5

* * * * *

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

Longfellow _Frontispiece_

Hawthorne 28

Emerson 44

Greeley 48

Stuart 92

Booth 158

Agassiz 190

Eliot 216

Girard 232

Beecher 252

Wanamaker 314

Morse 336

* * * * *

CHAPTER I

"MEN OF MIND"

In the companion volume of this series, "Men of Action," the attempt was
made to give the essential facts of American history by sketching in
broad outline the men who made that history--the discoverers, pioneers,
presidents, statesmen, soldiers, and sailors--and describing the part
which each of them played.

It was almost like watching a great building grow under the hands of the
workmen, this one adding a stone and that one adding another; but there
was one great difference. For a building, the plans are made carefully
beforehand, worked out to the smallest detail, and followed to the
letter, so that every stone goes exactly where it belongs, and the work
of all the men fits together into a complete and perfect whole. But when
America was started, no one had more than the vaguest idea of what the
finished result was to be; indeed, many questioned whether any enduring
structure could be reared on a foundation such as ours. So there was
much useless labor, one workman tearing down what another had built,
and only a few of them working with any clear vision of the future.

The convention which adopted the Constitution of the United States may
fairly be said to have furnished the first plan, and George Washington
was the master-builder who laid the foundations in accordance with it.
He did more than that, for the plan was only a mere outline; so
Washington added such details as he found necessary, taking care always
that they accorded with the plan of the founders. He lived long enough
to see the building complete in all essential details, and to be assured
that the foundation was a firm one and that the structure, which is
called a Republic, _would_ endure.

All that has been done since his time has been to build on an addition
now and then, as need arose, and to change