But the child on the streets is no more a solitary individual than the savage is, or for that matter the civilized man. He quickly forms part of a group, a roving group, called "The Gang."
In the large cities gangs are usually composed of boys of one age or nearly so; in the small towns the gangs will consist of the boys of a neighborhood. In fact, regardless of whether they are street children or home children, boys form gangs spontaneously.
The gang is the first voluntary organization of society, for the home, in so far as the child is concerned, is an involuntary organization. The gang has its leader or leaders, usually the strongest or the best fighter. At any rate, the best fighter is the nominal leader, though a shrewder lad may assume the real power. The gang has rules, it plays according to regulations, its quarrels are settled according to a code, property has a definite status and distribution.[1] The members of the gang are always quarreling with each other, but here, as in the larger aggregations of older human beings, "politics ends at the border," and the gang is a unit against foreign aggression.
Indeed, gangs of a neighborhood may league against a group of other gangs, as did the quarreling cities of Greece against Persia.
[1] In the gang of which I was a member there was a ritual in the formation of partnership, an association within the association.
Two boys, fond of each other and desiring to become partners, would link little fingers, while a third boy acting as a sort of priest--an elder of the gang--would raise his hand and strike the link, shouting, "Partners, partners, never break!" This ritual was a symbol of the unity of the pair, so that they fought for each other, shared all personal goods (such as candy, pocket money, etc.,) and were to be loyal and sympathetic throughout life. Alas, dear partner of my boyhood, most gallant of fighters and most generous of souls, where are you, and where is our friendship, now?
For the student of mankind the gang is one of the most fascinating phenomena. Here the power of tradition, without the aid of records, is seen. Throughout America, in a mysterious way, all the boys start spinning tops at a certain season and then suddenly cease and begin, to play marbles. Without any standardization of a central type they have the same rules for their games, call them by the same names and use in their songs the same rhymes and airs. Every generation of children has the same jokes and trick games: "Eight and eight are sixteen, stick your nose in kerosene"--"A dead cat, I one it, you two it, I three it, you four it, I five it, you six it, I seven it, you eight it!" The fact is, of course, that there are no generations as distinct entities; there are always individuals of one age, and there is a mutual teaching and learning going on at all times, which is the basis of transmission of tradition. Children are usually more conservative and greater sticklers for form and propriety than even men are; only now and then a freer mind arises whose courage and pertinacity change things.
Therefore, in the understanding of character the influence of the environment becomes of as fundamental importance as the consideration of the organic make-up of the individual. The environment in the form of tradition, social ideal, social status, economic situation, race, religion, family, education is thus on the one hand the directing, guiding, eliciting factor in character and on the other is the repressing, inhibiting, limiting factor.
Putting the whole thing in another way: the organism is the Microcosmos, or little world, in which the potentialities of character are elaborated in the germ plasm we inherit from our ancestors, in the healthy interaction of brain with the rest of the body, especially the internal glands. The outside world is the Macrocosmos, or large world, and includes the physical conditions of existence (climate, altitude, plentiness of food, access to the sea) as well as the social conditions of existence (state of culture of times and race and family). The social conditions of existence are of especial interest in that they reach back ages before the individual was born so that the lives, thoughts, ideals of the dead may dominate the character of the living.
This macrocosmos both brings to light and stifles the character peculiarities of the microcosmos and the character of no man, as we see or know it, ever expresses in any complete manner his innate possibilities.
The question arises: What is the basis of the influence of the social heredity, of the forces, in the character of the person born in a social group? Certain aspects of this we must deal with later, in order to keep to a unified presentation of the subject.
Other aspects are pertinently to be discussed now.
The link that binds man to man is called the social instinct, though perhaps it would be better to call it the group of social instincts. The link is one of feeling, primarily, though it has associated with it, in an indissoluble way, purpose and action.
The existence of the social instinct is undisputed; its explanation is varied and ranges from the mystical to the evolutionary. For the mystical (which crops out in Bergson, Butler and even in Galton), the unity of life is its basis, and there is a sort of recognition of parts formerly united but now separate individuals. This does not explain hate, racial and individual. The evolutionary aspect has received its best handling in recent years in Trotter's "The Herd," where the social instincts are traced in their relation to human history.
