un 
 
 291 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
The Psychology of the Club; A 
 Study in Social Psychology 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS D. HARTSON 
 
 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF 
 CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASS., IN PARTIAL 
 FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE 
 DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ACCEPTED 
 ON THE RECOMMENDATION OF G. STANLEY HALL 
 
 Reprinted from the PEDAGOGICAL SEMINARY 
 September, 1911, Vol. XVIII, pp. 353-414 
 
The Psychology of the Club; A 
 Study in Social Psychology 
 
 BY v 
 
 LOUIS D. HARTSON 
 
 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF 
 CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASS., IN PARTIAL 
 FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE 
 DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ACCEPTED 
 ON THE RECOMMENDATION OF G. STANLEY HALL 
 
 Reprinted from the PEDAGOGICAL SEMINARY 
 September, 1911, Vol. XVIII, pp. 353-414 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CLUB; A STUDY IN 
 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 1 
 
 By Louis D. HARTSON 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Spectator says that there is nothing, as far as he can 
 see, that any human being can desire to do, to think, or to 
 work for, that has not a society all ready for him or her to 
 enter. The path of life is beset with membership from the 
 cradle to the grave (74). The kindergarten has its alumni 
 association, invalids have their Shut- In Society, the poor 
 organize, the rich organize, everybody belongs to some sort 
 of a club. At a recent murder in one of our large cities the 
 jury, though it had shown itself unable to agree on a verdict, 
 agreed at once, as soon as discharged, to organize as a per- 
 manent society, pay dues, and have an annual dinner. The 
 Spectator expects soon to see an announcement of the forma- 
 tion of the Daughters of Ellis Island with Wilhelm der Grosse 
 Chapters or Lusitania Leagues. 
 
 For the purpose of studying this phenomenon of the social 
 structure data have been gathered ostensibly in all the most 
 prominent forms of its manifestation. Obviously those 
 societies formed by one group of people for another group, 
 such as societies formed by adults for children, are of less 
 importance for psychological interpretation than are societies 
 formed by groups for their own membership. We present 
 the data therefore only of this latter type of society. In 
 order to have a generic term which will include all such socie- 
 ties, and because the word society has a double meaning, we 
 employ the term club. The object of this paper is to make a 
 psychological interpretation of the club as a social institution. 
 The first section presents the facts regarding the existence 
 
 ] In this all too unsatisfactory manner the writer desires to acknowledge 
 the helpful assistance he has received in the preparation of this thesis. 
 Primarily in point of time should be mentioned the inspiration received 
 from Dean Thomas M. Balliet, of New York University, and the two years 
 training in boys' club work under Miss C. I. MacColl, of Christpdora 
 House, New York City. For material used in this thesis the writer is 
 indebted to Prof. Will S. Monroe, of Montclair, N. J., and Miss Clare 
 Lyon, of Lidgerwood, N. Dak. In the interpretation of the data a debt 
 has been incurred to all of the Clark University faculty, and particularly 
 to Dr. T. L. Smith who is truly the research assistant of all the students. 
 
 239324 
 
* 5 . * **A : STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 of clubs in this country important for this intrepretation. 
 Beginning with the field of children's group activities the course 
 of development is observed through the gang into the club, 
 which is followed in its evolution to the mature form found 
 among adults. Having thus before us the facts our problem 
 consists in interpreting them on the basis of what is known of 
 functional psychology. 
 
 SECTION I. PRESENTATION OF THE DATA 
 Chap. I. Group and Gang Life in Children 
 
 The club viewed genetically has a gradual growth. It does 
 not spring up as a mature institution at any one definite 
 chronological period in the life of a group of individuals. Its 
 beginning is to be traced back into the group activities of 
 childhood. Gulick says that the first appearance of group 
 games is at about 7, in which games the centre of interest 
 is one's self in relation to others (34, p. 39) The games played 
 are the simple ball games, such as one old cat, running games 
 like tag, prisoner's base, hide and seek and black man, and 
 the marble games. There are throwing games like duck on 
 the rock, the highly individualistic game of stunts or follow the 
 leader, in which one boy performs some difficult or daring 
 feat and the game consists in having the other boys one by one, 
 do the same thing in the same way. Other games of this 
 period are leap frog, mumble the peg, etc. This is the time 
 when predatory activities gain prominence as do the closely 
 allied activities of hunting, fishing, swimming, skating, snow- 
 balling and the so-called savage activities. More highly organ- 
 ized group games appear at approximately the age of 12, 
 according to Gulick. Teamwork is the keynote now. The 
 more common of these games are baseball, basketball, cricket 
 and hockey (34). 
 
 Zach. McGhee found that group games began earlier than 12 (50). 
 He gathered returns from about 10,000 children in South Carolina between 
 the ages of 6 and 18, which designated the 5 favorite games of their choice 
 from a long list submitted to them. Baseball was found to be one of the 
 favorite games by 57% of the boys at the age of 6, and football by 43%. 
 Even though these games be poorly organized among boys of this age it is 
 evident that they are very popular. In later years they become even more 
 popular. The curves for baseball show an upshoot at 1 1 . From being the 
 choice of 57% at 6 years it is preferred by 72% of the boys of 1 1 and con- 
 tinues at that level till 18, the age limit of the study. Football shows a 
 steady growth in popularity from 6 to 16. Considerable difference is 
 evident between the sexes as to the degree of organization and co-operation 
 in the games preferred. Having grouped the games which require co-opera- 
 tion, McGhee found that this curve was low for girls throughout the whole 
 period from 6 to 1 8. His returns support the thesis that games requiring or- 
 ganization and rules do not appeal to girls. Of the 12 games receiving the 
 highest number of votes 5 are totally lacking in co-operation, while most of 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 355 
 
 the others have but little organization. Croquet, the only organized game 
 that is anywhere high on the girls' list is very low until the age of 12. On 
 the other hand unorganized games are abnormally high until that age. 
 Girls' favorite plays for the entire period from 6 to 18 rank as follows: 
 dolls have the first place, chosen by 28.7% of the girls; jump rope, 21.6%; 
 between 10 and 22% are ranked authors, crokinole, open gates, parchesi,' 
 hide and seek, drop handkerchief and dancing. 
 
 Scott characterizes the period from 9 to 12 as one of increased activity 
 in which the games are co-operative but poorly organized (66). His 
 data are gathered from returns to a questionnaire sent out in Springfield, 
 Mass. In 90 cases the returns came from adults; in the other 490 they 
 were from boys of 10 to 18 years. Boys not belonging to a group were 
 asked whether they had a few chums. The returns showed that 68.5% 
 belonged to a group and that 1 8 % of the others had chums. Scott considers 
 a group containing less than 5 as too small to constitute a gang; if 4 boys 
 associate together he considers them as chums. Groups as large as 9 were 
 found among the younger boys. With increasing age the size of the group 
 decreased. He declares the period from 12 to 14 to be that of the closely 
 organized group. Two-thirds of the boys he questioned said that their 
 gangs had secrets, though sometimes this was nothing more than a certain 
 whistle or call. One half of them had some sort of an initiation. 
 
 The period from 6 to 10 is the time when the formation of chumship 
 is most frequent, according to Bonser (i i). In studying 756 boys and 1,279 
 girls in Illinois he found that the tendency toward chumming becomes very 
 strong in girls as early as 5 years and reaches its height at 6, when 15% of 
 such friendships were formed. Among boys this tendency develops a 
 little later and reaches its minimum at 10. Bonser treats only the relation- 
 ships between two individuals, on the basis that three is a crowd. Of the 
 2,000, only 40 state that they never had chums. His returns indicate that 
 after puberty the formation of this type of relationship falls off very rapidly. 
 Nearly half of the answers were from pupils of the latter half of the high 
 school course. Between 13 and 17 the curve of frequency of forming chum- 
 ships falls from 8 to less than i% of the cases. Chums of early years 
 continue to be such through the later years. Chums are reported as being 
 of the same age. Differences in the ages of two chums exceed 2 years in 
 only 2 % of the cases for boys and i % for girls. Bonser says that if older 
 associates are chosen they are not made chums or cronies of the confidential 
 sort (n, p. 224). Those reporting dispositions opposite to or different 
 from then" chums are 22.2% of the girls and 24.2% of the boys. The re- 
 maining number replied that they were the same or similar. Statements 
 were made by 18 boys and 26 girls that they never had chums. In most 
 of these cases, as shown by the other answers, there appeared an over 
 developed self-consciousness which restricted naturalness. Of the 756 boys 
 and 1,179 girls reporting but 12.4% of the former and 16.6% of the latter 
 state that the friendship with their chums were broken. Of these, 34 boys 
 and 62 girls give as their reason the fact that they moved away from the 
 neighborhood in which the chum lived. Quarrels were stated as being the 
 cause by 12 boys and 14 girls. 
 
 A study of the 146 boys in the Lyman School, Westborough, Mass., (a 
 reform school) by Puffer (61) showed that 128 of them had been members 
 of gangs. These boys ranged from 1 1 to 16 years. The average age of the 
 youngest boys in the gangs studied was 12.1 years, that of the oldest was 
 16.25 years. The youngest boy in the gang was 7; the oldest was 19. 
 Only 3 of these gangs existed in country towns and only 4 from places less 
 than 10,000 in population. This only shows, Puffer says, that boys from 
 country towns are not sent to a reform school. These 128 boys belonged 
 to 66 different gangs. Of these, 44 had i leader, 8 had 2 leaders, and a few 
 had more than 2. The average size of the gang was 10. In 24 cases the 
 leader informally took upon himself that office; in 4 cases the boy was 
 
356 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 informally given the leadership, and in 4 more cases he was elected by 
 ballot. In most cases the boys did not know how the gang started, for 
 only 17 could give any report. Of these, 6 said that the gang was started 
 by the leader; n stated that they had been in the gang 5 years or more. 
 Strangers were treated with little sympathy or were maltreated. Loyalty 
 to the group was found the dominant motif in the rules. Of the 5 1 rules 
 reported by the various gangs, 18 were against "squeeling," 8 against 
 lying to one of the gang, and 8 required standing by one another in trouble. 
 Out of the 54 records there were only 7 gangs which did not meet every day; 
 of these, 3 met 3 times a week, 2 twice a week, and i once a week. In the 
 records of 63 gangs all but 4 had regular meeting places. The gangs have a 
 proprietary feeling for the neighborhood of their meeting place. Only 8 of 
 these gangs were exclusive in membership, though they generally had a defi- 
 nite rule to entrance to regulate. These regulations show that they did not 
 have to recruit members; that the new boys wanted to get into the gang. 
 Out of 48 gangs only 1 1 report any form of initiation. The chief occupation 
 of these gangs was some form of physical activity. Under this title may 
 be grouped co-operative and nonco-operative games, fighting, predatory and 
 migratory activities and the other outdoor occupations designated as savage. 
 The occupations which did not find their chief element in physical activity 
 include theatre-going, mentioned by 38 gangs, card-playing by 25, gambling 
 by 12, smoking by 30 and drinking by 9. The attendance at theatres was 
 not by gangs but by twos and threes. However the necessary money was 
 obtained by gang activity. Of the physical activities, co-operative games 
 were the most popular. Out of 66 gangs 53 have records of games requiring 
 co-operation, such as baseball, football, hockey, basketball and cricket; 
 49 of the gangs spent part of their time hunting, fishing, berrying, building 
 boats, shanties and dugouts, and camping. Predatory activities in the form 
 of stealing were reported by 43 gangs. Fighting between gangs both of the 
 innocent snowball variety and with fists, stones and clubs, was reported by 
 22 different gangs. Activities which resulted in plaguing people, such as 
 tick-tacking on the windows, ringing doorbells, calling names at Chinamen, 
 Jews, Italians and policemen were mentioned by 45 gangs. 
 
 Browne (12) made a study of 'gang instinct in boys' which corresponds 
 with the data Puffer gathered, though the sources were rather different. 
 Browne went through books on boy life by Aldrich (5), Howells (41 ), Hutton 
 (42) and Warner (85), the studies of Sheldon (67), Gulick (34), and Culin 
 20), the reminiscences of 50 students at the International Y. M. C. A. 
 Training School, newspaper stories and the answers received from a number 
 of boys on the street. Of the 50 students, 25 had been members of gangs. 
 In 20 cases the ages of the members of the gangs was given. The extremes 
 were 7 and 18. Within the gang the disparity of ages ranged between 2 
 and ii years (the latter exception being in a town gang of 75 boys). 
 The medium disparity in ages was 4.5 years. 
 
 Stewart Culin (20), writing in 1891, gives the names of 50 different 
 gangs in Philadelphia which he obtained by personal inquiry among the boys 
 along the Schuylkill River front. He gives no other details except to say 
 that they had their laws and customs, their feuds and compacts. The 
 names would suggest that the boys were of tough character. Similar condi- 
 tions have been reported by social workers in other cities. Jacob Riis 
 wrote in 1890: "The gang is an institution in New York. . . Every corner 
 has its gang. . . The gangs belt the city like a huge chain from the 
 Battery to Harlem. . . They have their 'club rooms' where they meet, 
 generally in a tenement, sometimes under a pier or a dump to carouse' 
 play cards and plan their raids. . . The fiction of a social 'club' which 
 most of the gangs keep up, helps them to a pretext for blackmailing the 
 politicians and the storekeepers in their bailiwick at the annual sessions of 
 their picnic or ball" (64, p. 217-230). Speaking of Boston, Robert A 
 Woods wrote in 1898: "Almost every boy in the tenement-house quarters 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 357 
 
 of the district is a member of a gang. The boy who does not belong to one 
 is not only the exception, but the very rare exception. There are certain 
 characteristics in the make-up and life of all gangs. To begin with, every 
 gang has a 'corner' where its members meet. This 'hang out,' as it is 
 sometimes called, may be in the centre of the block, but still the gang speak 
 of it as the 'corner'. The size of the gang varies; it may number five or 
 forty. As a rule, all the boys composing it come from the immediate 
 vicinity of the corner. Every gang has one or two leaders; and of course 
 its character depends very much upon the leaders, for as one of the boys 
 expressed it the leader says '"Come" ' and the push move' . . Nightly 
 after supper the boys drift to their corner, not by appointment, but natur- 
 ally. Then ensue idle talk, 'jawing matches,' as one boy expressed it, 
 rough jokes, and horse-play. . . I am referring now more particularly 
 to boys over fourteen years old. . . About thirty young men belonging 
 to one of the gangs I know, meet every Sunday afternoon at their corner. 
 Of this number, fully half are fellows who live in the highlands, at the edge 
 of Roxbury. I know a boy in High School he will graduate next year 
 who moved to Dorchester, but comes regularly to the old corner on Sunday 
 afternoon. No new friends can supplant the gang. . . It is interesting 
 to know what becomes of these various gangs when the boys get to be 
 seventeen or eighteen years old. The more respectable gangs, as a rule, 
 club together and hire a room. The more vicious prefer to use what little 
 money they have in carousing" (87, p. 114-118). From her Chicago ex- 
 perience Jane Addams says, in the same words Mr. Woods uses: "the boy 
 in the tenement house region who does not belong to the gang is not only 
 the exception, but a very rare exception" (i, p. 176). 
 
 Chap. II. The Boys 1 and Girls' Club 
 
 Henry D. Sheldon made a comprehensive study of the 
 institutional activities of American children (67). According 
 to the data gathered from 2,508 papers of value written as a 
 classroom exercise, received from children of the ages 8 to 17, 
 from 5 localities, East and West, rural and metropolitan, 68% 
 were or had been members of clubs. Many of these were of 
 adult formation, leaving 1,166 purely spontaneous children's 
 organizations. An attempt was made to divide the societies 
 into groups on the basis of their activities, with a separate 
 group for those having secret elements. The figures are pre- 
 sented in a chart. For the purpose of making a comparative 
 study these figures have been worked over and are shown in 
 the accompanying table. For each age from 8 to 17 are 
 shown the number of papers collected, the number of spontane- 
 ously formed societies, the number of societies described in the 
 papers which were formed by adults for children, the per- 
 centage of those belonging to spontaneous and adult formed 
 societies. In order to compare the activities at the different 
 ages their relative importance among spontaneously formed 
 clubs has been worked out in percentages. The groups 
 Sheldon made are entitled : secret, predatory, athletic, social, 
 industrial, philanthropic, and in one group literary, art, and 
 musical societies. 
 
358 
 
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 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
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360 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 At the age of 8, with which the investigation began, the per- 
 centage of those answering who belonged to spontaneously 
 formed clubs was 28. As the returns received were class room 
 exercises given to all the pupils in the grades investigated, 2,906 
 in number, these figures may be taken as representing approxi- 
 mately the proportion of such school children belonging to 
 clubs. Of this large number only 224 did not write; of the 
 returns received 398 were defective in some details though they 
 all described clubs. The height of the curve of membership 
 is reached at 12 when over half of the pupils belonged to clubs. 
 Comparing girls and boys the age of 8 shows both sexes at a 
 level, 28 per cent. The girls' curve reaches its apex of 60 at 
 12 years, the boys' curve rises to 68 at 10 and then diminishes. 
 In all cases the figures for the ages of 16 and 17 are so few as to 
 invalidate them. Of the girls 48% belonged to clubs of their 
 own formation; for the boys the figure is 55%. Certainly 
 Puffer (61, p. 178) and Forbush (27, p. 314; 26, p. 44) are unin- 
 tentionally misinterpreting the facts when they say that 
 Sheldon's figures show that only 7% of the clubs were formed 
 before 10 and that 11,12 and 13 are the ages when the largest 
 number of clubs were formed. Sheldon's figures furnish no 
 direct information on the question as to when the clubs were 
 formed nor their duration, though they suggest that they were 
 formed much earlier than Forbush and Puffer say. The 
 years when they were most prevalent are from 10 to 14. 
 
 Despite the instructions that none but spontaneously formed 
 clubs be described 623 clubs formed by adults for children were 
 written up. The curve of relation between the number of 
 these and the total number of papers collected shows a per- 
 centage at 8 years of 33. Except for a rise again to 33 at 13 
 there is a general decline with age. Girls outnumber boys in 
 the ratio of 34:22 in these societies. 
 
 A consideration of the activities of these clubs shows that 
 secret organizations which constitute 7% of the clubs are 
 slightly more popular in the earlier years, and that they are 
 predominantly found among girls. These were, Sheldon says, 
 mostly social or 'good time' clubs, though other types of clubs 
 also had secret features. A better classification would have 
 counted these also under the separate headings. The curve for 
 predatory activities begins at 17% and gradually diminishes. 
 With 8 and 9 year old girls it is as prominent as with boys; 
 after that it drops rapidly. The curve for boys continues to 
 be high until 15. The term predatory however is given a very 
 loose meaning. A better term for what is meant would be 
 unorganized play as contrasted with athletics, i. e., the plays 
 carried on without rules and being unruly. For organized 
 games or athletics the curve rises from 27% at 8, to 48 at 10, 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 361 
 
 drops to 35, at 12, and then rises to 49, at 15. This is domin- 
 antly the boy's type. Though it rises to 15 from 7 with girls, it 
 continues to be but a minority choice throughout. The girls' 
 popular choice consists of those activities which Sheldon groups 
 together as industrial occupations, sewing, giving shows, play- 
 ing store and collecting. This curve rises from 33 to 44, then 
 drops to 10. With boys it starts at 7%, reaches 15 at 1 1 years, 
 and then drops. Philanthropic organizations, which constitute 
 3% of the spontaneous clubs, consist in his study of 2 types, 
 those whose chief object is to help other people and those 
 formed for mutual help against such vices as swearing, using 
 slang, smoking and the like. The group of social clubs 
 constitutes 1 1% of the whole. This is dominantly a girl's club, 
 with whom it varies from 15 to 27% after its appearance at 
 9 years. Only the philanthropic clubs have a lower standing 
 in relative importance with boys, social clubs being on a par 
 with secret clubs, literary, art and musical organizations. 
 This last group is the latest to appear. At 1 1 years it reaches 
 4% and until 16 never goes higher than 13%. Boys and girls 
 do not organize together. 
 
 In addition to the data from children Sheldon collected 
 reminiscences from 453 adults in response to a questionnaire. 
 These he does not tabulate but summarizes and generalizes. 
 
 The period before 10 years he characterizes as the stage 
 of imitation. At this time the play mimics the occupations 
 of adults whom they see, hear or read about. The second 
 period, from 10 to 14, he calls the period of invention and the 
 following of instinct. We shall defer interpretation till the 
 second section of the paper. It must be said in passing, how- 
 ever, that the cases cited as illustrations of this new element 
 of invention and instinct include a case of a Jesse James gang, 
 a typical gang with a club house and an Indian club. The 
 cases he cites do not support the thesis of the appearance of 
 invention at this age. 
 
 The quotation above from Mr. Woods ended with the state- 
 ment that the more respectable gangs form clubs. His 
 description of them particularly emphasizes their role in poli- 
 tics. There are 8 of these young men's clubs in his district 
 of Boston. In New York they are much more numerous and 
 similar conditions exist in other cities. One of the chief 
 undertakings of these 'social pleasure' clubs, as they are 
 generally called, is the management of an annual ball held 
 in one of the public dance halls. During the winter months 
 in Tammany Hall, Arlington Hall, Clinton Hall and the 
 hundreds of other dance halls in New York several 'Full 
 Dress and Civic,' Mask Balls, or 'Barn Dances' per week are 
 held by these social clubs, so numerous are they. One club 
 
362 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 whose meetings and dances the writer has attended held two 
 'annual balls' the same year. Picnics are held in the summer. 
 Most of the members of these are wage earners and unmarried. 
 They hire a parlor floor, sometimes also a basement where 
 they hold dances for members and their friends only. Nearly 
 all of them have back rooms where gambling may be carried 
 ori undisturbed by the police. Here the unemployed members 
 may find a loafing place. In the evening the members gather 
 informally with their tobacco and beer for a general good 
 time, singing, clog-dancing, cards and story-telling. 
 
 It is but a step from this the ' social' club to the ' benevolent' 
 society, the additional element being that each members pays 
 weekly dues or 'benefits' to sick members. These are not 
 to be confused with the great fraternal organizations existing 
 throughout the country, but a certain relationship is evident. 
 These clubs formed by boys in their teens grow into the adult 
 organizations to be treated in the following chapter. To 
 show the similarity reference may be made here to the clubs 
 of thieves and pickpockets which are started by adolescents. 
 Very frequently the police trace stolen goods to the club rooms 
 of a gang of thieves. Pickpockets also have organizations of 
 this character. A short time ago a smart fellow caught one 
 of this gang picking his pocket and held the man's hand in 
 his own pocket. He was about to turn the man over to the 
 police with the proof, whereupon the pickpocket begged for 
 mercy and promised that our friend should never be picked 
 again. Moreover he promised that if at any time Mr. X 
 should need any assistance he would get it by visiting the club, 
 and when released the pickpocket invited his intended victim 
 down to the club rooms on a certain night. At the appointed 
 time our friend called on the pickpockets and received a 
 royal welcome. 
 
 As illustrating the wide spread character of these social 
 clubs the experience of the evening recreation centres in the 
 New York Public Schools is enlightening. In the year 1899 
 the public schools were opened in the evening, with paid 
 instructors in charge, for general recreative purposes. The 
 last report of the city superintendent (51) gives statistics of 
 744 clubs which have come into the schools from outside 
 because here is provided a warm and lighted meeting place. 
 The settlement houses have the same experience constantly. 
 To some extent no doubt the formation of clubs out of unor- 
 ganized gangs of the street corners has been stimulated by 
 this provision of attractive meeting places and the additional 
 incentives of gymnasium, baths and other advantages, espec- 
 ially the privilege of special rates at summer camps, but this 
 stimulation is in itself inadequate to explain the existence of 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 363 
 
 the spontaneously formed clubs, as some social workers have 
 maintained. 
 
 The athletic club is an institution of great significance 
 among the boys of the cities. Such organizations as the 
 Irish- American, the Crescent and others will be treated under 
 the heading of adult clubs. Among boys and young men 
 small athletic clubs flourish particularly abundantly during 
 the summer, as the advertising columns of the evening papers 
 well show. A single edition of the Evening Journal will 
 contain advertisments for ball games by scores of teams. A 
 typical notice is the following: "The Alco A. C. (uniformed) 
 desires to schedule games with 15 yr. teams for Sunday after- 
 noons in July, to be played at Pelham Bay Park." Several 
 of the papers conduct in this way an extensive engagement 
 bureau. The recreation centres and playgrounds furnish 
 the opportunity for competitive contests in basketball, gym- 
 nasium and track events as well as baseball. 
 
 Because of the fact that no data except that furnished by 
 Sheldon has been published regarding girls' spontaneously 
 formed clubs, the writer has made a special study of this type 
 of organization. Through Prof. W. S. Monroe reminiscences 
 were obtained from 189 girls in the State Normal School at 
 Montclair, N. J. Prof. Monroe asked the members of his 
 psychology classes to write an account of the clubs they had 
 been instrumental in forming, the organizations which were 
 spontaneously formed by the girls themselves and independent 
 of adult interference. They were asked to tell the number of 
 members and their age, the duration and the ostensible pur- 
 pose of the clubs, to state the basis of membership, and 
 whether or not there were any secret characteristics. Of the 
 girls in these classes only 17, or 9% of the whole number, had 
 not been members of some spontaneously formed club. Some 
 had belonged to more than i, the 172 girls reporting and 
 describing 261 clubs. 
 
 The curve of age for the formation of clubs covers the span 
 from the fifth to the eighteenth years. The one case of a 5 
 year old girl was exceptional; they wanted to exclude all 
 under 7 but her sister's influence got her in. Of the 236 
 cases where age was stated the medium was 12, the average 
 1 1.9. The curve shows that the period when the formation of 
 clubs was most frequent was 9 to 14. In 6 cases the age was 
 given as being 8 to 9. If we count these as being under 9 we 
 have 32 cases of clubs formed before 9, or 13% of the total. 
 Only 37, or 16%, were formed after the age of 14. Of the total 
 number 218 report the duration, or length of time of existence. 
 This varies from i hour to 5 years, and in 7 cases the clubs 
 
364 
 
 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Age of Girls when 
 they formed Clubs. 
 
 still exist. The average duration is 9.7 months. 209 report 
 membership. This varies from 3 to 50. The average is 8.1. 
 The ostensible purpose of these clubs was declared to be 
 dominantly social or for a good time in in cases; in 3 others 
 this is a subordinate motive. Sewing is the chief motive in 3 1 
 clubs, and a subordinate motive in 31 others. 21 clubs are 
 dramatic, 4 subordinately so ; 13 are declared to be dominantly 
 philanthropic and 19 have this as an incidental motive; 14 
 are dominantly literary, 4 subordinately literary; secrecy is 
 the sole motive in 18 cases and in 6 cases it is a subordinate 
 motive; 4 are for spite; 10 clubs are athletic; 3 are card 
 clubs; 3 have a religious motive; in 2 cases each the chief 
 purpose is exploring, music, languages, and for the protection 
 of animals; in i case each, clubs were formed for the study 
 of birds, of algebra, history, large cities, and of civics, and i 
 was a postal club, i an Indian club, i for self -improvement ; 
 2 had as a subordinate purpose the elimination of slang among 
 the members. Adding the dominant and subordinant purpose 
 and figuring the percentages we obtain the following table: 
 
 Purpose 
 
 Social 
 
 Sewing 
 
 Philan. 
 
 Literary 
 
 Dramatic 
 
 Secrecy 
 
 Athletic 
 
 Spite 
 
 No. 
 
 114 
 
 62 
 
 32 
 
 28 
 
 25 
 
 24 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 % 
 
 35-3 
 
 19.2 
 
 9.9 
 
 8-7 
 
 7-7 
 
 7-4 
 
 7-4 
 
 1.2 
 
 Purpose 
 
 Cards 
 
 Relig. 
 
 Explor 
 
 Music 
 
 Language 
 
 Animal 
 
 Slang 
 
 Birds 
 
 No. 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 % 
 
 0.9 
 
 0.9 
 
 0.6 
 
 0.6 
 
 0.6 
 
 0.6 
 
 0.6 
 
 0-3 
 
 Purpose 
 
 Algebra 
 
 Hist. 
 
 Cities 
 
 Civics 
 
 Postal 
 
 Indian 
 
 Self-Imp. 
 
 
 No. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 % 
 
 0-3 
 
 o-3 
 
 0-3 
 
 o-3 
 
 0-3 
 
 -3 
 
 o-3 
 
 
 Of these clubs 80 or 36.5% are secret. 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 365 
 
 In most cases these clubs are but incidents in the group 
 life of girls already united by friendship and the play activities. 
 This is particularly evident in cases where the same group 
 forms numerous clubs, one succeeding another. One girl 
 writes: "We children were very fond of forming secret clubs 
 and had several at different times. Sometimes I or my 
 sister belonged to two different ones at a time." Another 
 girl reports 5 different clubs. In such cases the club is not 
 the cause of the group formation but incidental to its activity. 
 In other cases, of which the following is a good example, the 
 club is the principal bond of union. "Last spring I organized 
 a club. I wrote to my girl friends inviting them to my house to 
 discuss plans for forming a club, the object of which was to do 
 something to aid the Fresh Air Fund which sends poor chil- 
 dren to the country in the summer. The girls were very enthu- 
 siastic over the idea and each girl agreed to bring in at least 
 one member. The members were all between the ages of 
 sixteen and twenty and were good workers. After four 
 meetings which were held at my house the club was organized 
 and we decided on different ways to make money." Al- 
 though these girls were friends they were not constantly 
 together in their activities. The club was extra-incidental 
 and not incidental to their life. In the great majority of cases, 
 231 in fact, the descriptions show that the clubs were inci- 
 dental to the play activity; in the smaller group of 30 cases 
 the activity was extra-incidental. Of these 30, 2 were under 
 adult leadership, the only ones in the whole study which 
 were. The medium age of the formation of these groups 
 was 15. Only 8 were under 14; none were under n. The 
 duration of these clubs varied from 3 months to 8 years. 
 The medium duration was 2 years, the average 25.6 months. 
 The membership varied from 4 to 120, with a medium at 
 14 and an average of 20, with an average deviation of 
 13. The primary purposes were in 9 cases social; in 3 cases 
 each athletic, sewing, literary, musical and religious ; in 2 cases 
 each for study of languages and for card-playing, and i case 
 each of clubs formed for dancing, dramatics, philanthropy, 
 and the study of algebra and of history. Secondary purposes 
 of philanthropy in 3 cases, literary activity in 3 cases, social 
 in i case and sewing in i case were present. 9 of them were 
 secret. 
 
 As another form of approach to the question the clubs were 
 divided into 3 groups according to age, the 32 clubs of girls 
 under 9 forming the first, or group A, the group of 170 formed 
 by girls between and 9 and 14 inclusive constituting group 
 B, and the 37 cases of clubs over 14 making group C. 
 
366 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 A. The duration of the clubs in group A varied from i 
 week to 3 years. The medium duration was 8 months, the 
 average 9.3 months with an a. d. of 8. i. The membership 
 varied from 3 to 12. Of the 26 cases where membership was 
 stated the medium was 5, the average 5.5 with an a. d. of i. 4. 
 One of the largest clubs had 2 boys as members. The follow- 
 ing is the order of prominence of the purposes: good time, 
 sewing, dramatic productions, philanthrophy, athletics, spite, 
 exploring, literary and musical occupations and bird study. 
 Of this group 12 had secret elements. 
 
 As an example of the type of club most common among 
 these young girls the following may be quoted: 
 
 "When we were about 7 years of age we formed a club called the 'Dra- 
 matic Seven.' As the name implies the club was formed for the purpose 
 of having little 'plays.' After we had given one play we changed the 
 names to the 'Merry Seven' and gave parties. Originally there were 7 
 members, all close friends to each other. As we became acquainted with 
 other children we allowed them to join if we liked them very much. We 
 had a peculiar password, 'two drops.' These words were selected because 
 when joining, each member had to go through an initiation ceremony, 
 which consisted in having two drops of salt water dropped on the tongue 
 through a medicine dropper. The club lasted about a year." Other 
 characteristic features are added by this account: "When some of my 
 friends and I were on an average of 8 years old we formed a little sewing 
 club which met Saturday afternoons. This little club, of which we were 
 very proud, was organized for a twofold purpose. First we sewed and 
 embroidered clothes for our dolls, and secondly we had little outings 
 during the vacation time from the money in the treasury. The dues were 
 three cents per week a member, and every Saturday we met at a different 
 member's house. One of the chief and most important things to me 
 was the little spreads which were served after the meetings, by the mother 
 at whose house we held our meetings. As far back as I can recollect we had 
 6 members, all girls, who were the organizers. No boys were allowed to 
 join our club. We had no password or held no initiation ceremony. 
 Having no satisfactory candidates, and two of our members having moved, 
 our little club broke up after having existed two years." 
 
 B. Group B is the largest, including 170 cases. Duration 
 was stated in 155 cases. The medium was 5 months, the aver- 
 age 9.27, with an a. d. of 9.08. The number of members in 
 152 cases had a medium of 8, an average of 7.7 with an a. d. 
 of 3. 4. These clubs were in half the cases for a good time. 
 The other purposes were found to rank as follows: sewing, 
 50; philanthropic, 29; dramatic 18; secrecy, 17; literary, 13, 
 athletic, 4; religious, 2; for the protection of animals, 2; 
 and i case each for the study of large cities, and for history, 
 to play Indian, and for self -improvement. Secret elements 
 were present in 53 cases. 
 
 An illustration of the social club of 14 year old girls is well 
 represented by this report : 
 
 "About four years ago three of my girl friends and I formed a small club. 
 We named it the Weathervane and each of us represented a wind, one 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 367 
 
 north, one east, one south and one west. It was an exclusive organization 
 and though we contemplated admitting four members to make northeast, 
 etc., we never did. I was at the time about fourteen years old. Our only 
 purpose in forming it was to have a good time. We met on Friday evenings 
 and always made candy. Sometimes we played games also. Our dues 
 were five cents a week, and they were used only to have a good time. The 
 club lasted for about two years when it was broken up because one of the 
 members went to Europe. During the time it lasted we had one party to 
 which only four were invited. We went on little picnics, but only by our- 
 selves. It was not a secret society so we had no password but we had 
 what we called a club call. It was 'North, south, east or west, which one 
 do you like the best!' We also had a club song which one of the girls com- 
 posed. Our colors were green and gold and to this day we are all loyal 
 to them. We were going to get club pins but the club broke up before 
 we could decide on them. We kept a book in which the secretary always 
 wrote up the minutes of each meeting. We had election of officers about 
 once every two or three months. Of course each member was an officer." 
 
 The following pictures the typical sewing society : 
 
 "At the age of eleven another gifl and I organized a little club for the 
 purpose of making Xmas presents as well as for pleasure. The club con- 
 sisted of only eight members and no other person was allowed to join. We 
 called ourselves the 'Sewing Club' and wore black and orange rosettes in 
 order to make people ask questions. We met at each person's house, 
 sewed, had little refreshments and had a general good time. We met once 
 a month. The society only lasted about four or five months. I remember 
 I was secretary of the organization." 
 
 This portrays a dramatic club : 
 
 "At the age of thirteen I with five other companions about the same age 
 formed a club which we called the 'Dramatic Club.' We would read all the 
 children's stories we could get and then attempted to stage those which we 
 thought were best suited for the purpose. New members were taken in 
 according to what was needed in the cast, and only those were admitted 
 who we thought had the ability. It was not a secret organization and we 
 had no password. The club lasted for one summer and disbanded when 
 school began." 
 
 A typical club with philanthropic motivation is thus de- 
 scribed : 
 
 "When I was about twelve years old I belonged to a secret society called 
 the S. B. C. The club was formed to make scrap-books for a hospital, 
 which the sister of one of the members was interested in. Two of us 
 formed the club and we chose three other girls whom we asked to join. 
 This made five of us and no one else could join. We had neither password 
 nor ritual. The club lasted about a year or perhaps a little longer. ' ' 
 
 What we have called a literary club includes such as this : 
 "One voluntary organization to which I belonged when about thirteen 
 was a reading club. A list of good books was arranged, each of which was 
 read before the club by each member in turn and then discussed. Our 
 object was to read good books and become acquainted with the life of 
 the authors. New members were freely taken in until we had twelve; 
 that was the final number. We continued our club for nearly a year. 
 All proceedings were kept secret." 
 
 C. Of the 37 clubs formed by girls over 14 years of age, 
 7 were still in existence at time of writing. The reporters 
 
368 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 being juniors and seniors in normal school may be judged to 
 be at least 18. Figuring on the length of time these clubs 
 have actually existed to date of reporting, the medium duration 
 in months is 12, the average 20.3 with an a. d. of 12.1. This 
 is figured from the 3 1 cases reporting duration. The member- 
 ship varied from 5 to 40; the medium was 10, the average 
 12.6, with an a. d. of 6.7. Here also there were 31 cases. 
 These were mostly social clubs. The other purposes in order 
 of importance were dramatic, literary, athletic, for the study 
 of a foreign language, card-playing, sewing, religion, philan- 
 thropy, music, algebra, civics, saving of postal cards and the 
 elimination of slang. 8 of these were secret. 
 
 A comparison of the 3 groups shows that the duration of the 
 clubs in groups A and B was very nearly the same. For 
 group A it was 9.3 with an a. d. of 8.8; for group B it was 
 9.27 with an a. d. of 9.08. Group C however shows a great 
 increase, the duration here being 20.3 with an a. d. of 12.1. 
 The membership shows a slight increase with age, the figures 
 in the 3 cases being 5. 5, 7.7, and 12.6. A comparison of the 
 purposes and activities shows that the motive of social 
 pleasure occupies approximately the same prominence in each. 
 Sewing occupies the same position in A and B but it drops 
 considerably in C. The dramatic motive appears in nearly 
 the same proportion of cases in each period. Of the 32 in- 
 stances in which the philanthropic motive appears all but 6 
 are in clubs under 13; i. e., 55% of the cases being under 13 
 have 81% of the cases of philanthropic motivation. The 
 literary motive remains of the same prominence in the 3 groups. 
 The athletic purpose which is insignificant, evident in but 
 7 cases, appears at 10 and over. The motive of secrecy appears 
 as a dominant one in 16 clubs and as a concomitant or subor- 
 dinate one in 10 others. Moreover 82 have some secret 
 characteristics. The ages when secrecy is a motive for forming 
 clubs is from 8 to 14. In one case no age was given. Of the 
 25 others, 18 or 72% were under n years of age, while only 
 21.4% of all the clubs were under n. All were under 15; 
 half of them were at 9 and 10. Of those clubs having some 
 secret elements the age was given in all but 2. There were 
 31 under n; i. e., 38.8%. This illustrates the kind of club 
 in which the purpose is secrecy : 
 
 "When I was ten years of age six little girl friends and myself formed a 
 secret club, which we called W. N. T., meaning we never tell. The club 
 was of the most secret character; everything was whispered in order 
 to make it more mysterious. We had no passward but always spoke to 
 each other m 'hog Latin.' The membership of the club was most ex- 
 clusive since we took in only those whom we especially liked and who 
 would let us run things the way we wished. The only object we had in 
 arming the club was to keep certain other children whom we knew guess- 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ing when we spoke in whispers. The club lasted for about six months. 
 One of the exclusive members told the name of the club and this was the 
 cause of its finally being dissolved." To represent the sort of club meant 
 when we say that it had some secret elements though not formed for the 
 purpose of secrecy as the above, the following may be quoted: "I 
 belonged to a club of sixteen girls and boys. The object was to give 
 performances. Our meetings were secret and our password was 'Bobkin.' 
 We used to give little plays only for our own amusement and nobody 
 outside ever came .... This club lasted one summer. 
 
 The athletic clubs were evenly distributed through the dif- 
 ferent ages. The 4 ' spite ' clubs were under 12.5 years. Those 
 formed for playing cards, for studying history, language, 
 civics and algebra were formed after 14, as was the i for self- 
 improvement. The kindness to animals motive appeared 
 under 13, as did the 3 formed for bird-study, the study of 
 cities and for playing Indian. The religious motive appeared 
 at n, 12 and 17. Self -improvement appeared in i case, at 14. 
 
 As to frequency of meeting, 103 furnish data. Of these, 
 3 do not furnish the age of members. In 10 cases meetings 
 were more frequent than once a week; in 63 they were once 
 a week, and in 24 less than once a week. Of those meeting 
 more frequently than once a week all but 3 are under 1 2 years 
 in age; all but 3 of those meeting less frequently than once 
 a week are over 1 1 ; all are 10 or over. 
 
 Data was furnished for 115 clubs as to the basis of member- 
 ship. In 42 cases the membership qualification was just the 
 fact of being playmates or neighbors; 37 were described as 
 cliques; the basis was attendance at a certain school or 
 membership in a certain class in 12 cases; in 12, new members 
 were voted into the club, in i case by majority, in 7 by unani- 
 mous vote, and in the others the statement merely was that 
 new members were voted on ; in 9 a literary or musical test 
 was given; in i the qualification was the possession of pretty 
 clothes; in 2 cases the club was declared to be open. Group- 
 ing all those whom we may be reasonably sure were exclusive, 
 i. e., the cliques and those admitting only by unanimous vote 
 and the i having the qualification of dress, the total amounts 
 to 45, or 39%. of the whole. Comparing the number of cases 
 of clique organization for each age with the total number 
 of clubs at that age, the following percentages are obtained, 
 corresponding respectively to the ages 7 to 18: 14, 19, 13, n, 
 10, 16, 27, 27, 33, 20, 33, 100. Although a rise is evident in the 
 frequency of cliques at 13, the difference between the earlier 
 and later years is not very remarkable. The last figure, it is 
 to be observed, is for the only club formed at that age. 
 
 From a section of the country entirely isolated from that 
 whence these normal school girls came have been obtained data 
 of a similar nature. Miss Clare Lyon, Principal of the I/idger- 
 
370 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 wood, N. Dak., High School, asked the members of her 
 English classes to describe what clubs, if any, they had ever 
 been members of. The instructions were similar to those 
 Prof. Monroe gave. There were 27 members in the Senior and 
 Junior classes, of whom 23 were taking English, 18 girls and 
 
 5 boys. All but 2 of these had belonged to some sort of club 
 or 'bunch,' but 9 of these show adult leadership. The others, 
 9 girls and 3 boys described spontaneously formed clubs. 
 Out of 1 8 girls, therefore, 50% had been members of spontane- 
 ously formed clubs, The ages at the time of formation varied 
 from 9 to 14, the number of members from 4 to 15, with an 
 average of 6. The average duration was 7 months. The 
 purpose of organization was predominantly for a good time, 
 lesser in importance being the purposes of sewing, card play- 
 ing, reading, dramatic productions and philanthropy. One 
 question asked was their preference: to have a chum or to 
 belong to a club. Replies were received from n, 9 of whom 
 preferred to belong to a club; 2 preferred having a chum. 
 The fact was disclosed that there was no conflict between the 
 two sorts of relationship however. The typical situation may 
 be described thus in the words of one of the girls: "Here in 
 this town I have belonged for quite a while to what is known as 
 the ' Bunch,' and besides have always had one particular girl as 
 my chum." From various sections of the country have been 
 gathered other data of a confirmatory nature but of too dis- 
 connected a character to be classified. 
 
 It will be well here to summarize the facts thus far presented 
 regarding boys' and girls' group activities. At the age of 5 or 
 
 6 children get together in their play. These groups are roughly 
 organized and they participate in unco-operative and unor- 
 ganized games which gradually shape themselves into definite 
 games with rules, this germinating period lasting until 
 puberty. This gang activity may continue until maturity 
 unless the group is organized into a club. The club makes its 
 appearance as early as 7 or 8, both with boys and girls. Of 
 the spontaneously formed clubs reported by Sheldon 45% were 
 of girls. Of the girls in Prof . Monroe's classes 91% had been 
 members of clubs. In a personal letter from Miss C. I. MacColl, 
 of Christodora House, a settlement on the lower east side of 
 New York, the statement is made that "girls in our neighbor- 
 hood group as do the boys. In the past three months I have had 
 applications from fifteen different groups of girls from fourteen 
 to twenty years of age wishing to come to Christodora as 
 organized clubs. The ages when clubs were most frequently 
 found among boys were 10 to 14; this corresponds with the 
 time when they are most often formed among girls After 
 that age they do not cease to be members of clubs but they 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 371 
 
 usually join organizations which they find already in existence, 
 the permanent adult or student clubs. The number in the 
 gang averages 9 or 10. We have no figures on the size of the 
 boys' club, but as the gang organizes itself into the club we may 
 infer that the two are the same size. The girls' clubs were 
 found to average 8 members, they increase in size with age, 
 the adolescent clubs having an average of 12. In external 
 formation, then, boys' and girls' clubs are very similar. The 
 difference between them is in their activities and purposes. This 
 correlates closely with the fact that clubs formed before the age 
 of 13 or 14 are but incidental to the regular group activity. 
 Nine tenths of the clubs reported by the normal school girls 
 were of this character. Boys' clubs spend their time mostly 
 in physical activity; girls have clubs for sewing, dramatic 
 productions, tea parties and social good times. Girls say that 
 they form clubs for a good time; boys say that they are for 
 baseball, which is saying the same thing since boys play ball for 
 a good time. The activities of either sex could be carried 
 on without the club. In girls the exclusive clique spirit is 
 stronger than in boys. Secrecy is prominent among girls 
 under n years; it is not so strong among boys. After the 
 age of 14, clubs appear which are not mere incidents in the 
 play life; a new basis of membership is introduced. 
 
 Chap. III. Student Societies 
 
 Student life offers a volume of material for the study of 
 social psychology that has scarcely been opened. Nowhere 
 can the psychology of later adolescence be more profitably 
 studied than in the group life of students. Pres. Hall says: 
 "Student life is perhaps the best of all fields, un worked though 
 it be, for studying the natural history of adolescence. Its 
 modern record is over eight hundred years old and is marked 
 with the signature of every age, yet its essential features do not 
 vary" (35, p. 399). The 17 pages following this statement 
 in "Adolescence" summarizes a great many of the facts of 
 these student societies from the nations of Bologna and Paris 
 to the modern college fraternity. It is necessary for us in this 
 study, so far as the presentation of data is concerned, to confine 
 ourselves to present-day American societies. First to be 
 considered are the societies of the preparatory and high schools. 
 
 The first fact to be observed is that the conditions prevailing 
 in the public high schools are very different from those found 
 to exist in private boarding schools or the preparatory depart- 
 ments of colleges. In the latter case the organizations among 
 the students approximate quite closely those in the college. 
 The group organizations chronically present in the high school 
 
372 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 are the class, the literary and debating society, the athletic 
 association, the glee club and orchestra, and less frequently 
 mandolin, dramatic, art, camera, craft and science clubs, pub- 
 lication boards and fraternities. Generally the classes organize 
 in a rather loose way and for special occasions, for the further- 
 ance of class and school interests. In some cases only the senior 
 class thus organizes with officers and committees and perhaps a 
 constitution, for the purpose of managing the commencement 
 affairs. Besides the clubs distinctly of high school students 
 smaller group organizations are formed, as was shown in the 
 preceding chapter. These are not characteristic of the high 
 school but of that period of adolescence. The literary and 
 musical societies, except in the larger places, are as a rule 
 under the directing hand, if not propelled by one of the instruct- 
 ors. The athletic clubs, at least among boys, are more truly 
 spontaneous. In this case, however, the faculty have usually 
 found it advisable to associate themselves in an advisory 
 capacity and often as financial managers. 
 
 The last twenty years has witnessed the formation of secret 
 fraternities in the high school. As to their prevalence at 
 present it is only possible to approximate as there are no 
 figures. Baird merely says: "They are numerous, but have, 
 except in a very few instances, little elements of stability, and 
 in fact are imitations of the mere externals of the college 
 fraternity system without really grasping or living up to its 
 principles of brotherhood and mutual helpfulness" (6, p. V). 
 The difficulty of determining their prevalence is because first, 
 in but half the cases are they national organizations, and second 
 because of the circumstance that, on account of the opposition 
 to them on the part of the school authorities, secrecy is a means 
 of protection. The report in November, 1904, of a committee 
 appointed by Pres. Harper gives the best idea of their prev- 
 alence in the Middle West. Questionnaires were sent to 
 464 schools; replies were received from 306; of these "about 
 170 had no fraternities" (73, p. 3). Complete answers were 
 received from only 19 private and 71 public schools. The 
 private schools, having an enrollment of 2,207, had a fraternity 
 membership of 796 or 36.06 %. The 71 public schools, enrolling 
 54,827 had a fraternity membership of 4,523 or 8.35%. The 
 number of fraternities per high school varied from i to 6; 
 in many schools there was but i sorority. Two exceptional 
 cases were noted; the San Francisco Girls' High School had 7 
 sororities; The Central High School of Toledo, O., had 9 
 fraternities and 5 sororities. The average fraternity member- 
 ship was found to be 30 whether the school contained 100 or 
 1,500 pupils. The only difference is that in the larger schools 
 there are more fraternities (73). A couple years earlier 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 373 
 
 Gilbert B. Morrison sent out inquiries to 200 high school 
 principals in the largest cities of the country. Answers were 
 received from 185; of these 87 reported experience with 
 fraternities, and 98 reported having had no experience (55). 
 The conditions in New England in 1904 were reported by a 
 committee of which C. T. C. Whitcomb was chairman. He 
 received replies from 244 out of 301 requests for information 
 sent to towns in New England and to a number of large cities 
 throughout the country. Fraternities were reported as existing 
 in 72 schools (86). A committee of the Y. M. C. A. sent 
 out a few questionnaires in 1908. They received replies from 
 48 high schools in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Of these 
 15 have fraternities; 33 have not. The average membership 
 in these societies is 26 (89). All of these reports record the 
 opposition to the fraternity in the high school. Indiana, 
 Kansas and Minnesota by legislative acts in 1907 sought to 
 abolish them. These papers name 22 cities that legislated 
 against the fraternity. 
 
 College societies are more familiarly known. As Sheldon 
 pointed out in his book on college societies, where the elective 
 system has been introduced, it destroyed the autonomy of the 
 class, which had until about 1880 been an important factor 
 in the social life of the American college (68, p. 196). In the 
 smaller colleges the class organization is still quite strong. 
 Through the machinery of its constitution, officers, and com- 
 mittees it conducts 'proms,' banquets, parties, the year-book, 
 dramatics, etc., and crystallizes a class spirit which vents itself 
 in the inter-class athletic and debating contest and develops a 
 subtle loyalty to 'noughty-several.' To enumerate the dif- 
 ferent kinds of organizations which students form would be to 
 duplicate every type of adult club and then add a good many 
 others such as students only form. 
 
 Michigan University has a total of 176 student organizations 
 including 20 fraternities in the literary department, 13 in the 
 professional schools, 9 sororities, each having its own house, 
 10 sectional clubs, 6 literary and debating societies, 6 musical 
 clubs, dramatic, athletic, military, honor societies, class 
 organizations, press and publishments, and general university 
 clubs, such as medical, socialist, woman's suffrage and Chris- 
 tian associations. Wisconsin University has 130 such organi- 
 zations (71, pp. 208, 228). 
 
 A few of these types of club deserve special attention. The 
 last edition of Baird's handbook on secret fraternities (6) 
 issued in 1905 names 31 general chapters for men, 17 for 
 women, 50 professional fraternities, (about 10% of whose 
 membership is duplicated in the general fraternities) and local 
 fraternities to the number of 70 for men and 47 for women, 
 
374 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 with a total membership of 242,501. The World Almanac of 
 1 91 1 (88) gives larger numbers in each case, the total being 
 329,417. It is evident that this number includes alumni, 
 as the total student body in universities, colleges and technical 
 schools in the United States is only 289,204 (88) and that in 
 Canadian schools is only 10,000. Besides the secret fraterni- 
 ties, there are general honorary societies bearing Greek letter 
 names. All are copies of Phi Beta Kappa which now has a 
 membership of 15,000. The peculiar features of the college 
 fraternity are: (i) their residential character; they provide 
 a substitute for the home atmosphere by furnishing a house 
 exclusively for the residence of the society members; (2) their 
 secret features; (3) the extreme care taken to choose members 
 of congenial interests. 
 
 Religious organizations are found in all colleges. That of 
 widest extent is the Y. M. C. A., which numbers 758 organiza- 
 tions with a membership of about 60,000. The eastern schools 
 have other religious societies and denominational clubs. 
 Athletic associations, to which the greatest part of the students 
 belong, are universal. Their purpose is to furnish financial 
 and moral support for the teams. Lack of space forbids 
 further details as to student organizations. Pres. Hall, in one 
 of his remarkable sentences of 20 lines, summarizes the dif- 
 ferent kinds of clubs found in colleges (35, p. 416). 
 
 Chap. IV. Adults Clubs 
 
 Much valuable data would be provided for sociological 
 as well as for psychological interpretation of the club were 
 we to trace the history of its development. As student life 
 is the great laboratory for the study of later adolescent social 
 nature, so the club life of adults reveals the working of the 
 social processes of maturity. The difficulty of this task is 
 that there can be found no beginning until the earliest human 
 life is unearthed and laid out for inspection, and even then we 
 would be referred to higher animal life. All that the limits 
 of this thesis will permit is an outline sketch of the growth 
 of the club in America, with a presentation of the main facts 
 regarding the most prominent representatives of the types 
 now existing. 
 
 In 1800 there were but few clubs in this country. Freemasonry had 
 been introduced from England between 1723 and 1740. In 1743 the 
 American Philosophical Society was formed. jjn 1764-5 the Sons of Liberty, 
 a secret political organization, was founded. The New York Chamber of 
 Commerce, the first prominent representative of the business club, was 
 organized in 1768. The date of the Phi Beta Kappa was 1776. The 
 Pennsylvania Prison Society, 1787, the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
 1791, and the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences completed the 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY , 375 
 
 list of important learned societies. The officers of the disbanding army 
 formed the Society of the Cincinnati in 1783. As a corresponding and rival 
 society was formed the Society of Tammany in 1789. The first woman's 
 club on record was the Female Society for Relief and Employment of the 
 Poor, Philadelphia, 1 798. In the next 30 years the growth was not very rapid. 
 The principal organizations of this period were the following: The New 
 York Society of Journeymen Shipwrights, 1803, had some of the character- 
 istics of the labor union. The American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions, 1810, started the great missionary movement. The 
 Society of Red Men, 1813, developed out of the Sons of Liberty. Odd- 
 Fellowship was introduced from England in 1819. 1826 was the birth 
 year of the National Academy of Design and the Society of the War of 1812. 
 
 The period from 1830 to the Civil War saw the birth of many reform 
 movements which worked through clubs. Women now make their influ- 
 ence felt as never before in history. Labor unions sprang up, and political 
 clubs were numerous. They had no small influence in crystallizing action in 
 support of the principles that rent the union. The leading women's organi- 
 zations of this period were the Ladies' Association for Education of Females, 
 Jacksonville, 111., 1833; the Female Anti-Slavery Society and Home for the 
 Friendless, 1834; the Daughters of Temperance, 1840-50; the National 
 Woman's Rights Society, Nauvoo, 111., 1842; the Ladies' Physiological 
 Institute of Boston, 1848, and the Woman's Equal Rights Union, Seneca 
 Falls, N. Y., 1848. Many local labor unions were organized, and the 
 first national union, The International Typographical Union, 1850. Other 
 unions of more than local importance were the New England Workingmen's 
 Association, the New England Protective Union, and the Industrial Con- 
 gress of the United States, all formed in 1855. The National Education 
 Association was started hi 1857. Several secret societies of a fraternal 
 nature were organized and two were introduced from England, the 
 Ancient Order of Foresters, 1832, and the Ancient Order of Druids in 1839. 
 In 1842 the Sons of Temperance and in 1843 B'naiB'ruth, a Jewish secret 
 society, were organized. There were over forty learned societies formed 
 during the period, principal among them being the American Association 
 for the Advancement of Science, 1857. There were several important 
 political societies of short duration. 
 
 By far the great majority of societies existing to-day have been formed 
 since the Civil War. The fraternal insurance society movement may be 
 said to have been begun by the Ancient Order of United Workmen, in 
 1868. Since that date have been formed over 600 on a similar pattern (54). 
 The same year was the birth year of the 'woman's club' movement, 
 starting with Sorosis of New York and the New England Woman's Club of 
 Boston. In 1868 the National Labor Union, formed two years earlier, 
 reached an aggregate membership of 640,000. Though it declined, its task 
 was taken up by the Knights of Labor, founded in 1869; its aggregate 
 membership was 702,924 in 1888 (40, p. 379). This organization in turn 
 lost power and the American Federation of Labor, 1881, took up the mantle. 
 The scientific societies as well began their modern epoch after the war. The 
 great organization of farmers began in 1867 when the National Grange of 
 the Patrons of Husbandry was founded. The growth of societies has 
 continued constantly, each year adding a greater number of new organiza- 
 tions. Meyer says that of the 568 fraternal orders, the date of whose 
 organization could be obtained, 78 only were formed before 1880, 124 
 between 1880 and 1890, 136 between 1890 and 1895, and 230 between 1895 
 and 1900. The number of clubs of all kinds continues to grow by geometri- 
 cal progression. The Handbook of Learned Societies (16) gives the dates 
 of practically all the learned societies in America, except those in the 
 fields of medicine, agriculture, local bar and teachers' associations, leagues 
 for civic improvement, charitable organizations and patriotic societies. 
 Detailed data are given for 431 national and local societies of the United 
 
376 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 States. Of these 5 were formed in the period 1740-1800; n, 1800-30; 
 49, 1830-60; 24, 1860-70; 54,1870-80; 90, 1880-90; 114, 1890-1900; 
 84, 1900-08. 
 
 Considering more specifically the different types of clubs 
 now found in America, we may commence with the fraternal 
 order. 
 
 The aggregate membership in secret societies according to the World 
 Almanac (88) is over 1 1,000,000. This does not constitute one eighth of the 
 population, as might be supposed, because most of these people belong 
 to several societies. The age of admission to membership is as low as 
 15 in a few, is 1 6 in a great many and 18 will admit to the majority of 
 fraternal orders. The oldest of these is the Ancient and Honorable Society 
 of Free and Accepted Masons, which has existed in its present form since 
 1717 (76). Outstripping Freemasonry in membership is the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows. It dates from 1739 in England. Two other 
 important societies were imported, the Foresters and the Druids. The 
 Knights of Pythias, the Elks, Knights of Columbus, Order of Good Tem- 
 plars, and the Sons of Templars added to the four above, make up the group 
 of societies which do not have insurance features. Their aggregate size was 
 hi 1907 four fifths as large as those having insurance features. This group 
 may be classified as charitable, benevolent, religious or philosophical and 
 mystical. 
 
 The majority group of fraternal societies pay sick, death, disability or 
 other benefits. The largest of these is the Modern Woodmen of America, 
 founded in 1884; it now has over 1,000,000 members. The purpose of all 
 these fraternal orders, whether with or without insurance features, is mutual 
 helpfulness. In organization they have the peculiar features introduced by 
 secrecy, ritualism and mystic rites. 
 
 As was said above, the 'women's club' movement started 
 in 1868. We use the quotation marks to designate the pecu- 
 liar meaning attached to this type of woman's society, which 
 Mrs. Harper says women ' ' formed purely for their own recrea- 
 tion and improvement" (75, p. 1043). This does not char- 
 acterize the woman's movement as a whole, however, and the 
 societies which started with this narrow spirit "widened by 
 degrees into a study of practical matters related to law and 
 economics," so that to-day the General Federation of Women's 
 Clubs, representing a membership of over 500,000, has com- 
 mittees on art, child labor, civics, civil service reform, educa- 
 tion, forestry, household economics, industry, legislation, 
 library extension, literature, pure food, reciprocity and other 
 topics. Besides this large federation there are many other 
 organizations of women, only a few of which can be mentioned. 
 
 The National and the American Woman's Suffrage Associations were 
 founded in 1869 and united in 1889. The Woman's Christian Temperance 
 Union was founded in 1874 for securing the abolition of the liquor traffic. 
 Its scope of work is so broad as to require 40 departments. Its membership, 
 including children's societies is about half a million. Other societies of 
 national importance constituted entirely of women might be mentioned 
 in almost every field of endeavor. Some of these will be mentioned in 
 the following paragraphs. Fraternal orders have female almost as fre- 
 quently as male members. 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 377 
 
 Philanthropy as an organized movement of national scope 
 culminated in 1873 when the first National Conference of 
 Charities and Correction was held. 
 
 This organization now numbers between 2,400 and 2,500 members, and 
 represents all phases of philanthropic and charitable work. There are 
 several societies working for international peace. The Lake Mohonk 
 Conference on International Arbitration was founded in 1895. The National 
 Municipal League, 1894, enrolled in 1909 in 168 organizations reporting 
 163,473 members. The American National Red Cross Society was incor- 
 porated in 1905. It is a systematically organized body for furnishing relief 
 hi disasters of national scope. In 1911 it has a membership of 15,000, 
 organized into local chapters, and has an institutional affiliation with 15 
 associated charities. The National Civic Federation founded in 1900-01 
 has as its purpose the co-operation of the best brains of the country in an 
 educational movement toward solving some of the great problems related 
 to social and industrial progress. It has an executive committee of over 
 50 leading representatives of capital, labor and the public at large. The 
 National Conservation Association was organized in 1909 to fight for the 
 prompt and orderly development of our natural resources. It is a separate 
 organization from the National Conservation Congress, formed the same 
 year, though the two work harmoniously. 
 
 Of slightly different nature, as far as basis of membership 
 is concerned are the educational associations. 
 
 The National Education Association, formed in 1857 as the National 
 Teachers' Association, assumed its present name in 1870. This is the 
 official society of the teaching profession, and has as its purpose the eleva- 
 tion and advancement of the profession. On Dec. i, 1909, it had a member- 
 ship of 10,964. The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle was founded 
 in 1878 with the aim of continuing the influence of the Chautauqua 
 Assembly throughout the year in all parts of the country. Since that time 
 more than 260,000 members have been enrolled. The Association of Colle- 
 giate Alumnae was formed in 1882 for the purpose of uniting the alumnae 
 of different institutions for practical educational work. Dec. i, 1909, the 
 number of regular members was 4,377. 
 
 More specific in character are the societies for science, 
 literature, and art. 
 
 The American Association for the Advance ment of Science had its first 
 meeting in 1848 in pursuance of a resolution adopted in 1847 by the Asso- 
 ciation of American Geologists and Naturalists. This is the most compre- 
 hensive of American scientific societies, having an enrollment in 1910 of 
 over 8,000 members, in n sections, and an affiliated relationship with about 
 30 societies within the scientific professions. A more exclusive organiza- 
 tion is the National Academy of Sciences, incorporated by congress in 1863. 
 There are now 115 members and 44 foreign associates. In the National 
 Academy of Design there are 138 national academians and 124 associate 
 national academians. The American Academy of Arts and Letters dates 
 from 1904. Its first members were selected by 7 men, chosen by the National 
 Institute of Arts and Letters from its own body, with authoriy to select 
 the other members of the Academy until the number should reach 50. The 
 National Institute was organized in 1898 at a meeting of the American 
 Social Science Association, the qualification for membership in which is 
 'notable achievement in art, music or literature.' The number is limited 
 to 500. The American Social Science Association was organized in 1865, 
 
37 8 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 its field being the investigation and discussion of all subjects pertaining to 
 the progress of human society. It has a membership of about i,ooo A 
 similar society, founded in 1889, is the American Academy of Political and 
 Social Science which has about 4,000 members. 
 
 Several special religious societies deserve attention besides 
 those organized with churches. 
 
 The churches in 1910 had an aggregate membership in the United States 
 of over 34,500,000. Part of the church work is conducted by specially 
 organized missionary societies. There is no separate membership in most 
 cases. The members of the American Baptist Missionary Union for 
 instance, are all members of the Baptist Church. Auxiliary societies of 
 women exist in which money payments corresponding to dues are some- 
 times expected. The point of view in these religious societies is different, 
 however, than in any other form of club, or than in the Young Men's 
 Christian Association, where a regular payment is made in turn for certain 
 privileges. The Y. M. C. A. was founded in England in 1844. The Boston 
 and Montreal Associations were founded in 1851; the first national con- 
 vention in America occurred in 1854. At present there are in North 
 America over 2,000 associations with an aggregate membership of 500,000. 
 The Young Women's Christian Association started in England in 1855. 
 In this country the organization was formed in 1858 as the Ladies' Chris- 
 tian Union. 
 
 The patriotic societies in existence before the Revolution 
 may be said to have been largely political in character. 
 
 The Society of the Cincinnati was the first of that group now prominent 
 that have as a basis of membership an hereditary qualification. The World 
 Almanac of 191 1 mentions 32 such organizations for men, 1 1 for women, and 
 4 that have a mixed membership. The chief military organizations are the 
 Society of the War of 1812, formed in 1826, the Aztec Club of 1847, the Grand 
 Army of the Republic, 1866, which in 1910 had 2 13,901 members, the Sons of 
 the Revolution, 1875, the Sons of Veterans, 1879, and the Societies of Spanish 
 War Veterans. In 1 883 the Woman's Relief Corps, Auxiliary to the G. A. R., 
 was formed with the object especially to aid and assist the G. A. R., and to 
 perpetuate the memory of its heroic dead. It had in June, 1910, 164,255 
 members. In 1890 was started the group of societies which employ this 
 hereditary qualification as a means of obtaining an exclusive membership 
 for social purposes. In the same summer were formed the Colonial Dames 
 of America, and the Daughters of the American Revolution, the latter 
 being the more influential of the group, having in 1910 a membership of 
 60,250. The characterizing feature of these clubs is not their purpose but 
 their eligibility test. 
 
 Most of the labor unions of the country are affiliated into 
 the organization known as the American Federation of Labor. 
 
 In 1910 this was composed of 122 national and international unions, with 
 an aggregate membership of 1,534,700. In the railway unions not affi- 
 liated with the federation were 282,136 men, and in the other independent 
 unions 138,688. Besides these there are several organizations such as the 
 Knights of Labor, the American Labor Union, and the Western Federation 
 of Miners, from whom no figures could be obtained. The estimated trade 
 union membership in the United States and Canada for 1909 is 2,500,000 
 (57, P- 404)- 
 
 At the time of every political campaign local political clubs 
 spring up everywhere in all parties. 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 379 
 
 In the two leading parties there are strong permanent organizations of a 
 central character. The National Republican League of the United States 
 was organized in 1887 by delegates from about 350 local clubs, its aim being 
 to enlist voters for the party. It has a membership of 1,500,000. A 
 similar organization in the Democratic Party, now in its third year, has 
 875,000 members. 
 
 National organizations exist in many of the professions. 
 
 The American Medical Association was incorporated in 1897 and has a 
 membership of 35,500. The American Bar Association was organized in 
 1878 and now has 4,000 members. From these it is but a step to the 
 professional organizations of business men. The American Iron and Steel 
 Association is classed by the Carnegie Institution as one of the learned 
 societies. It was founded in 1855 to take all proper measures for the ad- 
 vancement of the trade, and its membership is constituted of manufacturers 
 of iron and steel. The same handbook includes the American Railway 
 Master Mechanics Association, 1868, founded for the advancement of 
 knowledge useful for this trade. The National Association of Manufac- 
 turers, 1895, is but the most general of 500 employers organizations that 
 might be named. Corresponding to every degree of organization of labor 
 exist organizations of capital. So on down the list we might go, if there were 
 paper enough, to enumerate the clubs of governors, bankers, accountants, 
 commercial travellers, clerks, pickpockets, thieves, tramps and 'black- 
 handers.' 
 
 Another type of organization is represented in the athletic 
 associations. 
 
 These exist locally in almost every city in every branch of athletics. 
 For the last 20 years amateur athletics has centered in the American Athletic 
 Union, which now represents in active membership over 400 local clubs, and 
 as allied members 10 national associations, the aggregate membership 
 amounting to about 2,000,000 competing athletes. It was organized in 
 1887 and after a war of several years with its predecessor, the National 
 Amateur Athletic Association of America, which was founded in 1879, 
 the latter was absorbed. 
 
 A society in a class by itself is the National Grange of the Patrons of 
 Husbandry, 1867. It admits women on an equality with men. Its purpose 
 is to promote all that is best in the mental, social and spiritual development, 
 as well as to advance the material interests of its members. Local granges 
 have been formed among the farmers of every section of the country. In 
 numbers it reached its greatest height in 1875, when there were 1,500,000; 
 this was the result of the panic of 1873. At this period the society got into 
 politics with disastrous results. At present it confines its activities to 
 educational and social wrok. 
 
 In the above treatment the aim has been to describe the 
 chief facts regarding the most prominent representatives of 
 all types of the club. Most of these have been national 
 societies. Connected with each are local organizations, 
 formed on a similar plan. In thousands of cases, however, 
 there are local clubs entirely independent, and each varying 
 from the others. Foremost among these is the 'social club' 
 formed in every town. Where there is wealth enough a club 
 house is built. The World Almanac gives the names of 76 
 such clubs in New York City, which have a membership of 
 
380 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 75,000. The chief purpose in the social club is a good time 
 and the agencies employed are almost as varied as human 
 interests. In the way of summary of the adult clubs nothing 
 can be said but that for every conceivable object a group of 
 people may have in common the American tendency at present 
 is to organize a club. 
 
 SECTION II. INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA 
 
 Chap. I. The Dynamic Mental Forces which Produce 
 the Club 
 
 Thus far this thesis has confined itself to a presentation of 
 the facts regarding the club, i. e., to the structural aspect of 
 social psychology. This section of the paper attempts an 
 interpretation of these ; x ,data, which process constitutes the 
 functional aspect of social psychology. In the genetic 
 approach to this question it is possible to see the development 
 of the different psychical processes involved. The task of 
 this chapter is to describe the dynamic mental processes 
 which produce the club. 
 
 It will be helpful first to draw a distinction between the 
 activity of the group and the form of organization of the 
 group. The activity has its causal plexus more firmly estab- 
 lished and developed than does the form of organization. 
 The needs of the human race do not change with every wind 
 of fad, but are fundamentally the same in all groups throughout 
 ages. In studying the activities of boys' and girls,' men's and 
 women's clubs we find at base the innervating cause that has 
 inspired the group life of ages. On the other hand, the fra- 
 ternal beneficiary organization, the woman's club and the socie- 
 ties of boys and girls have a form quite modern. Moreover 
 the universality, in America at least, of membership in clubs 
 of one kind or another, is one of the facts sociologists have 
 found remarkable. 
 
 There are but three kinds of self-activity : play, work, and 
 drudgery. (I am following here Dean Thomas M. Balliet, 
 as he treats this subject in his classroom lectures.) Some 
 things are interesting in the doing without reference to what 
 results from that activity; this is play. Work differs from 
 play in that it has an end that is desirable. The activity 
 itself may be interesting or uninteresting; the distinguishing 
 feature about work being that it is performed for the sake 
 of an end. Drudgery is unpleasant activity which accom- 
 plishes nothing; the doing and the result are both painful and 
 useless. In studying the activities of groups we have to 
 consider only the first two. A society based on drudgery 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 381 
 
 cannot endure. I would go beyond Dr. Balliet here and 
 classify play on the instinctive level of activity, and place 
 work on the reflective level. The most fundamental instinct 
 any organism has is activity, just pure movement for its own 
 sake. Our definition of play, therefore, makes it fundamen- 
 tally instinctive. The new element added to activity which 
 makes the compound work is forethought, the idea of end, 
 deliberation. 
 
 This classification of self-activity is directly applicable to the 
 study of group life. Up to the age of fourteen, on the average 
 the club organization was found to be purely incidental to the 
 play life of a group already formed. After that age it was 
 clearly evident that ulterior purposes were motive powers for 
 bringing together a group. The transition is not abrupt. The 
 first appearance of reflection in group life is made in groups 
 originally ruled by instinct. What can be said is that boys 
 and girls do not deliberately form groups for an ulterior 
 purpose until about the age of fourteen. The appearance 
 of the reflective process in group life by no means banishes 
 the instinctive. In fact in all life the reflective is a secondary 
 motive. Especially is this true of club life, a type of life 
 which is in general only possible when the day's work is over. 
 It is in the club that adults get themselves back into the play 
 attitude of childhood. 
 
 The motivation for the activity of group life is then either 
 instinctive or reflective or both. A consideration of the con- 
 tent of the activity introduces another functional process, 
 namely contagion. The content of play is in part recapitula- 
 tion, i. e., so far as it is instinctive. A clearer statement of the 
 function of recapitulation, however, would be to say that, in 
 so far as an individual resembles his ancestors, as the result of 
 an instinctive Anlage, he will act as they do, and that in general 
 the individual tends to pass through the stages of develop- 
 ment that the race has traversed. Because of the fact that a 
 great part of the literature dealing with the club misinterprets 
 recapitulation it seems necessary to interpolate a statement 
 of our position. The chief error has been due to the fact that 
 primitive life has been misinterpreted. If modern anthropolo- 
 gists be correct primitive man was not so savage and gorilla- 
 like as, a la Jack London, we have been wont to conceive. 
 The savage is pretty close to the intellectual leader of our 
 civilization, if we but take the latter on his unguarded vacation 
 moments. The Englishman enjoys hunting and fishing as 
 much as does the savage. The American college professor 
 approximates the life of the Indian just as closely as he is able, 
 when he gets a chance. The main difference is in the degree 
 of complication and organization of his social life. The 
 
2 82 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 primitive man lived under an economic regime where there 
 was no factory system nor complicated social structure, but 
 his was the first hand contact with nature. His struggles, 
 which were the same as the civilized man faces, were met with 
 different tools and in a different degree of organization. The 
 two men, the primitive and the present day man were funda- 
 mentally the same. To use Prof. A. F. Chamberlain's phrase, 
 both are 'generically human.' The boy of to-day is an Indian 
 in the sense that he is an uncivilized man; he hasn't become 
 a cog in the great economic or moral system. Psychologically 
 the chief fact is that the boy's moral sense has not reached 
 the point of development where he can understand his relation- 
 ship to the larger social group. We say he is a 'little savage.' 
 We mean that he is in that period of growth when, the power 
 of reflection appearing, all previous standards of conduct 
 which before have been accepted unreflectively, now come to 
 the bar of individual judgment, and the first reaction is a 
 revolt, an insurrection against the moral order. The truth 
 in recapitualtion, if these facts be correct, is then that the 
 individual does recapitulate the race history, but our history 
 has been misinterpreted. 
 
 The viewpoint of recapitulation provides an explanation of 
 many of the more individualistic activities. In boys the life 
 of woods and field and stream with its hunting, swimming, 
 fishing, building of huts, tents and dug-outs, the exploring of 
 caves, trapping, skating, coasting, making boats, and in 
 girls, keeping house, making clothes for and caring for dolls, 
 making mud pies and similar activities may be considered as 
 motivated from the great instinctive or recapitulatory power 
 house. 
 
 The organized games such as baseball, football, hockey, 
 cricket, basketball, as well as tag, duck on the rock, prisoner's 
 base and the scores of similar games, and in girls' activities 
 croquet, keeping store, playing church, jump rope, clap-in and 
 clap-out, these, and the other group games of similar nature 
 involve in the consideration of their content the factor of 
 contagion, using that term to include both imitation and sug- 
 gestion. By far the greatest part of the content of the 
 activities of pre-adolescent clubs is the result of imitation of the 
 activity of others, or is the effect of suggestion by others. 
 A curious misinterpretation is recorded above in -Sheldon's 
 treatment of clubs. The period before ten he calls that of 
 imitation, that from ten to fourteen he calls the period of 
 invention and the following of instinct. As illustrating imita- 
 tion he describes the experience of a group of school children. 
 The teacher read an Indian story; all the next winter the 
 children played Indian. This correctly enough he interpreted 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 383 
 
 as imitation. A group of thirteen year old boys, however, 
 formed a Jesse James gang (Sheldon makes the parenthetical 
 statement that tales of this notorious leader were rampant 
 at the time). This he interprets as showing reversion, the 
 following of instinct. Certainly the latter case is as truly 
 imitative as the former; both are in fact good examples of 
 imitation. Such is the correct interpretation of all Indian 
 games. Recapitulation will explain the love of outdoor life, 
 but it will not explain the wearing of feathers, the shaping of 
 tomahawks or of bows and arrows. Recapitulation will 
 explain such predatory activities as stealing apples and water- 
 melons, but it cannot be used to explain the organization of 
 bands of desperadoes of robbers, pirates and military compa- 
 nies. 
 
 As illustrating the power of contagion in determining the 
 content of girls' club activities the following may be cited: 
 
 "When about twelve years old I formed an organization with about eight 
 other girls of my own age. We called our society the Chrysanthemum 
 Society, and our object was to help if we could the little heathen Chinese 
 children which we had heard and read so much about. This was a purely 
 voluntary organization, no one knowing anything about it at first with 
 the exception of the members. We had, I remember, a meeting once a 
 week for about two weeks. In these meetings, which lasted about fifteen 
 minutes, we would have some verses read from the Bible. I remember that 
 I was always anxious to be the one to do the reading from the Bible. After 
 this each one would read some short article concerning the children in 
 China; then we would discuss what we intended to do to help them. We 
 finally decided to hold a fair. This we did and sold lemonade and cake. 
 We invited all the boys and girls that we knew in the neighborhood. They 
 knew nothing about our society until the day of the fair. What little 
 money we managed to get from the fair we gave to our Sunday School 
 teacher, who was greatly surprised whea she heard what we had done. I 
 think that our organization did not last over two weeks. We finally grew 
 tired of it and abandoned it." 
 
 From among a large number of others this illustration may 
 also be given in full : 
 
 " The first club to which I belonged and which was formed by my play- 
 mates was the 'Sewing Club.' We five little girls, about eleven and twelve 
 years old, were greatly absorbed in sewing either embroidery of small 
 pieces for ourselves or the tiniest of doll's clothes. There were no other 
 girls admitted to this club, because the other girls whom we knew were not 
 interested in sewing as we were. Then, too, the club changed its real 
 purpose and it became rather a secret society. The club was started about 
 the beginning of the summer vacation and toward the end we decided we 
 had enough doll's dresses. Just at the time there had been many interest- 
 ing reports concerning the society people of New York . We talked about 
 these events at our club meetings and finally decided we would pretend we 
 were these wealthy people. Each chose her favorite name for herself and 
 her husband and thereafter we called our club the 'Fourhundred Club.' 
 The chief object of this club seemed to be to imagine ourselves in all the 
 positions of our respective roles attending grand balls, theatre-parties 
 dinners and the like, with the gowns and everything appropriate which we 
 
'384 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 could imagine. Being thoughtful children as well as very imaginative we 
 did not forget the poor people of whom we heard much from the conversation 
 of our elders. In our imagination we gave bountifully to charity and to all 
 who came in our path. To be sure, in our real life, we knew we never could 
 do so much as this, but to me at least, it was a pleasure beyond that of the 
 beautiful gowns, to think of some one who might be able to do it. Our 
 only passwords were our assumed names. This club continued for about 
 two years and even after two of us moved away from the town we continued 
 it in our letters." 
 
 As Sheldon made the mistake of calling the period from ten 
 to fourteen predominantly that for the following of instinct 
 as a determinant of the play content, so also he was incorrect 
 in calling this the period of invention. Invention or the con- 
 tribution of original interpretations to situations and phe- 
 nomena are not the product of minds that do not deliberate, 
 and deliberation in the preadolescent bespeaks the precocious 
 child. Deliberation as a process in the formation of the con- 
 tent of play seldom occurs before thirteen or fourteen. When it 
 does appear it completes the trio, instinct, contagion and 
 deliberation, which constitute the determinants of the content 
 of the activity of the group. 
 
 Our treatment of the development of the form of the organi- 
 zation of the group is quite closely related to Baldwin's study 
 of ' ' The Basis of Social Solidarity ' ' (9 and 8) . He differentiates 
 three modes of collective life : ( i ) the instinctive or gregarious ; 
 (2) the spontaneous or plastic; (3) the reflective or social 
 proper. The first is the gift of physical hereditary. The 
 second is the result of social transmission, an emotional 
 response to a social suggestion, its laws being imitation, sug- 
 gestion, contagion, spontaneous union in common experience 
 and action. The third is the mode of conscious intention, of 
 intelligent judgment, the force which leads people to rebel 
 against the authority of society and the rule of plastic sugges- 
 tion. The first mode of collective life is illustrated in the family 
 life of animals. The crowd following the leader is the typical 
 example of the second sort; the committee, the legisla- 
 ture, the administrative bureau represent the third type of 
 organization. 
 
 Baldwin does not apply this schema to the interpretation of 
 the club, but gives us a point of departure. If we may broaden 
 the instinctive element, gregariousness, to include the additional 
 factors involved in sociability, the resultant complex will 
 satisfy our conception of the forces which produce the club. 
 Sociability is one of the sentiments, using the word sentiment 
 as Titchener defines it: "The sentiment represents the last 
 stage of mental development on the affective side, as thought 
 represents the highest level of development on the side of 
 sensation and image" (76, p. 499). Sociability is gregarious- 
 ness evolved to the level of a sentiment. 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 385 
 
 The affective element in gregariousness is made evident by a 
 feeling of uneasiness in isolation from, and a feeling of satis- 
 faction in the physical presence of one's kind. As Kropotkin 
 has shown by a wealth of illustration (47) gregariousness is a 
 common instinct of higher animals. He says: "The necessity 
 of communicating impressions, of playing, of chattering, or of 
 simply feeling the proximity of one's kindred living beings 
 pervades nature, and is as much as any other physiological 
 function, a distinctive feature ofjlife and impressionability" 
 (47, p. 55). A classic description of gregariousness is given 
 in the "Inquiries into Human Faculty" (28, p. 68-81) where 
 Galton relates his experiences with the South African oxen. 
 Two processes, at least, contribute to the development of 
 gregariousness, association for protection against opposing 
 enemies and elements, and association in play, the activity 
 of the leisure hours, perhaps, when the demands of eating and 
 fighting have slackened. The resultant legacy left to man 
 from this gregarious association of animals is an instinctive 
 pull toward the company of other men. In its lowest form 
 it expresses itself as the joy of being in a crowd. The profes- 
 sional entertainer recognizes this and throws out inducements 
 to draw the crowd, because the crowd is in itself an asset, even 
 when it spends no money. One of the greatest attractions of 
 Coney Island is the fact that there one will be in a crowd. 
 Gregariousness explains why on election night or New Year's 
 Eve in the great city multitudes of well educated people 
 fmd themselves irresistibly drawn to the streets where the 
 crowd is thickest. There is a feeling of exaltation and exhil- 
 eration that sweeps over one when in a crowd that has a 
 charm all its own, because it satisfies a primal need. Mc- 
 Dougall attributes the growth of cities far beyond the point 
 of optimum economic efficiency to this instinct (49, p. 296- 
 301). Ross writes: "These instincts (gregarious) appear as 
 craving for the presence of one's kind, distress at being left 
 alone, nostalgia after separation from mates, and a capacity 
 for social pleasure indicated by mirth, laughter and festal 
 impulses. They lead to social amusement, play, games, 
 dancing, feasting and intercourse. These in turn foster 
 friendly interest, spontaneous helpfulness and a sense of 
 solidarity" (65, p. 14). As is suggested in this statement 
 the concept of the consciousness of kind, in Giddings's termi- 
 nology (29, p. 17) is envolved. Gregariousness, however, adds 
 the desire to be with those of one's kind. 
 
 The baby shows by a smile at the age of two months, accord- 
 ing to Darwin (21, p. 289), Preyer (60) and Perez (59, p. 29) 
 that it enjoys the presence of others. This reveals gregarious- 
 ness. O'Shea says: "When one sees an infant reciprocating 
 
3 86 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the loving expressions of its mother, and later pleading with 
 her to remain near by merely that he may enjoy her presence, 
 it seems beyond question that he has brought with him the 
 rudiment of sociable feeling which causes him to ascribe a 
 social value to persons and to desire to have friendly intercourse 
 with them" (58, p. 5). Referring to the work of Sully (78, 
 p. 242) and of Kirkpatrick (46, p. 119) O'Shea continues: 
 "It is not too much to say that there is a kind of pleasure in 
 personal intercourse which the child experiences before he has 
 completed even six months among us" (58, p. 5)*. Cooky's 
 statement on this point is as follows : "By the time the child 
 is a year old the social feeling that at first is indistinguishable 
 from senscious pleasure has been much specialized upon persons, 
 and from that time onward to call it forth by reciprocation is the 
 chief aim of his life " ( 1 8, p . 49) . Kirkpatrick says : " As early 
 as the second year they (children) manifest great pleasure 
 in the company of other children near their own age "~ (46, 
 p. 119). McDougall says that "agoraphobia seems to result 
 from the morbidly intense working of this instinct" (49, p. 85). 
 
 As the child grows, gregariousness becomes sublimated in 
 various sentiments, one of the most important of which is 
 'active sympathy,' to use McDougall's terminology. This 
 constitutes the second level in the development of sociability. 
 Active sympathy is a different process from the crude, sym- 
 pathetic reaction. "It involves a reciprocal relation between 
 at least two persons; either party to the relation not only is 
 apt to experience the emotions; he actively seeks the sym- 
 pathy of the other, and, when he has communicated the 
 emotion, he attains a peculiar satisfaction which greatly 
 enhances his pleasure and his joy, or in the case of painful 
 emotions, diminishes his pain" (49, p. 168). Crude sympathy 
 is that which Darwin saw in the expression of his child "at 
 six months and eleven days by his melancholy face, with the 
 corners of his mouth well depressed, when his nurse pretended 
 to cry" (21, p. .294). When this crude sympathy is supple- 
 mented by gregariousness the product is the sentiment of 
 active sympathy. We follow McDougall here: "Since man 
 certainly inherits this (the gregarious) instinct, we may see 
 in this the principle that we need for the explanation of the 
 development of active sympathy from the crude sympathetic 
 induction" (49, p. 170). 
 
 Sympathy deals, however, only with the affective phase of 
 experience. Sociability, on the other hand, presupposes 
 ideational as well as emotional experience. Sympathy can 
 scarcely be used to denote both types of process, since sym- 
 pathy means suffering with, Mitgefuhl. The broader meaning 
 added by the process of intercommunication of thoughts is 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 387 
 
 expressed by the term rapport, as this presupposes both the 
 emotional and ideational intercommunication. Sociability, 
 then, is the sentiment which finds its manifestation in satisfac- 
 tion when two persons are en rapport, and in loneliness when 
 this need for intercommunication of thought and emotion is 
 unsatisfied. 
 
 As distinguished from gregariousness, sociability requires 
 intercommunication of experience between individuals, reci- 
 procity of thought and emotion, if not absolute free trade. 
 One of the walls in the structure of sociability is the desire to 
 be appreciated. This involves at least an awareness of 
 personality, and it increases in direct ratio as the sense of self 
 becomes more clearly defined. The longing to be appreciated 
 is one of the most universal human cravings and its satisfaction 
 is one of the chief functions of sociability. The complement- 
 ary wall of this structure is the possession of the power to 
 appreciate others. There can be no sociability without 
 subordination of self to an extent necessary to allow of a recog- 
 nition of other selves. Prof. James said: "We are not only 
 gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we 
 have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and 
 noticed favorably by our kind. No more fiendish punishment 
 could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than 
 that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely 
 unnoticed by all the members thereof. If no one turned round 
 when we entered, answered when we spoke or minded what we 
 did, but if every person we met 'cut us dead,' and acted as if 
 we were non-existing things, a kind of rage and impotent 
 despair would swell up in us, from which the crudest bodily 
 tortures would be a relief; for these would make us feel that, 
 however bad might be our plight, we had not sunk to such a 
 depth as to be unworthy the attention of all" (43, p. 293-294). 
 The ability to subordinate self involves the development of the 
 sense of the alter. Baldwin (7) and James (43, p. 291-401) 
 have shown that the sense of the alter is acquired with the 
 sense of the self. This is no easy acquisition, but comes only 
 with years of knocking up against other people. The studies 
 of group life have shown that as soon as the child is able to 
 leave his mother's apron strings, at about five or seven, he 
 seeks the companionship of others of his kind. Thus is gre- 
 gariousness manifested. O'Shea says: "The boy at first 
 wants to be it. Gradual discipline in group relations develops 
 the group consciousness" (58, p. 304). The reason why 
 early activity is unorganized, uncontinuous, inco-ordinate, is 
 because the children have not yet learned to get out of them- 
 selves and see the game as others see it. A game of baseball 
 among pubescents is a noisy, riotous, scrappy affair and it 
 
3 88 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 almost invariably terminates in a fight. The 'fighting instinct' 
 here finds its raison d'etre in modern society in serving the 
 function of subordinating innocent, unsophisticated self-feeling 
 to the will of the group. The gregarious impulse compels 
 them to get together so again and again they try it, and 
 gradually as the result of hard knocks, each learns to appreciate 
 the rights of the others. In this way is laid the foundation of 
 sociability, the power to appreciate the other fellow's point 
 of view. This process usually takes until the age of twelve, as 
 the studies of group activity have shown. 
 
 The negative evidence of sociability is lonesomeness, nostal- 
 gia. This feeling is manifest in all types of mental culture. 
 It appears in its highest form among scientists, philosophers, 
 artists, or other pioneers on the frontier of thought, when sep- 
 arated from minds sufficiently developed to appreciate their 
 interests. Hauptmann in "Einsame Menschen" (38) gives 
 the classical picture of this type of loneliness. Literature 
 furnishes many examples; actual life many more. In Chap. 
 XVI of the Epilogue of "War and Peace," Tolstoi presents a 
 fine illustration of this highest type of sociability: "Natasha 
 and her husband left alone, also talked as only wife and 
 husband can talk, namely with extraordinary clearness and swift- 
 ness, recognizing and communicating each other's thoughts, 
 by a method contrary to all logic, without the aid of reasonings, 
 syllogisms, and deductions, but with absolute freedom. . . 
 As in a vision everything is illusory, absurd, and incoherent, 
 except the feeling which is the guide of the vision, so in this 
 intercourse, so contrary to all the laws of logic, the phrases 
 uttered were not logical and clear, while the feeling that 
 guided them was" (82). The demand of sociability in the 
 cultivated man is a burning desire to talk to some one about 
 the problems that occupy the thoughts. To be sociable does 
 not mean that individuals must think alike, or hold the same 
 opinion, but that they must understand and appreciate each 
 other's thoughts; they must be congenial in their thinking. 
 This involves us in the subject of congeniality of interests, which 
 is discussed in the following chapter. 
 
 For gregariousness, then, in Baldwin's schema we substitute 
 sociability, a more highly developed sentiment, as the primary 
 psychological factor of those which produce club organization. 
 It is this which brings children together originally, and after 
 clubs are formed it is sociability which of all forces is the most 
 powerful in holding them together. By far the most promi- 
 nent reason given by children for the existence of clubs is that 
 they enjoy being together. Nor does the power of sociability 
 diminish with age, for with rising mental grasp rises also the 
 type of sociability. In the boys' club sociability is satisfied 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 389 
 
 in the athletic contest, the interplay of physical experience; 
 in adolescent clubs sociability utilizes to a greater extent the 
 interplay of emotional experience and to a lesser degree of 
 ideational experience. With adult clubs sociability is more 
 dominantly satisfied with the interplay of ideas. In one level 
 of society those ideas may constitute nothing but gossip, or 
 the news of the more concrete, nearer interests. In the scien- 
 tific or professional society this sentiment is satisfied by the 
 food hardest to digest, but most tempting to the educated 
 mind. Groos has recognized this where he says, in ' ' The Play 
 of Man" (31, p. 337): ''Finally, I remark that a playful 
 motive is often discerned in the formation of the multifarious 
 clubs for the advancement of some worthy object in this age of 
 abounding culture. We all know persons for whom the abso- 
 lute interest in the ostensible purpose of the club would be out 
 of the question but for the good company. The mere fact of 
 being one of a group is satisfaction enough to the gregarious 
 instinct and the playfulness of this condition can scarcely be 
 questioned." Hugh Black points out the fact that, "the very 
 existence of the church as a body of believers is due to this 
 necessity of our nature, which demands opportunity for the 
 interchange of Christian sentiment" (10, p. 72). In all 
 societies, this interaction of individuals upon other individuals 
 as they impart their experience and receive in turn the experi- 
 ence of others, produces a satisfaction which is the chief cement 
 binding clubs together. 
 
 The second factor of those which determine the establish- 
 ment of the club is contagion. Baldwin speaks of this as a 
 group of factors which he calls spontaneous or plastic, as we 
 pointed out above. Tarde (80) attempted to explain all social 
 organization by this factor alone, which, while failing to recog- 
 nize the other factors, has forced everyone to appreciate the 
 immense r61e played by imitation. If Tarde had been 
 treating preadolsecent clubs only, instead of the whole social 
 organism, we might follow his position more closely. But 
 imitation involves in its very definition something to imitate. 
 The original model was formed to some degree through delib- 
 eration. So with clubs. Adult clubs form the model copied 
 by children. 
 
 The studies show that with boys and girls under thirteen 
 or fourteen the clubs are merely incidental to the other group 
 activity. The club is just another form of play, i. e., is a form 
 of activity carried on without an ulterior motive. A few 
 examples illustrate the general rule that the form of organiza- 
 tion as well as the content of the activity of preadolescent 
 clubs is the result of contagion. 
 
390 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 "When I was about twelve years old, I became acquainted with a girl two 
 years older than myself, who, as she was in high school, seemed a very 
 great and marvelous person to me. As she lived near me, we naturally 
 became friends, and although she treated me in a sort of supercilious manner 
 such as girls of that age are apt to use toward younger ones, I admired her 
 with all my heart, and looked upon all her words and actions as an example. 
 One day I overheard her talking to a friend about some secret society to 
 which she belonged, and of course I coula v*ot rest until I found out all the 
 particulars and had made plans for the forming of a secret society of my own. 
 I told three other girls about it and they were all eager to be in it also. Our 
 place of meeting was to be the darkest corner of our attic and the aim was 
 to write a book of joint authorship that when published was to be the 
 marvel of the age. (It was the latter, though I'm sorry to say it was never 
 published.) The meetings were lighted by candle-light, and the password 
 was: 'I have told no one.' The entire society consisted of six girls and a 
 rag-doll, which was the mysterious seventh person; and each member 
 brought one cent to each meeting, which occurred each Saturday afternoon. 
 The business of the meeting was soon dispensed with, and then each week a 
 member would write a new chapter to the book and read it, as her part in 
 the programme. After the reading of the chapter refreshments were served 
 which were six lollypops or peppermint sticks, bought with the dues of the 
 week previous. This organization lasted for nearly a year, and then would 
 not have become dissolved had not illness (in the form of measles) over- 
 taken four of the principal members. The book certainly was on its way to 
 be a masterpiece, but fate interfered, and the short, sweet life of the 'Society 
 of the Daughters of Literature' ended." 
 
 This account shows more individuality than most and, in 
 that respect, shows less the force of contagion, yet this club 
 was the result of suggestion. 
 
 As contagion almost entirely explains the form of organiza- 
 tion of the club in the years of preadolescence, it is after that 
 age and throughout adult life a very powerful factor. Delib- 
 erate organization always sets the type ; the thousands of copies 
 are run off from an electroplate. High school fraternities 
 mimic the college organizations. The later college societies 
 copy those first formed. The secret fraternal organizations 
 which have a membership amounting in numbers to one eighth 
 of the entire population of the country are not fifty years old. 
 They are imitations in one form or another of the three earliest, 
 which have had a history of many generations. New scien- 
 tific societies are modeled entirely on the constitutions of 
 older ones. The fact of contagion in determining the organiza- 
 tion is so evident as to need no further elaboration. 
 
 The third great factor in this process of club formation is 
 deliberation. In an earlier paragraph reflective action was 
 made synonymous with activity carried on for the sake of an 
 end. Clubs, the organization of which are the result of delib- 
 eration from that fact imply that they have a purpose in mind. 
 Another implication of deliberately formed clubs, or voluntary 
 associations, as they may now be called, is that their members 
 realize the importance of united action; recognize strength in 
 union. 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 391 
 
 A classification of voluntary associations necessitates a 
 recognition of all the motives that move men to united action. 
 The classification of motives is a problem for the ethicist. 
 Clubs might well be grouped under three headings: (i) those 
 formed for self- advancement ; (2) those formed for the advance- 
 ment of others; and (3) those formed for the advancement of a 
 cause. Most voluntary associations unite all these motives 
 and it would be impossible to evaluate all organizations on 
 this basis. 
 
 In our studies the deliberate motive did not make its appear- 
 ance until the age of twelve to fourteen. Among the girls' 
 clubs it was found that those clubs which were not merely 
 incidental to the play life of the group did not appear until 
 about fourteen. In Sheldon's study the group of literary, 
 music, and art clubs was insignificant until fourteen. Among 
 boys the growth of the deliberate motive is harder to trace. 
 Johnson's study, "Rudimentary Society among Boys" (44) 
 furnishes an excellent example of the way rules develop by 
 the trial and error method. In the McDonough School, 
 isolated several miles from Baltimore, these boys were com- 
 paratively free from suggestion. Having new situations to 
 face they worked out original rules in regard to the gathering 
 of nuts and eggs, catching rabbits and muskrats. A picture 
 which more truly parallels the actual process of development, 
 as it occurs in an unisolated situation, is that painted by Pres. 
 Hall in "The Story of a Sand- Pile" (36). Gulick's study re- 
 viewed above, showed that co-operative games appear after the 
 age of twelve. Such games require some degree of planning 
 and forethought, though to a lesser degree than is required in a 
 voluntary literary club, because all the boy's previous training 
 has been in athletics. The beginning of the high school period 
 is as early as deliberate motives play any great role either in 
 boys' or girls' clubs. 
 
 In summary of our consideration of the dynamic mental 
 factors involved in the formation of the club : All clubs are at 
 base founded as the result of the innate tendency to be sociable, i 
 But the club may be formed either as the result of contagion 
 or of reflection. In the experience of the individual it is 
 formed first through contagion; later through deliberation. 
 In the adult club both forces are at work. 
 
 Chap. III. The Mental Conditions Necessary to the Formation 
 of the Club 
 
 In the preceding chapter the aim was to present all the 
 mental forces which in their functioning produce the club. 
 They are the seed ; their fruit is the club ; but the soil of human 
 
392 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 nature which is the environment in which their development 
 occurs must needs be of a peculiar sort. There are certain 
 conditions necessary to the formation of the club, which it is 
 the purpose of this chapter to discuss. 
 
 The first condition is that there be individual differences in 
 the capacity of leadership. In group activity it is necessary 
 that there be some one to take the initiative, to be the leader. 
 There can be no united action where all are blind followers 
 with none to suggest or guide. However, it seldom happens 
 that any group assembles in which there is no one who pos- 
 sesses more ability as a leader than do the others. This is one 
 of the commonest of individual differences. In children, as in 
 adults some are leaders, a greater number are followers. 
 Mumford has written a thesis on this subject. Groos says: 
 
 "The blind obedience accorded a leader of a little band is calculated 
 to fill parents and teachers with envy. Here the social impulse is supreme 
 in the demand for association and classification which governs and directs 
 society. . . The common fighting plays of children markedly exhibit 
 this voluntary submission to a leader, less known, I think, in regulation 
 games than in the many contests which a crowd of children will naturally 
 fall into when a few belligerent spirits are present; when there is a trick to be 
 played on schoolmates or janitor, or an orchard to plunder, some unpopular 
 person to annoy by breaking his windows or otherwise damaging his 
 property in these escapades the leader's word has absolute authority, and 
 the most docile children will commit deeds in blind obedience which fill 
 their parents with amazement and horror." (31, pp. 338-39.) 
 
 The studies of clubs show the importance of leadership. 
 Leadership is one of the most prominent characteristics of the 
 gang, as shown particularly by Puffer's study. Leadership 
 is less prominent in girls' than in boys' clubs. This is to be 
 explained, probably, by the nature of the activities of the two 
 sexes, or on the sexual differences which determine the activi- 
 ties. The physical activity of boys demands leadership; 
 in sewing, serving tea and social activities there is less occasion 
 for leadership. Most of the cases where officers existed in 
 girls' clubs may be explained by contagion. One girl reported 
 that there was no definite term of office, but new officers 
 were elected whenever they felt the need of some excitement, 
 thus the fact was revealed that in this case the election of 
 officers was merely another play activity. Interesting in this 
 connection is the comment of Groos : 
 
 "It seems that those manifestations of the social impulse relating to 
 subordination are not pursued by women so energetically nor in the same 
 way as by men. Woman is the guardian of good form, but as a rule she 
 will not subordinate herself to rigorous law. I think any customs agent 
 will bear me out in the statement from his observation of the behavior 
 of travellers. This probably results from a difference in the instinctive 
 equipment of the sexes; fighting impulses which are strongly developed in 
 the males, further the social ones by reason of their imperative require- 
 ment of association. . . The success of American women in their 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 393 
 
 movement for emancipation is largely furthered by their participation with 
 men in various sports and the consequent better development of their 
 social capacities (31, p. 339-40). 
 
 The second condition necessary to the formation of the club 
 is congeniality of interests. "The term interest," says Miss 
 Calkins, " is best used as a synonym for involuntary attention " 
 (15, p. 103); or as Dewey states it, interest "is impulse 
 functioning with reference to an ideal of self-expression" 
 (23, p. 22). The direction of one's interests is determined by 
 temperament, that is, by inherited Anlagen, and by the type 
 of experience lived through. Dewey says : "they (the occupa- 
 tions of the individual) decide the sets of objects and relations 
 that are important, and therefore provide the content or mate- 
 rial of attention, and the qualities that are interestingly signifi- 
 cant" (24, p. 220). The interests of young children are similar, 
 since temperament is but dimly manifest until self-conscious- 
 ness develops, and because early experience is approximately 
 alike for all. The children of master and slave play together 
 in perfect harmony. In later years social equality is impossible 
 because of the disparity of interests. Similarity of experience 
 or training, in individuals of similar native interests, tends 
 to give approximately the same level of ability, the same level 
 of apperceptive mass; ability to understand the same ideas, 
 to appreciate the same art and literature and music, to carry 
 on the same activities of work and play; opportunity to enjoy 
 the same social status, to see about the same amount of the 
 world, to mix with about the same class of people ; in sum, to 
 develop the same interests. 
 
 A club to be durable must be formed by people having the 
 same type of interests. Women's clubs must consist of women 
 of the same social stratum. There can be no working together, 
 between the woman on the rag-time level of appreciation and 
 the woman on the symphony level. A social club is unsuccess- 
 ful in which some members know of nothing to converse but 
 gossip, while others have broadly trained interests. Young 
 boys and girls can't get along together in clubs because their 
 interests are absolutely different. Miss Addams calls "the 
 companionship of mutual interests is the soundest of social 
 bonds" (4. p. 151). Ross says the labor union is due not to a 
 spirit of association, but interlacing interests (65, p. 181). 
 Those who would work for unity of different religious denomina- 
 tions should not overlook this fact. It is by no means implied 
 in this connection that the different members be of like minds ; 
 that is, agree in their points of view in regard to religion, 
 politics or what not, but it does mean that they agree in having 
 an interest in the ultimately true position in regard to these 
 matters. It must needs follow, then, that they will be 
 
394 
 
 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 undogmatic enough to recognize the possibility that some 
 other then their own viewpoint may be the right one. A very 
 good club may be formed of Jews, Catholics, Protestants and 
 atheists; they may meet on the basis of congeniality of interest 
 if, back of their desire to support each his own view, there be a 
 common interest in the truth. 
 
 Ratzelhpfer considered interests to be the ultimate psycho- 
 logical factors which differentiate groups in society (62). He 
 failed to recognize, however, the deeper underlying forces 
 which develop individual interests. He over-emphasized 
 native interests and underestimated the power of training. 
 Moreover he was dealing with the larger groups which con- 
 stitute society. Our position is, merely, that congeniality 
 of interests forms one of the conditions of the successful club. 
 
 In the formation of clubs failure is often experienced, as in 
 many other movements, the stated reason being that the time 
 was not yet ripe. Translating this metaphor into a psycho- 
 logical statement, we would say : a sufficient number of people 
 had not acquired the same particular interest. The history 
 of the woman's club movement illustrates this. To use a 
 specific case, the attempt at Seneca Falls, N. Y., in 1848, to 
 form a suffrage society, was a failure. The club could not 
 get more than twenty members and only lasted about a year 
 because as the organizer said : ' ' Amongst my own sex I found 
 too many on whom ages of repression had wrought their 
 natural effect and whose ideas and aspirations were narrowed 
 to the confines of ' woman's sphere,' beyond whose limits it was 
 not only impious, but was infamous to tread." In other words 
 they were not interested in this movement. 
 
 Consciously or unconsciously clubs recognize the necessity 
 of congeniality of interests, and realize further that the more 
 the congeniality the sounder is the foundation of the club. 
 Observe the eligibility tests employed by the Daughters of the 
 American Revolution and that type of society as a means of 
 keeping out the undesirables. Social clubs require an extra- 
 ordinary initiation fee because they want only such as have 
 sufficient wealth to be interesed in the same general atmosphere 
 of recreation and wine. The American Psychological Asso- 
 ciation requires of candidates that they be of a certain rank 
 in the profession, in order that they may be confident that all 
 members shall have a fundamental interest in the science. 
 College societies, and especially fraternities, generally have a 
 certain individuality. Men of the same type tend to get 
 together. Students recognize this freshman as a typical 
 Tau Belt man or cut out to be a Chresto. Occasionally misfits 
 occur; a man gets into the wrong society. If there are several 
 misfits in the same club the resultant conflict of interests 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 395 
 
 causes hard feeling, disagreement, inability to co-operate and 
 disruption. 
 
 These two psychological factors are necessary as conditions 
 of the club's formation, viz., individual differences in the 
 capacity of leadership, and congeniality of interests. No 
 stable club can be formed unless some one at least of the club 
 is a leader. Settlement workers and club directors learn to 
 recognize this when in artificially grouping boys or girls, 
 leaders have to be provided. Dr. Krackowizer describes two 
 cases of clubs that applied for admission to the Boys' Club of 
 the Oranges, and in both cases the club lasted but a week. 
 The fact was that there were no recognized leaders in either 
 group. The other necessary condition for club organization 
 is congeniality of interests. When both of these conditions 
 are present, and only in such cases is there a possibility of 
 forming a club. 
 
 Chap. III. Mental Forces Produced by the Club 
 
 It is the province of this chapter to discuss the functional 
 aspect of the club, to study the contribution of the club to 
 mental life. Of those forces resulting from club organization, 
 the one of most general significance is that known as the 
 social stimulus. Although produced by the club it is not 
 peculiar to it, but is in evidence in any group, whether or 
 not the group is organized. The most accurate studies yet 
 made of it are those with school children. Schmidt (72), 
 Meumann (53), Mayer (52), Triplett (83) and others (13 and 
 14) have demonstrated that in all types of school work, except 
 that requiring individuality, better results can be obtained of 
 children in groups than separately. That this force is some- 
 thing different from the stimulus of competition or ambition 
 is evident from the experience of the actor, singer or lecturer 
 who can play his part better under the stimulus of an audience 
 than with empty seats. The group itself exerts a favorable 
 influence. The stimulus is increased when all the members of 
 the group are performing the same task. This is illustrated 
 by dancing, choral singing, marching in step, as Frederick 
 demonstrated in his army, team work in games or work, 
 shouting at a track meet, a ball game or political rally, paced 
 work in the laboratory or a paced race on the track: 
 
 In the club this group stimulus is always present and of 
 greater power than in unorganized groups. In the presence 
 of the members of his own club a man is stimulated to accom- 
 plish feats and rise to supremer achievements than would be 
 possible for him to reach in any other presence. Since this 
 product of club organization is shared with every other type of 
 
396 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 social life it need be mentioned only incidentally. Of much 
 greater significance are the other forces to be considered, viz., 
 esprit de corps, honor and friendship. 
 
 Esprit de corps is a sociological form which needs to be 
 translated into psychological processes. As Prof. James 
 pointed out, in his chapter on the "Consciousness of Self:" 
 "In its widest possible sense a man's self is a sum total of all 
 that he calls his, not only his body and his psychic power, but 
 his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors 
 and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, 
 and yacht and bank-account." (43, p. 201.) The one phrase 
 of this comprehensive self , of interest to us in this connection, 
 is that which refers to the group of family and friends. The 
 child acquires a peculiar sense of belonging to his immediate 
 social group, and as his group enlarges, his sense of belonging 
 widens. There is an attitude of satisfaction in the feeling of 
 belonging to a family or to a community, which is often not 
 recognized until one is isolated, relatives dear or estranged, and 
 the community cold and unappreciative. It is the loneliness 
 that arises when one feels that he does not belong to any 
 particular group that in part explains why so many answers 
 are received to advertisements of matrimonial bureaus. 
 
 This sense of belonging is the germ of Baldwin's "socius," 
 
 which he defines as "the higher sense of commonalty, personal 
 
 ^ implication, mutual interest which social intercourse arouses 
 
 ^ in him. He (the boy) has a sense of the socius, for example, 
 
 N when his own school is brought into rivalry with the school 
 
 J around the corner" (7, p. 32). Later, Baldwin says: "The 
 
 family esprit de corps has such a firm root in the breast of the 
 
 individual that family action is as necessary to him as action 
 
 in his own private interest." (7. p. 407.) Approaching the 
 
 ^ subject from a different viewpoint Prof. Ames said in an address 
 
 at Minneapolis, Dec., 1910: 
 
 "In more sustained associations such as the workmen in a factory experi- 
 ence, in daily contact, and co-operation, in their home life and neighborhood 
 relations there is built up a more elaborate and persistent class feeling. 
 There is developed a more definite sense of the group, a feeling of loyalty to 
 its members, of obedience to its standards and of devotion to its ideals. 
 They recognize each other with a sense of kinship and exchange of confi- 
 dence which they would not show toward men of another class. The same 
 fellow-feeling springs up spontaneously in all men of the same trade or 
 profession and among any companies or gangs whose work or fortunes 
 bring them into mutual contact. Over and above their explicit acknowl- 
 edgment or realization, there is present a powerful group spirit which has 
 sprung up from their association." 
 
 Miss Addams points out that one of the most powerful forces 
 pulling the boy to work at fourteen is, if the family purse is 
 small, his loyalty and affection (3, p. 126). Elsewhere in 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 397 
 
 this wonderfully expressive book, "The Spirit of Youth and 
 the City Streets," she suggests that public games be extended to 
 develop the unity of feeling that is aroused by our one national 
 game (3, p. 96). In no situation is esprit de corps more easily 
 aroused than in support of the home team. 
 
 A very suggestive treatment of esprit de corps is that of 
 Cooley in his "Social Organization:" 
 
 "The result of intimate association, psychologically, is a certain fusion 
 of individualities in a common whole, so that one's very self, for many 
 purposes at least, is the common life and purpose of the group. It is always 
 differentiated and usually a competitive unity, admitting of self-assertion 
 and various appropriative passions; but these passions are socialized by 
 sympathy, and come, or tend to come, under the discipline of a common 
 spirit" (18, p. 23). 
 
 He reminds us of how boys will endure cruelty and injustice 
 at the hands of their fellows, such for instance as hazing, rather 
 than appeal from their fellows to their parents or teachers. In 
 such cases the family esprit de corps is weaker than that of the 
 student group. 
 
 Ross recognizes the same spirit when he writes: "The lively 
 sense of a common life enables mates, kinsfolk, neighbors and 
 comrades to love and understand one another, to yield to one 
 another, and to observe their forbearance and good offices 
 that make associate life a success. In such a case the group 
 does not make the ties; the ties make the group" (65, p. 432). 
 
 All these quotations show that no matter what the cause or 
 group of causes effecting the establishment of the group, when 
 once established there is added a new cement to bind it 
 together. Davis expresses it in the following way: "Ideas 
 or sentiments, and also social institutions, when once in exist- 
 ence become thereafter psychic or social factors in all future 
 reactions in essential independence of their origin or their origi- 
 nal associations. . . . We see daily private societies formed for 
 all sorts of special purposes, literary, charitable, artistic, politi- 
 cal, what not. But an organization has hardly been constituted 
 before it becomes an end as well as a means in the lives of those 
 connected with it ; and in that portion of society which it influ- 
 ences the association functions not only as a force for turning 
 social agencies in a special direction beyond itself, but also in 
 part for turning social energy to itself to be absorbed therein" 
 (22, p. 207). It is stated more concretely by Lee: "And the 
 team is not only an extension of the player's consciousness; 
 it is a part of his personality. His participation has deepened 
 from co-operation to membership. Not only is he now a part 
 of the team, but the team is a part of him. Membership 
 becomes a part of a man, an essential part of him, something 
 which cannot be taken away without taking much indeed 
 
398 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the greater and more significant part of the man's life with 
 it" (48, p. 490). 
 
 Puffer's and Browne's studies show the strong part which 
 loyalty to the group plays. Among many examples given by 
 Browne, is found this: " Boy in D 's gang stole some cherries. 
 He was reported to the boarding school by the woman who 
 owned the cherries. Her description tallied with that of D . 
 He was whipped for the offender, although he was not the boy 
 that did it; yet he did not tell on the guilty boy" (12, p. 271). 
 We quoted in the section on gangs Robert Woods's description 
 of loyalty to the gang, and how one boy of his acquaintance, 
 though his family had moved to Dorchester, and he had out- 
 grown the old gang in education, still made it his custom to re- 
 turn to the old corner on Sundays. The blood feud of the 
 Kentucky mountains, the sympathetic strike, refusing to bet 
 against your own college, or turning down the offer of a higher 
 salaried professorship because of loyalty to the old school 
 scores of illustrations could be piled up to show the working of 
 esprit de corps; but these will suffice. 
 
 One particular element in esprit de corps, present in some 
 more than in others is the feeling that one's own group is 
 better than any other. One's own interest is always more 
 important in his eyes, and more valuable, than that of any 
 other. One's own club is better than any other. This is only a 
 broadening of the positive self-feeling that manifests itself in 
 the feeling that, after all, the things of my own life are of more 
 value for me than are the things of any one else. This is the 
 basal idea in the expression: 'number one first,' or in the 
 instinct of self-preservation. Applied to the group, one of the 
 manifestations of this spirit is in the clique. The differentiat- 
 ing element in this type of group spirit is the feeling of caste, 
 or of exclusiveness and aloofness. This was found in many of 
 the girls' clubs. From our data we cannot entirely agree with 
 O'Shea's observation that: "Until adolescence the child 
 seldom recognizes caste stratification" (58, p. 15). Continu- 
 ing, he says that dress plays no part in the groupings of boys, 
 and its role among girls up to the sixth or seventh grade, is of 
 slight importance. With adolescence comes differentiation of 
 groups on the basis of wealth. Sororities and fraternities grow in 
 high school, or even in the seventh or eighth grade more among 
 girls than among boys. This differentiation takes place more 
 in the social activities than in the games and athletics. Our 
 observation would be that the feeling of caste is present with 
 preadolescents, but becomes stronger at puberty. Sheldon 
 found the expression of caste earlier than puberty. His 
 conclusion was that the feeling of caste reached its culmination 
 at about ten. "While its expression in the form of bullying 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 399 
 
 and teasing, as might be supposed, is more intensive among 
 boys, the feeling of exclusiveness and pride appears much 
 stronger in girls. Girls, if so told by their mothers, think them- 
 selves too good to play with girls of the working classes or of 
 alien nationalities. Boys, on the contrary, will often run away 
 and disobey parental injunctions to get a chance to play football 
 or baseball with boys of any nationality, Italians, Jews, Irish or 
 even negroes" (67, p. 435-36). Our data do not uphold the 
 conclusion that cast feeling culminates at ten, however, but 
 that it grows more intense with age, at least until the end of the 
 high school period, as observations of high school students 
 show. 
 
 The statement made above is that the clique spirit is &\ 
 broadening of positive self-feeling. The process would seem I j 
 to be this : in the group activity the individual, originally self- 
 centered, by continual buffeting about by other self-centered 
 children, gradually learns to recognize the rights of the 
 others of his group. This process was described in detail 
 above. After a while the children learn to do team work and 
 there develops a feeling that their team is better than any other 
 team ; not necessarily that they can play better, but they are 
 better. The native tendency of each individual to regard 
 himself as of more value than others, which is the root of the 
 caste spirit, becomes ascribed to the group, with the result that 
 the individual's own group becomes more valuable in his eyes 
 than any other. The growth of the caste spirit parallels that of 
 co-operative play, which becomes well established by puberty. 
 
 The general observation is that the caste spirit is stronger 
 in girls than in boys. May not the explanation be, that, 
 whether or not the girl of to-day is born with that diathesis, 
 woman's experience has been such as to develop the caste 
 spirit in her to a higher degree than man's experience has in 
 him? Through group activity boys and girls alike develop a 
 feeling of superiority as respects their own group. Boys' 
 groups, however, compete constantly with other groups, and 
 the process that went on earlier between individuals now 
 transpires between groups, and a feeling of superiority is 
 developed for a still broader group. Team spirit develops 
 into school spirit, and the spirit of loyalty to, and assumption 
 of superiority to the school, is greater than that to the class. 
 This experience is not generally true of girls. Their loyalty to, 
 and ascription of superiority to their set, remains much 
 stronger than that of boys, and the accompanying fact is that 
 the girls' set has little opportunity to compete with and be 
 defeated by other sets. It has been the writer's experience 
 in a co-educational college that the girls support their class 
 basket ball team as loyally as do the men, but that it is harder 
 
400 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 for them to co-operate with their erstwhile opponents to com- 
 pete against another school than it is for the boys. An 
 incidentally concomitant fact is that girls take defeat harder 
 than do boys. Many other manifestations of this phenomenon 
 might be cited, such as woman's greater family pride, interest 
 in genealogy and the like. Unless by competition with other ^ 
 groups our group becomes disillusioned, this spirit of superi- 
 ority acquires a very narrow character and a clique is formed. 
 Girls rise to the level of loyalty to a small group and tend toJ 
 remain on that level, because of lack of competition between 
 groups, while boys get over their clannishness by competition 
 with other groups. 
 
 The relationship of the clique spirit to esprit de corps is 
 thus evident. Esprit de corps is a sentiment that does not exist 
 until the group is formed, but it appears with the group and 
 is one of the strongest forces holding the group together. 
 
 Another psychic force peculiar to the group, and of particular 
 importance as a product of club organization, is honor. 
 Simmel shows the intermediacy of honor between morality 
 and criminal law as a determinant of conduct. Morality is 
 the personal standard of behavior ; criminal law is that stand- 
 ard required as a minimum by the state. The code of honor 
 is set by the small social group and is different for different 
 groups (69, p. 680-82). The more firmly established the group 
 and the more individual its character, the stronger is the hold 
 it has upon the conduct of its members. 
 
 There is a close relationship between esprit de corps and 
 honor. In intensity the correlation is direct. The stronger 
 the feeling of attachment the individual has for the group, 
 the more is he bound to conduct himself in accordance with 
 the code of the group. In clubs of long standing, such as the 
 Masonic Order, the code of honor is often of greater strength 
 than is that of morality, when, for example, lodge brothers 
 are shielded from punishment for infractions of law. It is 
 not generally the rule, however, that honor and morality are 
 antagonistic; they usually supplement and reinforce each 
 other. One of the most common features of honor among clubs 
 is this rule which demands that fellow members be assisted 
 in times of adversity, sickness or death in the family, be sup- 
 ported when running for office in the community, be defended 
 from calumny and, as in the case cited above, be shielded from 
 justice. It is not honorable to ' snitch,' or inform the authori- 
 ties, when one of the gang has done wrong. The gang have 
 their own standards of conduct which concern the essential 
 features of their mutual relationships, and to transcend one 
 of these rules is often to lose membership in the gang. So it 
 is with the ' honor of a gentleman.' To fail in any of its tenets 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 401 
 
 is to lose caste in that fraternity. In some sections of the 
 country the esprit de corps of the group of 'gentlemen' is as 
 strong as that of a sworn brotherhood. Professional honor is 
 particularly strong among physicians. Through this unwritten 
 code incompetent physicians who, because of their ignorance, 
 carelessness or lack of skill, fail to save the lives of their 
 patients, are allowed to continue practicing because no one of 
 their gild will expose them. Another point in their code is the 
 rule of secrecy regarding disease which permits undesirable 
 marriages. In the profession of law the code of honor is 
 formulated in written rules. It is acknowledged by this code 
 that a lawyer may undertake with propriety the defense of 
 a person accused of crime, although he knows or believes him 
 guilty. As an individual member of society governed by the 
 standards of morality the lawyer believes this guilty man 
 should be punished ; as a lawyer, governed by the standards of 
 honor in his profession, he is bound to exert himself to the 
 utmost to prevent the fulfillment of justice. So each well 
 organized club and each well defined social group has its code 
 of honor. Reacting upon the club the effect of honor is to 
 strengthen the ties that bind it together; as to its influence 
 upon the social organism as a whole we need not here lay 
 emphasis. Few moralists, however, have recognized how 
 large that influence is in determining conduct. 
 
 Another factor, the effect of which is to solidify the once 
 formed group, is friendship. To be sure, in children's clubs a 
 condition of friendship exists before the club is formed. This is 
 not always the case with adults. When such a group forms a 
 club, friendship arises as a result of association in a common 
 task. Jones has called this emotion the feeling of attachment 
 (45, p. 60-79), which is another expression for the feeling of 
 belonging, which was made the basal element in esprit de corps. 
 This sociological mode and that of friendship have the same 
 psychological foundation. As Cooley puts it: "Group senti- 
 ment, in so far as it is aroused by definite images, is only a 
 variety of personal sentiment " ( 1 8, p. 79) . Being admitted to 
 a club arouses a feeling of attachment for the group; in a 
 similar way, though to a more intense degree, being admitted to 
 the confidence of another person arouses a feeling of attach- 
 ment. Jane Addams says that : "no two persons, nor group of 
 persons can come into affectionate relationship with each other 
 unless they carry on together a mutual task" (4, p. 271). 
 
 The origin of personal affection is to be found in the relation- 
 ship of mother and child, as Sutherland has proved with a 
 wealth of data (79). Love is developed through service. Ribot 
 states it in this way : " It is an observed fact that a man attaches 
 himself to another in proportion to the service he renders, 
 
402 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 rather than to those he receives from him" (63, p. 294). How- 
 ever the feeling of attachment may arise, its intensification is 
 accomplished by the same process the race experienced, namely 
 in service. Service has another effect, moreover, which it is 
 important to consider in this connection. The mental process 
 of doing things for another person develops not only a feeling 
 of attachment for that person, but a subordination of self to 
 that person. So also when one works for a group or for a 
 cause. Thus friendship and esprit de corps each presuppose 
 an Einstellung that is characterized by unselfishness. It 
 therefore becomes made more evident that these two forces do 
 have a powerful influence in the preservation of the club. 
 These mental processes are the sine qua non of co-operation. 
 In this connection the relationship of chumship (if we may be 
 permitted to coin the term) and the club is en rapport. Bon- 
 ser's study of this type of friendship showed that chumming 
 begins before four years ; with girls the age of greatest fre- 
 quency is six ; with boys the curve rises more slowly, reaching 
 its apex at ten. These friendships, as a rule, continue unbroken 
 at least until the latter high school years, which was the age 
 of the boys and girls when they reported. This shows that 
 the feeling of attachment for individuals appears earlier than 
 for institutions or groups. There appears to be no conflict 
 between the institutions of chumship and the club. Bonser 
 found the existence of chumships almost universal. The 
 great majority of children also belong to clubs. The general 
 situation would appear to be as it is described by one reporter : 
 ' 'Every girl has her special friend, some one to whom she tells 
 everything. They can have fine times together, but if they 
 belong to a club and make friends with the other girls, they 
 have many friends besides each other." 
 
 Chap. IV. Other Mental Forces which Aid the Continuation of 
 
 the Club 
 
 Aside from those dynamic processes which produce the club, 
 and aside from the forces which owe their existence to the 
 club, there are other forces which, if present, favor the continu- 
 ation of the club's life, viz., those that appeal to fundamental 
 human needs, furnish expression to native impulses or sat- 
 isfy instincts. The discussion of the more important of 
 these forces, as employed by the club, is the task of this 
 chapter; love of the mysterious, the satisfaction of positive 
 self-feeling, acquisitiveness and curiosity by secrecy and 
 ritualism; satiating the desire to realize the ideal through the 
 dramatic features; satisfaction of religious and altruistic 
 tendencies in philanthropic and religious activities; fulfilling 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 403 
 
 the demands for recreation and physical exercise through ath- 
 letics, sports and games of chance and skill ; and answering these 
 and other needs by the flamboyancy of big titles, benevolence 
 and life insurance, literary, art and musical features. Clubs 
 may consciously aim to satisfy these needs or may do so incident- 
 ally; they may plan deliberately to accomplish these ends, 
 or they may accept these features as the force of contagion. 
 Again the same activity may satisfy different needs in dif- 
 ferent individuals or groups. Secrecy, for instance, plays a 
 distinctly different r61e in the fraternal order to-day than it 
 played in the heretical sects of the Reformation. The need 
 of protection, moreover, is more fully satisfied by secrecy in the 
 Camorra or any anti-social organization to-day than it is in 
 the Masonic Order. 
 
 For the sake of clearness it will prove more effective to 
 centre the discussion about the different activities and practices 
 of clubs than to discuss the different instinctive tendencies 
 separately. The first of these to be treated is secrecy. His- 
 torically the principal role of secrecy has been the provision 
 of protection to the members of an order joined together for 
 some motive opposed by the powers, or by some power strong 
 enough to be given attention. In modern society some of the 
 best examples are given by the secret societies organized for 
 the purpose of discussing heretical beliefs about religion, 
 politics, philosopy and science, such as Der Palmbaum, the 
 Anabaptists, Waldensians and the orders of the Illuminati 
 (17 and 37). In America to-day there is no need of secrecy in 
 order to avoid suppression of religious, political or intellectual 
 societies. The anti-social clubs of thieves, pickpockets, tramps 
 and other outlaws are the only organizations in which this 
 human need is supplied by secrecy. Criminology furnishes a 
 great variety of usages of secrecy as a means of protection. 
 Havelock Ellis gives illustrations of the type of slang or argot 
 used, which is peculiar to their class, and entirely unintelligible 
 to any but those in the bond (25, p. 161-69). Gross in his 
 Kriminal- Psychologic refers to the use of sprachliche Miss- 
 verstandniss, a use of language in such a way that the hearer 
 knows that the meaning is something other than that spoken, 
 and the speaker knows that the hearer will understand him as 
 meaning something different than what is said (33, p. 383). 
 The Handbook of Criminal Investigation (32) describes the 
 disguises, false names, pretended illnesses, signs and signals, 
 slang, ciphers, secret writings and graphic signs, used by 
 criminals and tramps. 
 
 But secrecy is still a very prominent element in many of our 
 clubs, among both adults and children. This suggests that 
 it serves other needs than protection. One of these which it 
 
404 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 feeds is positive self-feeling. On this point, Simmel, who has 
 given us the best discussion of the sociology of secrecy, says : 
 ' 'There is separation from others because there is unwillingness 
 to give oneself a character common with that of others, 
 because there is a desire to signal one's superiority as compared 
 with these others. . . As a consequence of the fact that 
 those who want to distinguish themselves enter into combina- 
 tion, there results an aristocracy which strengthens and, so 
 to speak, expands the self-consciousness of the individuals 
 through the weight of their own sum. . . We may observe, 
 even in school classes, how small, closely attached groups of 
 comrades, through the mere formal fact that they form a 
 special group, come to consider themselves an elite, compared 
 with the rest who are unorganized; while the latter, by their 
 enmity and jealousy, involuntarily recognize that higher 
 value. In these cases secrecy and pretense of secrecy (Geheim- 
 nistnerei} are means of building higher the wall of separation, 
 and therein a reinforcement of the aristocratic nature of the 
 group " (76, p. 486-87). Simmel would give a different account 
 of the development of the clique than seems to us to be its 
 genetic history, but his emphasis of secrecy is very patent. 
 An illustration of what Simmel describes is provided in this 
 description of a ten year old girl's club : ' 'We were very select 
 and had many secrets which we were sure to mention when 
 there was any one around whom we wanted to make jealous." 
 That is, positive self-feeling, in the form of a feeling of superi- 
 ority is satisfied. But this reveals the fact that the secret 
 has intrinsic value, which fact introduces another element. 
 
 Acquisitiveness, or the desire to possess, is tickled by the 
 possession of a secret. To have a secret is to have something 
 some one else wants and therefore it is of some worth. Some- 
 times the whole value of a secret is the fact that those outside 
 the compact do not know it and want to. That is, curiosity 
 is aroused, and anything that arouses curiosity is of value, 
 as the proprietors of dime museums and side-shows well know. 
 'The people like to be fooled;' that is, they know that they 
 will be made to feel foolish, but their curiosity is so strong 
 they cannot resist the temptation to satisfy it. Children 
 unconsciously recognize this when they invent sign languages, 
 peculiar gestures of the hands, carry on nonsense gibberish 
 and unintelligible whisperings. An instance of this kind was 
 recorded above. 
 
 To answer the question : why does the secret arouse curiosity? 
 is to disclose the primary source of value, namely the love of 
 the mysterious. As shown by the mystic in religious, by 
 spiritism, telepathy, slight of hand and conjuring, the mask 
 ball and ghost stories and fairy tales, the love of the mysteri- 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 405 
 
 ous is a strong motive power. It is this which furnishes the 
 energy which runs most of the machinery of secrecy. As it 
 works out, it involves other fundamental tendencies; first, 
 curiosity, which becomes involved in acquisitiveness, and this 
 in positive self-feeling. 
 
 The different stages of this process are illustrated by these examples: 
 The illustration referred to above shows the love of the mysterious. This 
 report shows the value of it in holding the club together. "The first club 
 to which I belonged was composed of five little girls. Each member wore 
 a badge of blue and yellow ribbon. It was a secret society. We met in the 
 afternoon after school and just had a good time enjoying games and other 
 amusements. This club only lasted three weeks because some of its 
 members, who were six and seven years of age, made the secret known to the 
 public in general." In many cases the content of the secret is of no impor- 
 tance. The first thing to appear is the fact of the secret; afterwards the 
 secret acquires content. The that is at first of more importance than 
 the what. This is illustrated in a club of girls nine and ten years of age. 
 "About six or seven of us who always played together wanted to have a 
 secret. This part was voluntary, but we could n't think of a nice enough 
 secret, so one of our mothers suggested that we should always be good 
 friends. The rest was all voluntary such 1 as wearing little bows and having 
 parties. I think this lasted about a year." The same condition is very nearly 
 paralleled in the adult organization. Joseph C. Root founded and wrote 
 the ritual for two absolutely distinct secret societies, the Modern Woodmen 
 of America and the Woodmen of the World, and was also a member of the 
 Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, the United Workmen, the American 
 Legion of Honor, and was a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. 
 It is quite evident that the content of the ritual is of less importance than 
 the fact that there is one. The ritual is a secret, the possession of which 
 makes the order richer in its assets. Freemasonry itself owes not a little 
 of its prestige to the profoundness of its secrecy. Yet in progressive 
 Masonry the roll of membership, its purposes and acts are public property; 
 silence is required solely in regard to its sacred rites. The same thing is 
 true of student societies. Sudermann in the drama, "Der Sturmgeselle 
 Socrates," tells a fine story of a group of men who continue in their old 
 age to get immense satisfaction out of a secret society formed during their 
 student days. Then there was reason for the secrecy; now it is absolutely 
 unnecessary, and yet it constitutes the chief raison d'etre of the club. 
 Stevens describes over thirty occult, hermetic, theosophic or religious 
 brotherhoods in which the love of the mysterious plays the most important 
 role (76) . The very naming of college societies feeds the love of mystery, as 
 illustrated by the Greek letters, the 'Skull and Bones' and 'Scroll and Key.' 
 
 The next step in development in the usage of secrecy is 
 taken when it becomes used to satisfy acquisitiveness. 
 
 This is illustrated in its primitiveness by the following : 
 
 "When I was about nine years old, five girls and myself formed a club. 
 It was known as the Contrary Girls Club, or C. G. C. Our main object was 
 to get as many secrets as we could during the week, and then on Saturday 
 afternoon we would meet and tell our secrets. The ones we considered the 
 most important we would give some certain initial or initials, and then 
 record them in a book." 
 
 It is then but a step from this stage to that characterized 
 by the aristocratic feeling, the latter being the feeling of 
 being better than the other fellow, the former being the desire 
 
406 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 to possess. The former is therefore the servant of the latter, 
 since in our society rank is correlative with possession. The 
 desire to possess something of value, be it nothing more than a 
 secret, may thus be in motivation subordinate to the desire 
 to rise in social rank. This is illustrated in student fraternities. 
 Not their only feature, to be sure, and in the published inten- 
 tion not at all present, are those two motives. But in actual 
 practise it works that way. The fact that a society is secret 
 makes it stand out prominently in the foreground of the desi- 
 rable social states. And this prominence encourages aristoc- 
 racy. When the experience of the individuals thus raised 
 into prominence has been broad enough to have toned down 
 their primeval feeling of superiority, both in regard to them- 
 selves and to their group, the effect is good; if, on the other 
 hand, this rise into prominence be made by less mature or less 
 experienced minds, the effect on their view of the world is 
 detrimental. The former is the aristocracy which should be 
 emulated, the evolution of a group to a higher cultural plane ; 
 the latter is the false aristocracy which exhibits itself in snob- 
 bishness, bigheadedness and in extreme cases, megalomania. 
 We find here the psychological reason why fraternities are 
 detrimental in high schools. Boys and girls are too young, as 
 a rule, to be able to experience the feeling of superiority, 
 engendered by the prominent position which is the result of 
 secrecy. This prominence, too, is extraordinarily increased 
 because the other students are of the same age as the members 
 of the fraternity, and their envy of the members of the secret 
 organization is stronger than it would be at any other period of 
 life. The same snobbishness, however, is produced by victory 
 in athletics. Where fraternities exist the condition is made 
 worse because of the fact that the man placed in an enviable 
 position through athletic prowess is the most desirable candi- 
 date for the fraternity, and the cumulative resultant is a snob of 
 the choicest variety, unless he be equaled by the snob of 
 newly acquired wealth. Approximately the same importance 
 is given to athletics and social life in college as in high school, 
 but the effect in college is much less aggravating, because of the 
 greater maturity of the students. The high school boy, who 
 has been the easy victor in all contests, on entering college 
 learns that there are others just as fleet, just as clever, and in 
 all probability a feV who are even brighter. A few defeats 
 cures his youthful self-regard. In adult life, entrance into a 
 secret order does not, as a rule, produce this deleterious effect 
 of the high school age, because men are then old enough to be 
 able to experience prominence without becoming conceited, 
 and also because the prominence is less, on account of the ease 
 with which men can become members of secret orders. 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 407 
 
 It should be mentioned that while the prominence of secrecy 
 in children's societies is due to these fundamental human 
 needs which are satisfied, the form that secrecy takes is due 
 largely to contagion. By far the greater part of the secret 
 features here found are the result of imitation. Many have 
 secret names, passwords, rituals, secret signs and other mys- 
 teries as a result of the fact that they know adult clubs have 
 them. 
 
 Dramatic Features. Closely allied with the secret elements 
 of the club are the dramatic features. By the dramatic 
 features we mean all those attributes which appeal to the love 
 of the make-believe. We need not delay to emphasize the 
 fact that the pleasure in the make-believe, whether the subject 
 takes part in the acting, or merely witnesses the acting of 
 others, is an universal one. Miss Addams points out in a 
 charming way the place this craving holds in adolescence, 
 and that the reason why it is so exceedingly strong among the 
 workers of the city is that the drama provides a transition 
 between the romantic conceptions which they vainly struggle 
 to keep intact and life's cruelties and trivialities which they 
 refuse to admit. The satisfaction of the make-believe in the 
 form of reading and reverie is denied them. But on the stage 
 the youth can witness the deeds of his hero presented before 
 his eyes ; these he views simply as a forecast of his own future. 
 This fascinating view of his own career it is which draws the 
 boy to shows of all kinds (3). 
 
 The club to some extent satisfies this need. It provides 
 a great hierarchy of offices and degrees. 
 
 Europe has its pageantry and titled nobility, its Order of the Bath and 
 Garter, the Legion of Honor and Iron Cross. Americans satisfy this 
 underlying human need by parades of Knights Templars, Elks and Odd 
 Fellows, in which thousands put on sword and silk and scarf. They create 
 for themselves such titles as Official Potentate, Imperial Deputy Potentate, 
 Imperial Chief Rabban, Imperial High Priest and Prophet, Imperial 
 Oriental Guide, Imperial First Ceremonial Master, as in the Nobles of the 
 Mystic Shrine; the Grand Exalted Ruler, High Chief Ranger, Keeper of 
 the Exchequer, Grand Almoner, or, as in the Imperial Order of Red Men, 
 the Grand Incohoner, Great Senior Sagamore and Great Keeper of the 
 Wampum. These titles, representative of hundreds, are well ridiculed in 
 the following offices : Cock of the Walk, Bantam Cock, Chief Scratcher, and 
 Early Bird, in the Order of Red Roosters, and Most Loyal Gander, Grand 
 Custodian of the Goslings, Supervisor of the Flock, Grand Guardian of the 
 Pond, and Grand Wielder of the Goose Quill, in the Order of the Red 
 Goose. The love of the make-believe underlies the organization of the 
 Concatenated Order of Hoo Hoo, the Prudential Patriarchs of Pompeii, 
 the Knights and Ladies of the Golden Star and many others that might be 
 mentioned. 
 
 Examination of the rituals, based on secret and secular themes, such as 
 the story of the cross, building of the temple, David and Jonathan, Joseph, 
 the Maccabees, Ben Hur, facts of United States history, nomad life, the 
 friendship of Damon and Pythias and the crusades are used to increase both 
 
408 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the mysterious and the dramatic elements in the club organization. Com- 
 menting on the ritual, Simmel says: "Every such society (a secret society 
 with a ritual) contains a measure of freedom, which is not really provided for 
 in the structure of the surrounding society. Whether the secret society, 
 like the Vehme complements the inadequate judicature of the political 
 area; or whether, as in the case of conspiracies or criminal bands, it is an 
 uprising against the law of that area; or whether, as in the case of the 
 'mysteries,' they hold themselves outside of the commands and prohibi- 
 tions of the greater area in either case the apartness (Heraussonderung) 
 which characterizes the secret society has the tone of a freedom "(70, p. 483). 
 In other words, the secret society with its ritual transcends the humdrum, 
 hard and fast facts of everyday life, and forces open the gates into the realm 
 of the ideal, the world of the imaginative, the make-believe. Read over the 
 names of the degrees in Scottish rite Freemasonry, from the highest level of 
 Sovereign Grand Inspector General down through the thirty-three stata, 
 some of which are, Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, Grand Elect Knight 
 Kadosch, Knight of the Brazen Serpent, Patriarch Noachite, Knight of 
 the Rose Croix, Prince of Jerusalem and Grand Elect Perfect and Sublime 
 Mason. 
 
 Forbush recognized this need, when he organized the Knights of King 
 Arthur for boys, with their round table, their formality, ritual and titled 
 officialdom (26). Consciously or unconsciously the Boy Scouts recognize 
 it in their provision for hero-worhip, for playing at Indian life, at military 
 drill and first aid to the injured. These activities satisfy the 'dramatic 
 instinct.' Labor unions have introduced many of the features of the 
 secret brotherhoods, such as 'riding the goat,' high sounding titles 
 ritual, passwords, etc. Their fundamental purpose certainly has no con- 
 nection with satisfying the dramatic instinct. In actual practise it is 
 found that those unions are most successful which minister most widely to 
 the needs of its members. Among these is the demand of the dramatic 
 instinct. 
 
 Walter B. Hill calls the institution of the club the great 
 American safety-valve (39). The teaching of our public 
 schools is that any man may become president, when as a 
 matter of fact they can't all be presidents. Hill says: "I 
 made a test case of a small town, and found that every man, 
 woman, and child (above ten years of age) in the place held an 
 office with the exception of a few scores of flabby jelly-fish 
 characters, whose lack of ambition or enterprise removes them 
 from consideration as elements of the problem. . . Here 
 then we have the great American safety-valve we are a nation 
 of presidents." Holding office satisfies the love of the make- 
 believe, and incidentally, as other drama does, it trains for the 
 real. 
 
 Besides these indirect ministrations to the call of the make- 
 believe, it is directly satisfied in all sorts of clubs by participa- 
 tion in the presentation of drama, readings and entertainments. 
 By these dramatic features clubs increase their influence and 
 perpetuate their life. 
 
 Other Features. The quotation from Mr. Hill introduces us 
 to another set of factors used by the club. Holding office not 
 only satisfies the dramatic impulse, but it is a sort of subtle 
 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 409 
 
 flattery; it gives a realization of greatness, through cajoling 
 positive self-feeling. The more flamboyant the titles, the 
 more the feeling of superiority is tickled. This is not identical 
 With the love of the make-believe, as is shown by the fact that 
 there is satisfaction in playing the villain. Other means of 
 adding to the satisfaction of this self-centered feeling are the 
 addition of those agencies which actually do improve the indi- 
 vidual status, financially, socially, intellectually, morally, etc. 
 The beneficiary and insurance features directly improve 
 financial status. Membership in fraternal orders, as well as in 
 religious and social clubs, is oftentimes sought purely to im- 
 prove one's business connections. Social status is acquired 
 by the same means. And here we class the purely social 
 clubs. Self -improvement is made a strong motive for joining 
 the club, by its provision of education specifically in literature, 
 art, drama, music and physical culture, and more generally in 
 every subject of interest through the intercourse of conversa- 
 tion, discussion and set lectures. Thus the club aids the 
 individual to gain a living, to improve his social status and to 
 raise his general efficiency. 
 
 It might be a matter of debate whether the religious and 
 altruistic elements in clubs should be classed with those in the 
 preceding paragraph, or whether they should be treated as 
 satisfying an impulse, distinct from that of positive self- 
 feeling. We will not argue that point. The fact remains 
 that the club does in many ways satisfy the needs expressed by 
 these feelings. The religious and philanthropic societies do 
 this directly ; the fraternal societies have many religious ele- 
 ments, for instance the Masons, the Knights of Malta, and 
 the Odd Fellows, whose motto is ' Friendship, Love and Faith.' 
 Another feature of the club, about which there is similar 
 difficulty of classification is the recreative, the provision of 
 muscular exercise, mental relaxation, and games of chance or 
 skill. The characteristic of this group of activities is the 
 hygienic element. The result is self -improvement, yet the 
 feeling satisfied is different in each case. Here, too, there are 
 clubs formed entirely for athletics, as there are found those 
 primarily altruistic and social. Every club which has a building 
 or grounds of its own aims to satisfy this type of need. 
 
 But the club also satisfies at least one other instinct. Con- 
 structiveness is well fed in the activities of such men as Root, 
 Clendenen, Upchurch, and the other organizers and ritual 
 writers. There must glow in the breast of these constructive 
 geniuses some such fire as Pres. Hall ascribes to the novitiate 
 into the class of contributors to science after the production of 
 his doctor's thesis. There is surely a peculiar joy that comes 
 from the successful formation of a new organization, and a 
 
41 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 great many thousands have had the privilege of being charter 
 members of clubs of all kinds in the last few decades. 
 
 Another force unconsciously employed by the club, which 
 has the effect of strengthening the group spirit, is that of 
 opposition and conflict. 
 
 Struggle is a stimulus to growth. The mind, like the body, 
 needs continual peripheral stimulation to keep awake. One 
 of the chief services of the school examination is that it is a 
 continual spur, keeping one at the height of working capacity. 
 It brings the realization of the possibility of failure, and the 
 desire to succeed and excel makes a conflict, a game, a contest 
 of study, with big obstacles to overcome. Similar is the 
 effect produced by the effort to attain some definite end, what- 
 ever be its nature. To have a purpose, whether it be to build 
 up a business, to support a family and raise children, to excel 
 in the profession, to have a real work to do gives zest to life 
 and increases efficiency. This much is true of opposition in 
 its effect on the individual. 
 
 Opposition to a group from without has a similar effect. 
 Persecution always strengthens the ties between those op- 
 pressed. Minor differences are overlooked in the light of the 
 greater need which cries out for unity. Some families can only 
 be united by sorrow in the death of one of their number, or by 
 some other great calamity, such as a scandal, when, as with 
 political opponents, there is unity in the face of foreign war. 
 External opposition has the effect of throwing into relief the 
 stronger esprit de corps. 
 
 This is clearly seen with fraternities, particularly those 
 among high school students. The feeling of unity among the 
 members is only magnified by the fact that they have a com- 
 mon enemy who would destroy their club. Persecution of a 
 religious sect strengthens it, unless it be strong enough to 
 annihilate it, not merely because opposition gives more mean- 
 ing to the religion, but also because it draws the members 
 into closer fellowship. 
 
 A different psychic process is involved when there is antag- 
 onism between the members of the group. If this is too 
 strong the group is broken up. But in moderate degrees it has 
 the effect of strengthening it by providing what Simmel calls 
 "one of those contrast-stimuli evidently demanded by the 
 innermost needs of the unifying social bond, because there, as 
 elsewhere, the permanent can emerge and come to conscious 
 force only as a function of the changeable " (69, p. 48). This 
 is as true of the social bonds existing between individuals as 
 those binding large numbers. Periods of quarrel and dis- 
 agreement seem to be a regular experience of lovers and of 
 married couples. These estrangements are followed by reac- 
 

 A STUDY IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 411 
 
 tions when the bond of unity is stronger than before the quarrel, 
 the effect of the quarrel being to bring into consciousness the 
 realization of the misery which would ensue if the bond were 
 permanently broken, against which dark background is 
 thrown the bright picture of the happiness which charac- 
 terizes their union. The psychic process appears to be the 
 same with the members of a club. Difference of opinion 
 regarding policies is necessary for the purpose of making 
 definite the real object of the organization. The club would 
 die of stagnation, as many churches in fact do, were there no^f jjlf^ 
 
 differences between its members. 
 
 GENERAL SUMMARY 
 
 The description of the psychological elements utilized by the 
 club has involved at least the mention of most of the social 
 qualities possessed by man. The club in present day America 
 is indeed a broad institution. Its broadest foundation is 
 laid in sociability. Whether or not other sentiments are 
 involved, this is always present. . Unsociable individuals never 
 form clubs. Sociability is therefore the most fundamental of 
 all the forces which produce the club. It may be supplemented 
 either by contagion r deliberation or both. Either combi- 
 nation will produce the club. Other forces may assist, such, 
 for instance, as the feeling of personal attachment between 
 individuals, but this is not essential. These being the forces, 
 there are certain conditions necessary before their functioning 
 will produce the club, those conditions being individual differ- 
 ences in the capacity for leadership and congeniality of inter- 
 ests. The club being organized begets other psychic forces of 
 which we have discussed the social stimulus, esprit de corps, 
 honor, and friendship. Besides these forces, clubs, either by 
 their nature, or unconsciously, employ other factors which, 
 by appealing to nativ_e_-tesdencies, strengthen the club; such 
 factors as_-secrecy, ritualism and dramatic features, agencies 
 for self-advancement, financially, in status and in efficiency, 
 religious and altruistic features, the provision of possibilities 
 of recreation, athletics, games and amusements, and the force 
 of opposition. Though the aim of this paper has been to 
 make a contribution to the science of social psychology, it is 
 hoped that, if the conclusions herein reached be valid, they 
 may be of some suggestiveness to all who are interested in 
 the formation of clubs, whether formed by any group for 
 their own ends, or by adults for boys and girls. 
 
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