American Idealism
Our endeavor to state the general characteristics of the American mind has already given us some indication of what Americans really care for. The things or the qualities which they like, the objects of their conscious or unconscious striving, are their ideals. "There is what I call the American idea," said Theodore Parker in the Anti-Slavery Convention of 1850. "This idea demands, as the proximate organization thereof, a democracy--that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people； of course, a government on the principle of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God； for shortness‘ sake, I will call it the idea of Freedom." That is one of a thousand definitions of American idealism. Books devoted to the "Spirit of America"--like the volume by Henry van Dyke which bears that very title--give a programme of national accomplishments and aspirations. But our immediate task is more specific. It is to point out how adequately this idealis

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