ves." 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 a