With the recent determination at the Harvard Observatory of standardized sequences of apparent magnitudes in the Small Magellanic Cloud, we have reached a new phase in the study of stellar organization. Having found, as one product of the photometric work, the distance of this star cloud, we are now in a position to determine for several types of stars and nebulae the absolute luminosities which were heretofore uncertainly known. We shall also be able to measure the maximum luminosity reached by stars in different evolutionary stages. Until now this has been accomplished only for stars in globular clusters, which have been considered, by some students of the subject, to be highly specialized regions. There can be no doubt, however, but that the Magellanic Clouds are comparable with star clouds of the Galaxy in practically every respect. In the following discussion a summary is given of our present knowledge of these objects.