Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/488

 47 2 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

feeling that grow up among employers on the one hand and workingmen on the other.

In this epoch of democracy and deliquescence society by no means falls apart into neat segments, as it did two centuries ago. Caste has had its day, and the compartment society, with thick bulkheads of privilege, prejudice, non-intercourse, and non- intermarriage separating the classes, is well-nigh extinct. Today the imprint each manner of life tends to leave on those who lead it is continually effaced by such assimilating influences as Church, School, Press, Party, Voluntary Association, and Public Opinion. But that imprint must be deciphered if we are to gauge the signifi- cance of class ascendencies in backward or by-gone societies. We need to know how and why a society dominated by the sacerdotal class Judea or mediaeval Rome differs from Sparta dominated by the warrior class, Venice dominated by the commercial class, Florence dominated by the artisan class, or the Transvaal domi- nated by the rural class.

EDWARD ALSWORTH Ross.

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.