Social Institutions of the United States (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Social Institutions of the United States

Several gentlemen interested in the Chautauqua gathering, and in the literary enterprises associated with it, have ex pressed a wish that the concluding chapters of my book on the American Commonwealth Should be separately reprinted in a cheap form, so as to bring them within the reach of Chautauquan students and others who may not have leisure or opportunity to read the whole treatise. In acceding to their request, I have also promised to write a few sentences by way of introduction, explaining the relation Of the above mentioned chapters to the rest of my book, and the aim with which they were composed.

He who undertakes to describe the political system of a nation or state has a comparatively definite task before him, because it is pretty well understood what the term politics means and includes. The field is doubtless a wide one, but with sufficient time and pains it may be covered. To deal with those institutions of a country, those aspects Of national life and character, which lie outside politics, is far more difficult, because the field is SO wide that no one man or book can hope to exhaust it. All industrial movements, all social move ments, all religious movements, much of what is included under the terms Literature, Manners, Education, Science, Art, come within this field; and the business of selecting for treatment those which can be treated concisely and in obvious relation to one another is a problem which may well perplex a writer. It was, however, a problem I had to face.

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