ents 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