The Spirit of America
By HENRY VAN DYKE
Professor of English at Princeton University; Hyde Lecturer, University of Paris; Hon. LL.D., University of Geneva; Hon. F.R.S.L., London.
Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net The basis of this volume is the addresses delivered by Professor van Dyke in Paris as the exchange professor sent by America to the Sorbonne University. The author's wide experience with many distinct aspects of our national life, his great ability as a thinker and writer, and his personal sincerity, all combine to render Professor van Dyke eminently fitted for the important task be has undertaken in this book, To perceive the enduring and valuable elements in the kaleidoscope of the America of to-day requires a far-seeing eye, whose vision has been trained by long preparation. In this work the fruit of years of application and reflection is clearly apparent—it is undoubtedly the most Notable interpretation in years of the real America.
Professor van Dyke divides his discussion into the following headings:
The Soul of a People, Self-reliance and the Republic, Fair Play and Democracy, Will Power, Work and Wealth, Common Order and Social Coöperation, Personal Development and Education, and Self-expression and Literature.
Though his treatment is at all times sympathetic, he has not hesitated to put his finger npon the weak points in our government, and the work will be found quite as entertaining, quite as enlightening to the American nation as it was to the French, where it won the attention and admiration not only of Professor van Dyke's immediate andience, but of the entire country.
"Perhaps there is no more curious fact in the history of nations than that France and America should have grown sufficiently apart to make the Hyde Foundation necessary. . . . The task Dr. van Dyke sets himself is to expound 'the spirit of America,' its self-reliance, love of fair play, its unpruned enthusiasm for 'education,' its faults as well as its admirable points, Dr. van Dyke's volume deserves wide reading. One may wince a little, but 'even if the writer has a high ideal of what the American spirit really is, no American reader can fail to benefit by it' A wholesome book, then, and as entertaining as it is wholesome."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
"A tremendously stimulating book."—Boston Transcript.
"Entertaining as well as instructive."—New York Sun.
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