THE VOLUNTEERS.

By David L. Sills '42.Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1957. 320pp.$6.00.

The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, the most successful and widely publicized voluntary health association in America, is the subject of this report of the first intensive sociologic study of this singularly American phenomenon, the voluntary organization. The study was supported by the Bureau of Applied Social Research of Columbia University, on whose staff the author serves as Research Associate, and the American Institute of Public Opinion of Princeton, New Jersey.

This volume is neither a history of the Foundation nor a report on its contributions to scientific knowledge. Rather, it is concerned chiefly with the local organizations of the Foundation and their Volunteer members.

Who are these Volunteers, and how did they initially become members of the Foundation? What do they do, and what satisfactions do they derive from their activities? What are the major rewards of volunteer participation? How do Volunteers actually perceive their organization, and what features of it do they single out as out-standing? These are some of the questions examined in this volume.

Although it is essentially an institutional analysis rather than a critique of voluntaryassociations generally, it constitutes in the very nature of the case one further attempt to explain the proliferation of voluntary activity in America, and to trace out some of the consequences of this activity for American society. It differs from many other attempts, however, in that explicit attention is given to the internal problems faced by voluntary associations and to the ways - both planned and unplanned - in which voluntary associations develop solutions for these problems. More specifically, a central concern of this book is the process through which the members of a voluntary association help shape the organization's character and determine its future.

A concluding chapter poses questions concerning the future: the future success of organizations generally and the future of the already successful Foundation. A remarkable discussion is made, of what happens to an organization which has already fulfilled its function.