Excerpt from Problems of American Democracy: Political, Economic, Social To the gradual crystallization of educational thought in favor of a general study of the social sciences in secondary institutions, this book owes its origin. The attempt has been made to acquaint the student with the bold outlines of the political, economic, and social development of Amer ican institutions. The task involved presented so much freedom of choice that, naturally, Opinion may difi'er as to the relative importance of the various materials available for this purpose. However, the aim has been to provide the student with typical material for a general introduc tory course in problems of democracy, which not only stresses certain fundamental characteristics of our own civilization, but preserves at the same time a proper bal ance between the political, the economic, and the social factors in American life. Furthermore, the topics selected have been treated as unified problems, each of which is dis cussed from the standpoint of general social development, rather than subdivided into a series of separate, air-tight compartments labeled political, economic, and social. Since this volume presents a combined treatment of these three elements, it is intended primarily to meet the needs of those institutions in which opportunity is lacking for a detailed treatment of the social sciences individually. It follows the same method pursued in the companion books, American Economic Life and American Social Problems, and draws upon material contained therein. It marks, moreover, the advent of a new movement in secondary education, to which the authors hope it makes a definite contribution. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.