contact with that past from which it naturally springs. I know of one book only—Mr. Croly's Promise of American Life—which has striven to interpret the prospects in terms of the traditions that control it. I know of one other book—Mr. Lippman's Preface to Politics—which has striven to analyze the proper method of inquiry. The rest seem little more than facile pictures of immediate evil, or else the translation of the critic's personal experience into the resplendent detail of a national programme. What they need is the living substance of American history. It is, indeed, true in no light degree that those who have made American historiography have given them little enough of aid. Histories like Mr. Rhodes' are the material less of understanding than of edification; American life cannot be interpreted from the comfortable angle of a banker's window. But in other directions there is material of the first importance. For all its dullness, the vast tomes of Von Holst contain more wisdom on the problems of federal structure than is to be found in any other work. The superb suggestiveness of Professor Turner, the careful criticism of Charles Beard, the older but still important work of Hildreth, these are the things the student must know if his work is to have the needed substance. Above all they must go back to their texts. They must investigate in all their bearings the works of Hamilton and Calhoun. They must learn to win the friendship of lesser men like John Taylor. It will be no easy task to hew from out these vast materials the principles of which American liberalism stands in need. But there is no way to political wisdom save through the dirt and sweat of historical scholarship. Our safeguards of liberty are not to be known from a hasty impression of the daily press. That is why the man who will do most for the study of American politics will be the man who impresses upon this generation the lesson Englishmen have learned from Graham Wallas. It will be a great day when his certain advent may be signalled.
