The Genius of America (collection)
Studies in Behalf of the Younger GenerationBy
Stuart P. Sherman
Author of "Americans," "On Contemporary Literature," etc.
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 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
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."
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 in 1923, before the cutoff of 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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