ABSTRACT
A nation’s literature is its power of so stating its ideals that we will not need to be shrewd for them—its power of expressing its ideals in words, of tracing out ideals on white paper, so that ideals shall enthrall the people, so that ideals shall be contagious, shall breathe and be breathed into us, so that ideals shall be caught up in the voices of men and sung in the streets. America is not a formula. America is not statistics, even graphic statistics. A great nation can be made, cannot be discovered and then be laid coldly together like a census. America is a Tune. It must be sung together. A President can set the focus for four years. But only a book can set the focus for a nation’s next hundred years so that it can act intelligently and steadfastly on its main line from week to week and from morning to morning.
