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The Genius of America (collection)

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For works with similar titles, see The Genius of America.
The Genius of America (1923)
by Stuart Pratt Sherman
4371671The Genius of America1923Stuart Pratt Sherman
The Genius of America

The Genius of America
Studies in Behalf of the Younger GenerationBy
Stuart P. Sherman
Author of "Americans," "On Contemporary Literature," etc.
Keep the young generations in hail,
And bequeath them no tumbled house.

Charles Scribner's Sons
New York · London

1923

Copyright, 1923, by
Charles Scribner's Sons


Copyright, 1922, by The Atlantic Monthly Company
Copyright, 1922, by The Nation, Inc.
Copyright, 1922, by The New York Evening Post
Copyright, 1923, by The McCall Publishing Co.
Printed in the United States of America
Published March, 1923

Preface

It was, I believe, no less an authority than Napoleon who declared that there is no indispensable man. This remark has always seemed to me to strike more deeply into the truth of human affairs than Carlyle's saying that history is the biography of great men. Consequently, I was a little surprised after the appearance of my recent book, Americans, to find one of my most intelligent reviewers classifying me as a "hero-worshipper." Great men serve the explorer of a nation's genius as eminent peaks in a mountain range serve the geologist whose eye, travelling swiftly from peak to peak, sees at a glance what course that vast power has taken which has crumpled a continent. But the hero of my book is neither Emerson nor Roosevelt, by including whom among Americans I have, according to one candid correspondent, written my "obituary."

My hero is that continuous power of the national life in the existence of which all our great men appear but as momentary eddies and transient formations in the current. They have achieved greatness only in proportion to their capacity to receive this streaming energy. The most useful pursuit of our history and biography must always lead us from the study of forms to the study of the formative spirit, from the study of individuals to the study of that creative force of which they are but temporary representatives. Where does it reside—in what institutions, in what customary and traditional beliefs, in what elements of the popular culture—that genius of America which dispenses, one after another, with all its great servants, and confidently entrusts the destiny of a people to untried hands?

In this book, which is a kind of sequel to Americans, I have made some rudimentary attempts at an answer. Two of the essays here appear for the first time in print: "Vocation" and "Literature and the Government of Men." For permission to reprint the others I am indebted as follows: to The Atlantic Monthly for "The Genius of America," "What Is a Puritan?" and "The Point of View in American Criticism"; to The Nation for "A Conversation on Ostriches" and "Education by the People"; to McCall's Magazine for "The Shifting Centre of Morality"; and to The Literary Review for "The Superior Class."

S. P. S.

Contents

Chapter Page
I. The Genius of America 1
II. What Is a Puritan? 33
III. A Conversation on Ostriches 77
IV. The Shifting Centre of Morality 95
V. The Superior Class 125
VI. Education by the People 145
VII. Vocation 169
VIII. The Point of View in American Criticism 197
IX. Literature and the Government of Men 233


This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1926, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 97 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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