use. Mr. Moorfield Storey and Mr. Cleveland H. Dodge have each
pledged themselves to give this amount. It is earnestly hoped that
other philanthropists will subscribe.

THE JOURNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. IV--APRIL, 1919--NO. 2

THE CONFLICT AND FUSION OF CULTURES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE
NEGRO[1]

Under ordinary circumstances the transmission of the social tradition
is from the parents to the children. Children are born into society
and take over its customs, habits, and standards of life simply,
naturally, and without conflict. But it will at once occur to any one
that the life of society is not always continued and maintained in
this natural way, by the succession of parents and children. New
societies are formed by conquest and by the imposition of one people
upon another. In such cases there arises a conflict of cultures and as
a result the process of fusion takes place slowly and is frequently
not complete. New societies are frequently formed by colonization, in
which case new cultures are grafted on to older ones. The work of
missionary societies is essentially one of colonization in this sense.

Finally we have societies growing up, as in the United States, by
immigration. These immigrants, coming as they do from all parts of the
world, bring with them fragments of divergent cultures. Here again the
process of assimilation is slow, often painful, not always complete.
In the case where societies are formed and maintained by adoption,
that is by immigration, the question arises: How far is it possible
for a people of a different race and a different culture to take over
the traditions and social inheritance of another and an alien people?
What are the conditions which facilitate this transmission and, in
general, what happens when people of different races and cultures are
brought together in the intimate relations of community life?

These questions have already arisen in connection with the education
of the Negro in America and with the work of foreign missions. If the
schools are to extend and rationalize the work they are already doing
in the Americanization of the immigrant peoples, questions of this
sort may become actual in the field of pedagogy. This paper is mainly
concerned with the Negro, not because the case of the Negro is more
urgent than or essentially different from that of the immigrant, but
because the materials for investigation are more accessible.

Admitting, as