n 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
civilizatio