American Men of Mind (Illustrated)

In the companion volume of this series, “Men of Action, “ theattempt was made to give the essential facts of American history bysketching in broad outline the men who made that history—thediscoverers, 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 handsof the workmen, this one adding a stone and that one addinganother; but there was one great difference. For a building, the plansare made carefully beforehand, worked out to the smallest detail,and followed to the letter, so that every stone goes exactly where itbelongs, and the work of all the men fits together into a completeand perfect whole. But when America was started, no one had morethan the vaguest idea of what the finished result was to be; indeed,many questioned whether any enduring structure could be reared ona foundation such as ours. So there was much useless labor, oneworkman tearing down what another had built, and only a few ofthem working with any clear vision of the future.