The People of Action; An Essay on American Idealism (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 edition. Excerpt: ...purely of a spiritual order. They dwell upon its benefit and profit in this world, upon the advantages that liberty and the public order draw from it. In their minds the joys of heaven are upon a par with well-being here below, and the same effort procures them both. Let us be religious that we may be moral, and let us be moral that we may be happy. This morality is none the less rigid, that in the United States happiness is not to be won without pains. Puritanism prescribed narrow regulations of which certain present-day prohibitions are as a feeble echo. It forbade travelling, cooking, cutting hair and shaving on Sunday. "The husband may not kiss his wife nor the mother her child on Sundays and holidays." 1 Practices have been mitigated, but the interdiction of whiskey and of providing meals on Sunday beyond a certain hour still bears the mark of its origin. In any case, the essential element remains, that is to say, the spirit which inspired them. The moral sentiment which guides the American in all his undertakings is the sense of personal dignity, "self-respect." For if he desires to be respected by others, he imperiously feels the necessity of not being lowered in his own eyes. Hence arises, in this nation of business men, a solicitude for purity, a rectitude of thought and act, surprising to others. The president of Harvard, Mr. Roosevelt, and many educators, preach to students the chastity of young men before marriage. Such a crusade in Europe, and notably in France, would be likely to provoke a laugh or at least excite a smile in the audience. Over there, those who thus teach are listened to and followed by the great majority of their hearers--seventy per cent, if we are to believe the testimonies gathered by Huret.1 1M. Rodrigues has...