The American Government, National and State

and an adequate exegetical and historical commentary upon our Dual Constitution, National and State. He has accordingly attempted to furnish a text-book embodying these ideas.

The advanced student may profitably study books devoted to the principles of Constitutional Law; but such a treatise is not the text-book that the average student, with his power of generalization and compass of facts, needs. He will find a close study of the Constitution of the United States, accompanied by suitable historical discussion and illustration, far more profitable than Constitutional disquisitions. Hence, the central position in this book is assigned to the National Constitution. Still, it is not so much the Constitution as a document written in 1787, as the Constitution developed by the life of the people and construed by Congress, by the Executive, and by the Courts as shown in our Legislative, Administrative, and Juridical history, with which it deals. It is the living and working Constitution that concerns the American youth, and not simply a document; the Constitution in action, and not the Constitution in a book. Hence the Author has striven, in accord with the later and better tendency in treating such subjects, to make his book strong in its historical elements. Constitutions are not made, they grow.

Hitherto the National Government has occupied dispropor. tionate attention in teaching the American Government. The States have almost fallen out of sight. In this treatise, due prominence has been given to the fact that this Government is Dual or Federal, and that the citizen has two loyalties and two patriotisms. It is written in the spirit of the aphorism: An Indestructible Union composed of Indestructible States. The growth of this dual system has been traced from its roots, in the first feeble English settlements planted in Virginia and Massachusetts. The State System has not, however, been

described at as much length as the National System; that has not been thought necessary or even desirable.

By using two kinds of type-putting the main propositions in larger, and the amplifications in smaller type-the Author has adapted the book to the needs of students and classes giving different amounts of time to the study, and so pursuing it more or less thoroughly. He believes, also, that he has adapted the book to the needs of different grades of schools. Those teachers, for example, who wish to teach the National Government, with merely incidental mention of the States, can limit the work to Parts I. and II., or they will find Part II. alone an adequate commentary upon the National Constitution.

It has not been found practicable to furnish bibliographies for the separate chapters. Were that done, the same titles would appear over and over again. But the three Parts of the book are sufficiently distinct to permit separate bibliographies. It would have been easy greatly to extend the references to books. But an over-extended Literature commonly defeats its own ends. The common student, especially, is lost in the multitude of titles cited. The aim has therefore been to make a helpful bibliography rather than an extensive one.

Due pains have been taken to secure accuracy of fact and statement. But, as a matter of course, errors will creep into a book that contains so much matter-of-fact material as this one.

With these words of explanation, the Author commends "The American Government" to the consideration of students and teachers of this most engaging and important branch of knowledge. B. A. HINSDALE.

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