First, a few suggestions as to where these sources and secondary authorities may be found. Of primary importance is Macdonald’s “Select Charters Illustrative of American History--1606 to 1775;” second, though not so good, is Preston’s “Documents Illustrative of American History--1606 to 1863;” third, Hart’s “American History Told by Contemporaries,” Volume II, Part VI; fourth, the “American History Leaflets,” Numbers 11, 19, 21, and 33. Beside these the teacher may easily discover one or another of the documents in many other places. Of the secondary authorities, beside the ordinary histories of the American nation, all of which contain the leading facts and incidents upon which the Declaration is based, the teacher is referred especially to Friedenwald’s “Declaration of Independence.” Next to that, the most important works are Moses Coit Tyler’s “Literary History of the American Revolution,” and Frothingham’s “Rise of the Republic of the United States,” particularly the foot-notes. Furthermore, the teacher and the student will find illuminating essays on the political theories of the Declaration of Independence in Merriam’s “American Political Theories,” in A. Lawrence Lowell’s “Essays in Government,” in Leslie Stephen’s “English Thought in the Eighteenth Century,” and in Bryce’s “Studies in History and Jurisprudence.” By no means all of these works need be consulted; an examination of one or two of them will suffice. The study of the Declaration falls naturally into three parts and students may therefore profitably be set to work separately or in groups on one of its three problems. First, there is the problem of the growth of the idea of independence; second, there is the problem of the validity and cogency of the numberless adverse criticisms of the Declaration. Is it merely a mass of “glittering and sounding generalities of natural right?” as Choate called it. Is it a partisan and unfair statement? Is its political theory false and therefore of no historical importance? Third, there is the possibility of submitting the Declaration itself to complete and thorough class-room analysis. Idea of Independence.