Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/805

 SOCIAL ASSIMILATION 79 1

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 accommoda- tion." 1 In another place he defines it as "the process of grow- ing alike," 2 and once again he tells us it is the method by which foreigners in United States society become Americans. 3 Nor are M. Novicow's ideas on the subject perfectly lucid, for he considers assimilation sometimes as a process, at other times as an art, and again as a result. He makes the term "denational- ization" coextensive with our "assimilation," and says that the ensemble of measures which a government takes for inducing a population to abandon one type of culture for another is denation- alization. Denationalization by the authority of the state carries with it a certain amount of coercion ; it is always accom- panied by a measure of violence. In the next sentence, how- ever, we are told that the word " denationalization" may also be used for the non-coercive process by which one nationality is assimilated with another. M. Novicow further speaks of the art of assimilation, and he tells us that the result of the intellectual struggle between races living under the same government, whether free or forced, is in every case assimilation. 4 Burgess also takes a narrow view of the subject, restricting the operation of assimilating forces to the present and considering assimila- tion a result of modern political union. He says : " In modern times the political union of different races under the leadership of the dominant race results in assimilation." 5

From one point of view assimilation is a process with its active and passive elements ; from another it is a result. In this discussion, however, assimilation is considered as a process due to prolonged contact. It may, perhaps, be defined as that process of adjustment or accommodation which occurs between the members of two different races, if their contact is prolonged and if the necessary psychic conditions are present. The result

1 GIDDINGS, Elements of Sociology, p. 49. 3 Ibid., p. 70. *Ibid., p. 49.

4 Novicow, Les Luttes entre Societh humaines, pp. 128, 152.

5 BURGESS, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, Vol. I, p. 2.