If these main contentions seem severe or pessimistic, the answer must be: we do not write to please; we strive only to understand and to state as clearly as we can. For American civilization is still in the embryonic stage, with rich and with disastrous possibilities of growth. But the first step in growing up is self-conscious and deliberately critical examination of ourselves, without sentimentality and without fear. We cannot even devise, much less control, the principles which are to guide our future development until that preliminary understanding has come home with telling force to the consciousness of the ordinary man. To this self-understanding, this book is, in our belief, a genuine and valuable contribution. We may not always have been wise; we have tried always to be honest. And if our attempt will help to embolden others to an equally frank expression of their beliefs, perhaps in time wisdom will come. I am glad that, however serious, we are never solemn in these essays. Often, in fact, we are quite gay, and it would be a humourless person indeed who could not read many of them, even when the thrusts are at himself, with that laughter which Rabelais tells us is proper to the man. For whatever our defects, we Americans, we have one virtue and perhaps a saving virtue--we still know how to laugh at ourselves. H. E. S. New York City, July Fourth, 1921. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE _The Editor_ iii THE CITY _Lewis Mumford_ 3 POLITICS _H. L. Mencken_ 21 JOURNALISM _John Macy_ 35 THE LAW _Zechariah Chafee, Jr._ 53 EDUCATION _Robert Morss Lovett_ 77 SCHOLARSHIP AND CRITICISM _J. E. Spingarn_ 93 SCHOOL AND COLLEGE LIFE _Clarence Britten_ 109 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE _Harold E. Stearns_ 135 SCIENCE _Robert H. Lowie_ 151 PHILOSOPHY _Harold Chapman Brown_ 163 THE LITERARY LIFE _Van Wyck Brooks_ 179 MUSIC _Deems Taylor_ 199 POETRY _Conrad Aiken_ 215 ART _Walter Pach_ 227 THE THEATRE _George Jean Nathan_ 243 ECONOMIC OPINION _Walter H. Hamilton_ 255 RADICALISM _George Soule_ 271 THE SMALL TOWN _Louis Raymond Reid_ 285 HISTORY _H. W. Van Loon_ 297