comprehensive, detailed, and technical, suited to mature high school or college use. It is for the field between that this volume has been designed as the result of much study and observation and consultation with teachers. The plan of the book was the natural consequence of its aim. Since the theory and machinery and services of our national government formed the prime subject to be taught, it seemed essential to begin with this heart of the matter. It is the opinion of many teachers that this method follows the natural interest of pupils and affords the clearer path. Certainly, the simplicity of the family and of local government as a starting point is a false and confusing simplicity. The complexity of the national government is at least visible and sharply defined. With the aid of the playground analogy the elements of our governmental theory can be made easily understandable by pupils of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Since a true perspective, a sense of the relative importance of the principles involved and a clear view of the organic relation of nation, State, and local government, was a first essential, a logical chapter arrangement was followed in preference to an arrangement by lessons. Of the questions for discussion the most important are obviously the ones developing the State laws and local facts of government. The material for answering these questions (the form of ballot used in a State, local boundary-lines, the names of local officials, etc.) is often not immediately accessible. But the value of these concrete examples is very great. The ideal system is, of course, for the members of the class to obtain the information from election officials, tax assessors, local members of the State Legislature, and others. Or the Secretary of State can be applied to at the State capital. One of the standard newspaper almanacs and the State year-book will often be of use. Time, of course, limits the amount of this local application of theory and law which a teacher can arrange; but it cannot be too strongly urged that the theory of government be as far as possible worked out in concrete laws and maps and ballots and persons. The text of the Constitution is included in the volume and frequently referred to in the belief that only thus can an appreciation of its basic importance be gained. No detailed analysis of the Constitution has been attempted. In the conception of the writer it is the fundamental fact of its organic relation to our state that is chiefly important. GEOFFREY PARSONS. RYE, NEW YORK, |