thrown in. They are inserted to help you cultivate in
yourself the very valuable habit of rigid self-examination. We are all
liable to assume too soon that we have the thought. Not to mar the look of
the page, the questions are thenceforward placed only at the close of the
chapters.

You will soon discover that these questions are so framed as to require
you to read not only on the lines and _between_ them, but also right down
_into_ them. Even then you will not be able to answer all of the
questions. The information may not be in the book at all. You may have to
look around a long time for the answer.

If you occasionally come to a question which you can neither answer nor
dismiss from your mind, be thankful for the question and that you are
bright enough to be affected in this way. You have doubtless discovered
that some of your best intellectual work, your most fruitful study, has
been done on just such questions.

After studying a provision of the constitution of the United States, you
should be able to answer these four questions: 1. What does it _say?_ 2.
What does it _mean?_ 3. _Why_ was the provision inserted? 4. How is it
carried into practical effect? Some of the provisions should be so
thoroughly committed to memory that at any time they may be accurately
quoted. The ability to quote exactly is an accomplishment well worth
acquiring.

After you have got through with a line of investigation it is a good thing
to make a synopsis of the conclusions reached. Hints are given at
appropriate places as to how this may be done. But the doing of it is left
to you, that you may have the pleasure and profit resulting therefrom.

Finally, without fretting yourself unnecessarily, be possessed of a "noble
dissatisfaction" with vague half-knowledge. Try to see clearly. Government
is so much a matter of common sense, that you can assuredly understand
much of it if you determine so to do.

STUDIES IN CIVICS.

PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.

GOVERNMENT: WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT IS.

At the very beginning of our study, two questions naturally present
themselves: First. What is government? Second. Why do we have such a
thing?

These questions are much easier to ask than to answer. The wisest men of
the ages have pondered upon them, and their answers have varied widely.
Yet we need not despair. Even boys and girls can work out moderately good
answers, if they will approach the questions seriously and with a
determina