governed. The different articles adopted in 1787 were not to be considered as sacred as the Tables of the Law, they were the work of fallible and changing human beings, and the essence of the American government did not rest on a written document but on the dispositions of the individual citizens and on enlightened public opinion.

This being the case, it became necessary to prepare each citizen for the part he was called upon to play in the life of the country. The great mass of the American people had a "cool common sense" and a certain degree of instruction which fitted all of them to do certain things, but not everything. A farmer could not overnight and by virtue of the popular choice become qualified to judge of fine legal points, to settle complicated economic problems, or to conduct difficult diplomatic negotiations with foreign courts. All this required more than ordinary common sense and ordinary education: the country needed leaders and experts to be carefully trained in special institutions—in a national university or, if this proved impossible, in State universities. As to the great mass of the common people, they could be trusted to judge of facts and to sit on a jury; they were also good judges of men and properly could choose between candidates for the different offices. A free press would keep them informed of the conduct of the men thus selected; primary and secondary schools would help in the diffusion of knowledge, and enlightened self-interest would prevent them at any time from making grievous mistakes.

Such a system constituted the best form of government ever established by man; but it did not ensue that it was immediately to be adopted by all the nations of the earth. It embodied certain permanent principles susceptible of general application, for they did nothing but express the unalienable rights of man. All men, however, were not to be intrusted at once with the full enjoyment of their rights. There were certain countries which for generations had been priest-ridden and king-ridden and in which men unaccustomed to use their judgment were swayed by emotions, hatreds and prejudices. A time might come when the sacred contagion of liberty would spread to these unfortunate populations, but it would take many revolutions, much bloodshed and a slow and painful process of education to enable them to shake off their shackles and to enjoy the full benefits of self-government. America, on the contrary, because of her geographical remoteness from Europe, because of the quality of the people who had settled in the English colonies, had fought, not to destroy an old order of things, but to preserve and to extend already existing liberties. Among the nations of the world she stood as an example and a hope. She was the living evidence that under a free government a large nation could grow prosperous and powerful, simply by existing, and without preaching any new gospel she fulfilled her duty to mankind.

Whatever may be the shortcomings of this political philosophy, it was distinctly an American doctrine; one cannot imagine it to have originated in any European country, for what would have been a Utopian and chimerical dream in the Old World was within the reach of man in America. Whether it corresponds to present conditions is still another question; it is nevertheless true that by emphasizing the uniqueness of America and the political superiority of his native land for more than fifty years, Thomas Jefferson did more than any other man of his generation to formulate the creed of Americanism. The man who was accused of being denationalized stands as the most integrally and truly American among his contemporaries.

This does not mean, however, that Jefferson did not occasionally depart from the policies he had thus drawn. No man can remain in public life for half a century without ever falling into contradictions and inconsistencies. Only "closet politicians" and mere theorists never accept any compromise, and Jefferson was a very practical politician with a keen sense of possibilities and realities. Trained as a small-town lawyer, then placed on many committees in Congress, forced to wrest war measures out of a reluctant Assembly, even managing to hold his own with the resourceful diplomats of Europe, Thomas Jefferson knew how to handle men and how "to take things by their smooth handle." There was nothing quixotic about him and he never tried to fight against windmills, nor did he break his head against blank walls. But he was singularly apt to bide his time, to wait for a favorable opportunity and, whenever he saw a chance, he never failed to come back to his original line of conduct and to his original policies.

He seldom indulged in undue display of emotions and personal feelings, but he was no mere thinking machine. In his youth he loved and suffered; later he was perplexed by the riddle of the world; he studied the old philosophers in order to find the moral props which religion could no longer give him and, in his older age, came back to the morals of Jesus. His encyclopedic curiosity and the versatility of his mind won for him the admiration of his contemporaries, and, in that sense—the eighteenth-century sense—he was truly "a philosopher." But he was too practical-minded to waste much time in mere theorizing or in theological and metaphysical "disquisitions." Firmly convinced that the business of life was with matter, he considered science as an instrument and a tool to master the blind forces of nature. He was more interested in applications than in disinterested research, and in that respect, as in many others, he was not only an American, but, above all, an eighteenth-century man. Intensely nationalistic as he was when it came to politics, he was truly cosmopolitan in the realm of intellectual achievements, and thus was created the legend of a denationalized Jefferson; for the popular mind, fond of generalizations, is unable to recognize such distinctions. Among his friends he counted all the leading scientists of the time and through them—particularly through his French friends of the Museum—he exerted an influence of which he himself was perhaps not fully aware. To his European correspondents he appeared the embodiment of what was best in the American character. His influence on the development of liberalism and democratic ideas throughout the world can hardly be estimated, and separate investigations will have to be carried out before his exact contribution to the growth of democracy can be rightly estimated. Through his letters he encouraged his friends to keep their faith, but better still he demonstrated that self-government and democracy, as he understood it, were practical and workable schemes and not the idle dreams of philosophers shut in their closets.

I hardly dare mention here the names of the many friends and colleagues who gave me most generously their assistance and encouragement. To Doctor J. C. Fitzpatrick, untiring, most patient and helpful in his suggestions, I owe a particular debt. Mr. W. C. Ford afforded me all possible facilities for consulting the letters of Jefferson in the Jefferson Coolidge Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. I discussed more than once with Professors Willoughby, Latané and Lovejoy and with President Goodnow of the Johns Hopkins University the perplexing problems that confronted me, and submitted several hypotheses to the History of Ideas Club of the University. Doctor L. P. Shanks gave me his time and friendly assistance in the revision of the manuscript. But none of my counselors and friends are to be held responsible for the ideas here expressed, some of which they would probably refuse to indorse.

In the course of this investigation I consulted too many books to list them all. Randall is still very useful and has not been completely superseded