ilieu,
and, as these conditions become fixed, the mores tend to accommodate
themselves to the conditions thus created. In secondary groups and in
the city, fashion tends to take the place of custom, and public opinion
rather than the mores becomes the dominant force in social control.

In any attempt to understand the nature of public opinion and its
relation to social control, it is important to investigate, first of
all, the agencies and devices which have come into practical use in the
effort to control, enlighten, and exploit it.

The first and the most important of these is the press, that is, the
daily newspaper and other forms of current literature, including books
classed as current.

After the newspaper, the bureaus of research which are now springing up
in all the large cities are the most interesting and the most promising
devices for using publicity as a means of control.

The fruits of these investigations do not reach the public directly, but
are disseminated through the medium of the press, the pulpit and other
sources of popular enlightenment.

In addition to these, there are the educational campaigns in the
interest of better health conditions, the child-welfare exhibits, and
the numerous "social advertising" devices which are now employed,
sometimes upon the initiative of private societies, sometimes upon that
of popular magazines or newspapers, in order to educate the public and
enlist the masses of the people in the movement for the improvement of
conditions of community life.

The newspaper is the great medium of communication within the city, and
it is on the basis of the information which it supplies that public
opinion rests. The first function which a newspaper supplies is that
which was formerly performed by the village gossip.

In spite, however, of the industry with which newspapers pursue facts of
personal intelligence and human interest, they cannot compete with the
village gossips as a means of social control. For one thing, the
newspaper maintains some reservations not recognized by gossip, in the
matters of personal intelligence. For example, until they run for office
or commit some other overt act that brings them before the public
conspicuously, the private life of individual men or women is a subject
that is for the newspaper taboo. It is not so with gossip, partly
because in a small community no individual is so obscure that his
private affairs escape observation and discussi