25. Experiments in Association.—In the history of human kind numerous experiments in association have been made; those which have served well in the competition between groups have survived, and have tended to become permanent types of association, receiving the sanction of society, and so to be reckoned as social institutions; others have been thrown on the rubbish heap as worthless. It is generally believed, for example, that many related families in primitive times associated in a loosely connected horde, but the horde could not compete successfully with an organized state and gave way before it. The local community in New England once carried on its affairs satisfactorily in yearly mass-meeting, where every citizen had an equal privilege of speaking and voting directly upon a proposed measure, but there proved to be a limit to the efficiency of such government when the population increased, so that a meeting of all the citizens was impossible, and a constitutional assembly of representative citizens was devised. Similarly national governments have been organized for greater efficiency and machinery is being invented frequently to increase their value.

26. Kinds of Unorganized Groups.—Unorganized groups are of three kinds: There are first the normal groups that are continually being formed and dissolved, but that perform a useful function while they exist. Such are the chance meetings and conversations of friends in all walks of life, and the crowds that gather occasionally to help forward a good cause. They promote general intelligence, provide a free exchange of ideas, and help to form a body of public opinion for social guidance. There is often an open-mindedness among the common people that is not vitiated by the grip of vested interests upon their unwarped judgments, and the people can be trusted in the long run to make good. Democracy is based upon the reliability of public opinion.

The second kind of unorganized group is one that is on the way to becoming a permanent group sanctioned by society. A group of this type is the boy's gang. By most persons the spontaneous association of a dozen boys who live near together and range over a certain district has been condemned as a social evil; recently it has become recognized as a normal group, forming naturally at a certain period of boy life and falling to pieces of its own accord a few years later. The tendency of boy leaders is not only to give it recognition as legitimate, but to use the gang instinct to promote definite organizations of greater value to their members and to the community. Another group of the same type is a so-called "movement," composed of a few individuals who associate themselves in a loose way to further a definite purpose, like the promotion of temperance, hold mass-meetings, and create public opinion, but do not at once proceed to a permanent organization. Eventually, when the movement has gathered sufficient headway or has shown that it is permanently valuable, a fixed organization may be accomplished.

The third kind of unorganized group is an abnormality in the midst of civilization, a relic of the primitive days when impulse rather than reason swayed the mind of a group. Such is the crowd that gathers in a moment of excitement and yields to a momentary passion to lynch a prisoner, or a revolutionary mob that loots and burns out of a sheer desire for destruction. Such a group has not even the value of a safety-valve, for its passion gathers momentum as it goes, and, like a conflagration, it cannot be stopped until it has burned itself out or met a solid wall of military authority.

27. The Popular Crowd vs. the Organized Group.—In the routine life of a disciplined society there is always to be found at least one of these types. Even the abnormal type of the passionate crowd is not unusual in its milder form. Any unusual event like a fire or a circus will draw scores and hundreds together, and the crowd is always liable to fall into disorder unless officers of the law are in attendance. This is so well understood that the police are always in evidence where there are large congregations of people at church or theatre, where a prominent man is to be seen or a procession is to pass. But the popular mass is a volatile thing, and in proportion to its size it expends little useful energy. It is never to be reckoned as equal in importance to the organized company, however small it may be, that has a definite purpose guiding its regular action, and that persists in its purpose for years together. It is the fixed group, the social institution, that does the work of the world and carries society forward from lower to higher levels of civilization. Social efficiency belongs to the organized type.

READING REFERENCES

Cooley: Social Organization, pages 149-156.

Giddings: Elements of Sociology, pages 129-140.

Ross: Foundations of Sociology, pages 120-138.

Ross: Social Psychology, pages 43-82.