association with their neighbors. Darwin was
assisted by Lyell, Owen, and other contemporaries in working out a new
definition of the situation, but these men were not his neighbors. When
Mayer worked out his theory of the transmutation of energy, his
neighbors in the village of Heilbronn were so far from participating
that they twice confined him in insane asylums. A postage stamp may be a
more efficient instrument of participation than a village meeting.

Defining the situation with reference to the participation of the
immigrant is of course not solving the problem of immigration. This
involves an analysis of the whole significance of the qualitative and
quantitative character of a population, with reference to any given
values--standards of living, individual level of efficiency, liberty and
determinism, etc. We have, for instance, in America a certain level of
culture, depending, let us say as a minimum, on the perpetuation of our
public-school system. But, if by some conceivable _lusus naturae_ the
birth rate was multiplied a hundred fold, or by some conceivable
cataclysm a hundred million African blacks were landed annually on our
eastern coast and an equal number of Chinese coolies on our western
coast, then we should have neither teachers enough nor buildings enough
nor material resources enough to impart even the three R's to a
fraction of the population, and the outlook of democracy, so far as it
is dependent upon participation, would become very dismal. On the other
hand, it is conceivable that certain immigrant populations in certain
numbers, with their special temperaments, endowments, and social
heritages, would contribute positively and increasingly to our stock of
civilization. These are questions to be determined, but certainly if the
immigrant is admitted on any basis whatever the condition of his
Americanization is that he shall have the widest and freest opportunity
to contribute in his own way to the common fund of knowledge, ideas, and
ideals which makes up the culture of our common country. It is only in
this way that the immigrant can "participate" in the fullest sense of
the term.

III. INVESTIGATIONS AND PROBLEMS

1. Assimilation and Amalgamation

The literature upon assimilation falls naturally under three main heads:
(1) assimilation and amalgamation; (2) the conflict and fusion of
cultures; and (3) immigration and Americanization.

Literature on assimilation is very largely a by-p