THIS book is based upon a course of lec-
tures delivered during January of 1903 be-
fore the Lowell Institute in Boston.
essential plan was that of concentrating atten-
tion on leading figures, instead of burdening
the memory with a great many minor names
and data. Various hearers, including some
teachers of literature, took pains to express
their approval of this plan, and to suggest
that the material might profitably be cast into
book form. This necessarily meant a good
deal of revision of a kind which the lecturer
did not care to undertake; and he was able
to secure the coöperation of a younger asso-
ciate, to whom has fallen the task of modify-
ing and supplementing the original text, so
far as either process was necessary in order
to make a complete and consecutive, though
still brief, narrative of the course of American