cusses, in each of the divisions, topics on which we have an abundant literature, and about which all intelligent Americans are supposed to be informed, I wish the two volumes could be published without omissions. There is not a chapter, even if ordinary extracts from the census make up most of the contents, that does not afford some variation of the angle of vision from the one to which we are accustomed.

Of course, it would be easy to cull out from a book covering such a wide field a considerable list of inaccuracies. For example, antedating the movement toward independence from England (Vol. I, p. 70); the literally correct, yet practically insufficient, statement about the liberty of the president in constructing his cabinet (I, 151); the harmless simplification, "$5,000 und freie Reise," for the emoluments of a Congressman (I, 161); the too liberal rendering of the clause in the fifth amendment to the constitution, relating to second jeopardy of life or limb (1, 185); the vagueness due to omitting the adjective "American" from the sentence (I, 193), "The political existence of the [American] city is entirely dependent upon the state legislature;" the too summary statements about the constitution of our states and cities (I, 196-99); the phrase "ein alter Herr," used as synonymous with the recipient of the bachelor's degree in American colleges (II, 69); the too schematic generalization of the structure of American universities (II, 73); the too sweeping statements about American docents (II, 95 ff.); the statement (II, 194) that 'the [American] state knows no such thing as an obligatory civil marriage." It would perhaps be more correct to say that no American state recognizes any marriage as valid except a civil marriage. Since clergymen get their license to solemnize marriages from the state, and simply as clergyman have no such competence except by virtue of the statutes, the proposition will convey to Americans an impression contrary to the facts, although it may not seriously misinform Germans. I have not made special search for slips of this kind, and all that I have noticed are very minute flies in the ointment.

Then there are numerous cases of misplaced emphasis in stating facts, or exhibits of only parts of situations. A case in point is this, in the chapter on religion: "Methodism has flourished among the negroes" (II, 199). This is, of course, true, but it suggests that Methodism has not flourished elsewhere. In nearly every instance of this sort the apparent mistake is corrected later, or a hint is given

which shows that the author did not intend what his language seems to mean. Thus the implication of the above statement is partially removed a few pages later (II, 202-3). There is a similar case in connection with the account of our presidential elections (I, 102). Omission of possible contrasts between electoral and popular majorities seems to mar the description. Presently, however (I, 138), the omission is supplied. So with a rather broad generalization about the social standing of atheism (II, 194). The case of Colonel Ingersoll at once came to my mind in qualification. That very case is cited in the next sentence but one. Such slight blurs are unavoidable when so many details are to be brought into a single picture.

Then reference should be made to a class of propositions dogmatically stated as facts, while in reality they represent merely provincial judgments. In this group I would place the assertion (I, 75) that "no single principle of the constitution has been altered during the first century of the nation's existence." Some of us, who do not believe in state sovereignty as a principle, nevertheless agree with its American champions that the history of the United States will not be correctly written until it starts with recognition that our constitution could not have been adopted if rights of primogeniture had not been tacitly conceded to the principle of state sovereignty. But the most characteristic case under this head occurs in the author's treatment of the intellectual life of America. If he had been to the manner born, he could not have given a more delicious tinge of Bostonian local color than in the naïve declaration (II, 1): "America has three capital cities, Washington for its politics, New York for its business, and Boston for its intellect!" No American is likely to challenge Professor Münsterberg's account, in the following paragraphs, of the historical relation of Massachusetts to the Puritan element in Americanism. In my mind's eye, however, are rather lively images of the superb scorn of the Old Dominion, for instance, at the treatment of Puritanism as the only factor in American thought worth noticing. Whatever may have been true in the past, the amiable conceit that Boston retains its relative influence in American life overtaxes the gravity of all but the Bostonese. There are Americans of this generation who began to live in Boston, but who later lived larger elsewhere. To assert that America looks to Boston for its intellectual direction is very much like saying that the Atlantic Ocean depends for its water supply on the Charles River.

More prominent than either of these accidents is the dangerously

high light in which all things American are portrayed. Here we touch directly the question of relativity. Is it not necessary to heighten light and shade in order to produce approximately true effects in minds preoccupied by unfavorable ideas? Quite likely. For our own use, however, the picture must be ruthlessly toned down.

"The American newspaper man is a gentleman, upon whose discretion one may rely" (I, 239). "The negro question is the one really black cloud on the horizon of the public life of the American nation " (I, 282). "The American does not value money-getting if it is not the result of his own labor" (I, 338). Envy' is the one word that has never occurred in the American's dictionary" (I, 358). "Nowhere in the world are so many books read as in America" (II, 124). [But suppose they are weighed rather than counted!] "Envy and jealousy have no place in the optimistic nature of the American, who always rejoices in another's prosperity" (II, 189). "The American grows up in knowledge of the Bible" (II, 190). “The influence of the ministers in the small towns is profounder than in Germany" (II, 191). But how seldom is infidelity the motive [for divorce]; it is the democratic spirit of self-determination which demands that a bond shall be dissolved if it no longer accords with free choice. One may almost say that it is a higher individual morality which will no longer tolerate a union that has become essentially unsanctified. American divorce does not impeach the morality of the conjugal relation (II, 217). "It has been rightly said that the American has no talent for lying, and the European distrust of the word of others affects the Yankee as peculiarly European. ... Everybody accepts the check of a stranger, and the largest mercantile transactions are closed by verbal agreement or a nod of the head. . . . In Europe a school pupil who lies to the teacher often has his classmates on his side; in America they are always against him" (II, 220, 221). "The American will take no advantage of the weakness or misfortune of others" (II, 247). [This will be encouraging news to our fellow-citizens who had suspected the contrary in the case of trusts!] "The individual, like the nation, has no talent for getting thoroughly angry" (IL, 256). "The bluestocking, the unsexed woman who has lost her feminine charm, does not exist among the products of the higher education of women in America" (II, 289). "Wealth alone confers in the New World no social position" (II, 306). "The nation has reached a maturity at which the masses are actually ready to be led by the more competent" (II, 318).

....

It would be entirely misleading to say that these quotations give a fair idea of the book. They most certainly do not. There is always a context which qualifies them. They merely give an idea of the key in which the argument is pitched. Respect for America, on very high grounds, is the constant theme. The treatment covers a wide

gamut of praise and censure. Because of the particular public addressed, the criticisms are more carefully subdued, and the praises more strongly accentuated, than would be possible in an estimate of America by Americans for Americans.

Finally, such a book must necessarily contain a large element of the individual judgment of the author about open questions. There are hundreds of opinions, expressed or implied, in the work, with any one of which hundreds of Americans might take issue. If this were not the case, the book might better not have been written. It is a distinct public service for a man with Professor Münsterberg's outlook to utter his opinions on public questions. He is not bound to be infallible. It is enough if he is sincere. It is the reader's business to give the opinions their relative weight among all the considerations that he can control. The fact that the opinions in this instance are expressed in terms of direct or indirect comparison with German conditions gives them no finality, of course, but it throws the subjectmatter into wider perspective, and often has the effect of broadening the basis of induction. In some respects the most conspicuous case of this type is the treatment of the Monroe Doctrine (I, 49 and 322 ff.):

The Monroe Doctrine must fall, but it must fall through the will of the American people . . . . The hour appears near, since the injustice and the perversity of the doctrine are already suspected in wide circles. Opposition to it is brilliantly represented, and if a reaction once sets in among the American people, it usually spreads with irrepressible rapidity (I, 323).

Although I am more nearly in agreement with Professor Münsterberg's appraisal of the Monroe Doctrine, considered as a purely academic question, than with traditional American opinion on the subject, I should be surprised to learn that the "wide circles" referred to include more than two or three Americans in a million. It may be that Americans will some day take the view that the author outlines, and it may be that the day is near; but whatever we may think ought to be the course of events, there are no more signs, as political signs go, that such a change of heart is near at hand, than there are that America, England, and Germany are about to form an offensive and defensive alliance to compel arbitration of international disputes. Very nearly the same thing is to be said of the confident prediction that the western portions of British North America will soon be absorbed by the United States (I, 315 ff.). I have never happened to make the personal acquaintance of an American who seriously

regarded the annexation of any portion of Canada as likely to be, within his lifetime, within the sphere of practical politics. There are Americans with other views of course, and perhaps the present attitude of New England business men toward the subject of Canadian reciprocity is connected with growing opinions about the further possibility; but to the majority of us the subject is at most one for humorous bravado toward our Canadian neighbors, or for purely speculative discussion.

No country needs self-knowledge more than America. I have indicated these inevitable lines of negative criticism of the book, not because the most important things to be said about it are adverse, but because I welcome it as an invaluable addition to our apparatus for self-inspection. Its judgments are so much more flattering, on the whole, than judicial Americans would or could pass upon themselves, that a certain consistency will force them to discount such items as those specified, before they will feel at liberty to take the benefit of its analysis. Having recognized these limitations, I am free to say that the book ought to go into the list that every intelligent American should read. After all, large-minded men will find enough, not only between but in the lines, indicative of our rawness, and our faults, and our dangers, in every department of life, to prove that the author is as discriminating as he is generous.

ALBION W. SMALL.

Histoire de la France contemporaine (1871–1900). Par GABRIEL HANOTAUX. Tome I, "Le gouvernement de M. Thiers." Paris: Combet. Pp. xi+639; portraits. Fr. 7.50.

M. GABRIEL HANOTAUX, who belongs to the French Academy, has undertaken a contemporary history of France from February, 1871, to the end of 1900. This volume treats of the end of the Franco-German war, with the government of M. Thiers, the negotiations for peace, the Commune, the constitutional crisis, the debates of the National Assembly, and the liberation of the territory. It ends with May 24, 1873.

The author, a diplomatist and formerly minister of foreign affairs, was able by reason of the positions he occupied to obtain unpublished documents on that period of French history. He possessed such documents concerning both the inner and the outer affairs of France. This work is more a political and diplomatic than a general history of France. As it is, it is a most interesting book,