasant of the southern states, different as each is in some respects, are all very much alike in certain habitual attitudes and sentiments.

What, then, is the role of homogeneity and like-mindedness, such as we find them to be, in cosmopolitan states? So far as it makes each individual look like every other—no matter how different under the skin—homogeneity mobilizes the individual man. It removes the social taboo, permits the individual to move into strange groups, and thus facilitates new and adventurous contacts. In obliterating the external signs, which in secondary groups seem to be the sole basis of caste and class distinctions, it realizes, for the individual, the principle of laissez faire, laissez aller. Its ultimate economic effect is to substitute personal for racial competition, and to give free play to forces that tend to relegate every individual, irrespective of race or status, to the position he or she is best fitted to fill.

As a matter of fact, the ease and rapidity with which aliens, under existing conditions in the United States, have been able to assimilate themselves to the customs and manners of American life have enabled this country to swallow and digest every sort of normal human difference, except the purely external ones, like the color of the skin.

It is probably true, also, that like-mindedness of the kind that expresses itself in national types contributes indirectly by facilitating the intermingling of the different elements of the population to the national solidarity. This is due to the fact that the solidarity of modern states depends less on the homogeneity of population than, as James Bryce has suggested, upon the thoroughgoing mixture of heterogeneous elements. Like-mindedness, so far as that term signifies a standard grade of intelligence, contributes little or nothing to national solidarity. Likeness is, after all, a purely formal concept which of itself cannot hold anything together.

In the last analysis social solidarity is based on sentiment and habit. It is the sentiment of loyalty and the habit of what Sumner calls "concurrent action" that gives substance and insures unity to the state as to every other type of social group. This sentiment of loyalty has its basis in a modus vivendi, a working relation and mutual understanding of the members of the group. Social institutions are not founded in similarities any more than they are founded in differences, but in relations, and in the mutual interdependence of parts. When these relations have the sanction of custom and are fixed in individual habit, so that the activities of the group are running smoothly, personal attitudes and sentiments, which are the only forms in which individual minds collide and clash with one another, easily accommodate themselves to the existing situation.

It may, perhaps, be said that loyalty itself is a form of like-mindedness or that it is dependent in some way upon the like-mindedness of the individuals whom it binds together. This, however, cannot be true, for there is no greater loyalty than that which binds the dog to his master, and this is a sentiment which that faithful animal usually extends to other members of the household to which he belongs. A dog without a master is a dangerous animal, but the dog that has been domesticated is a member of society. He is not, of course, a citizen, although he is not entirely without rights. But he has got into some sort of practical working relations with the group to which he belongs.

It is this practical working arrangement, into which individuals with widely different mental capacities enter as co-ordinate parts, that gives the corporate character to social groups and insures their solidarity. It is the process of assimilation by which groups of individuals, originally indifferent or perhaps hostile, achieve this corporate character, rather than the process by which they acquire a formal like-mindedness, with which this paper is mainly concerned.

The difficulty with the conception of assimilation which one ordinarily meets in discussions of the race problem is that it is based on observations confined to individualistic groups where the characteristic relations are indirect and secondary. It takes no account of the kind of assimilation that takes place in primary groups where relations are direct and personal—in the tribe, for example, and in the family.

Thus Charles Francis Adams, referring to the race problem in an address at Richmond, Virginia, in November, 1908, said:

The American system, as we know, was founded on the assumed basis of a common humanity, that is, absence of absolutely fundamental racial characteristics was accepted as an established truth. Those of all races were welcomed to our shores. They came, aliens; they and their descendants would become citizens first, natives afterward. It was a process first of assimilation and then of absorption. On this all depended. There could be no permanent divisional lines. That theory is now plainly broken down. We are confronted by the obvious fact, as undeniable as it is hard, that the African will only partially assimilate and that he cannot be absorbed. He remains an alien element in the body politic. A foreign substance, he can neither be assimilated nor thrown out.

More recently an editorial in the Outlook, discussing the Japanese situation in California, made this statement:

The hundred millions of people now inhabiting the United States must be a united people, not merely a collection of groups of different peoples, different in racial cultures and ideals, agreeing to live together in peace and amity. These hundred millions must have common ideals, common aims, a common custom, a common culture, a common language, and common characteristics, if the nation is to endure.

All this is quite true and interesting, but it does not clearly recognize the fact that the chief obstacle to the assimilation of the Negro and the Oriental are not mental but physical traits. It is not because the Negro and the Japanese are so differently constituted that they do not assimilate. If they were given an opportunity, the Japanese are quite as capable as the Italians, the Armenians, or the Slavs of acquiring our culture and sharing our national ideals. The trouble is not with the Japanese mind but with the Japanese skin. The Jap is not the right color.

The fact that the Japanese bears in his features a distinctive racial hallmark, that he wears, so to speak, a racial uniform, classifies him. He cannot become a mere individual, indistinguishable in the cosmopolitan mass of the population, as is true, for example, of the Irish, and, to a lesser extent, of some of the other immigrant races. The Japanese, like the Negro, is condemned to remain among us an abstraction, a symbol—and a symbol not merely of his own race but of the Orient and of that vague, ill-defined menace we sometimes refer to as the "yellow peril." This not only determines to a very large extent the attitude of the white world toward the yellow man but it determines the attitude of the yellow man toward the white. It puts between the races the invisible but very real gulf of self-consciousness.

There is another consideration. Peoples we know intimately we respect and esteem. In our casual contact with aliens, however, it is the offensive rather than the pleasing traits that impress us. These impressions accumulate and reinforce natural prejudices. Where races are distinguished by certain external marks, these furnish a permanent physical substratum upon which and around which the irritations and animosities, incidental to all human intercourse, tend to accumulate and so gain strength and volume.

Assimilation, as the word is here used, brings with it a certain borrowed significance which it carried over from physiology, where it is employed to describe the process of nutrition. By a process of nutrition, somewhat similar to the physiological one, we may conceive alien peoples to be incorporated with, and made part of, the community or state. Ordinarily assimilation goes on silently and unconsciously, and only forces itself into popular conscience when there is some interruption or disturbance of the process.

At the outset it may be said, then, that assimilation rarely becomes a problem except in secondary groups. Admission to the primary group, that is to say, the group in which relationships are direct and personal, as, for example, in the family and in the tribe, makes assimilation comparatively easy and almost inevitable.

The most striking illustration of this is the fact of domestic slavery. Slavery has been, historically, the usual method by which peoples have been incorporated into alien groups. When a member of an alien race is adopted into the family as a servant or as a slave, and particularly when that status is made hereditary, as it was in the case of the Negro after his importation to America, assimilation followed rapidly and as a matter of course.

It is difficult to conceive two races farther removed from each other in temperament and tradition than the Anglo-Saxon and the Negro, and yet the Negro in the southern states, particularly where he was adopted into the household as a family servant, learned in a comparatively short time the manners and customs of his master's family. He very soon possessed himself of so much of the language, religion, and the technique of the civilization of his master as, in his station, he was fitted or permitted to acquire. Eventually, also, Negro slaves transferred their allegiance to the state of which they were only indirectly members, or at least to their masters' families, with whom they felt themselves in most things one in sentiment and interest.

The assimilation of the Negro field hand, where the contact of the slave with his master and his master's family was less intimate, was naturally less complete. On the large plantations, where an overseer stood between the master and the majority of his slaves, and especially on the sea island plantations off the coast of South Carolina, where the master and his family were likely to be merely winter visitors, this distance between master and slave was greatly increased. The consequence is that the Negroes in these regions are less touched today by the white man's influence and civilization than elsewhere in the southern states.

C. AMERICANIZATION AS A PROBLEM IN ASSIMILATION[247]

1. Americanization as Assimilation

The Americanization Study has assumed that the fundamental condition of what we call "Americanization" is the participation of the immigrant in the life of the community in which he lives. The point here emphasized is that patriotism, loyalty, and common sense are neither created nor transmitted by purely intellectual processes. Men must live and work and fight together in order to create that community of interest and sentiment which will enable them to meet the crises of their common life with a common will.

It is evident, however, that the word "participation" as here employed has a wide application, and it becomes important for working purposes to give a more definite and concrete meaning to the term.

2. Language as a Means and a Product of Participation

Obviously any organized social activity whatever and any participation in this activity implies "communication." In human, as distinguished from animal, society common life is based on a common speech. To share a common speech does not guarantee participation in the community life but it is an instrument of participation, and its acquisition by the members of an immigrant group is rightly considered a sign and a rough index of Americanization.

It is, however, one of the ordinary experiences of social intercourse that words and things do not have the same meanings with different people, in different parts of the country, in different periods of time, and, in general, in different contexts. The same "thing" has a different meaning for the naive person and the sophisticated person, for the child and the philosopher; the new experience derives its significance from the character and organization of the previous experiences. To the peasant a comet, a plague, and an epileptic person may mean a divine portent, a visitation of God, a possession by the devil; to the scientific man they mean something quite different. The word "slavery" had very different connotations in the ancient world and today. It has a very different significance today in the southern states and in the northern states. "Socialism" has a very different significance to the immigrant from the Russian pale living on the "East Side" of New York City, to the citizen on Riverside Drive, and to the native American in the hills of Georgia.