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The standard represented by popular institutions will seldom be higher, and as time goes on may become lower, than that set for themselves by the majority of the people who established and are intrusted with the duty of maintaining them. They may represent noble aims and point to high ideals, but the extent of their duration and salutary influence must always be dependent upon a sufficient manifestation of the spirit which called them into being.

Institutions and laws, however perfect in other respects, cannot, therefore, safely omit from their functions provisions for the fostering and developing of the spirit which gave them birth. This spirit, it is to be remembered, may, and too often does, without extinguishment, actually become a thing so much apart from the machinery which it has established, as to have little appreciable influence in controlling its operation.

The institutions and laws of the United States, in their inception, represented the spirit of a people who were actuated by the highest concepts of human duty, and who sought to establish a political system which should realize the highest ideals. The possibilities of the system have been demonstrated by the experience of more than a hundred years. Functionally considered this experience has made painfully evident the failures which have attended the system in its operation. It is evident to every intelligent student of American history that these failures have been chiefly due to the fact that the spirit which gave life to the American Republic has too often and too far been supplanted in the control of its affairs by a spirit utterly hostile to that which it was intended to be, and which, if the partial or complete failure of the system is to be averted, must, everywhere and always, be dominant. It is undoubtedly true that citizens whose character and ability fit them for the service necessary for the proper control of political affairs, constitute a sufficient number in the voting population to assure the ascendency of right ideas if their efforts can be united for the purpose. The fact that intelligent and controlling convictions of duty are absent, and that they do not thus unite, however explained, clearly accounts for the subversion of the spirit which founded our institutions, and the ascendency of a spirit of chicanery, greed, and corruption.

It is also evident that the political evils which challenge our attention are primarily due, not to faults in our institutions themselves, but to failures in the assertion of the spirit of true Americanism by which they are intended to be controlled. How to secure ascendency for this spirit and thus to restore, in every part of the republic, the sovereignty of highest manhood, is the most pressing problem which can engage the attention of patriotic and intelligent American citizens.

For more than fifteen years this question has been a matter of profound interest to the writer. The fact that ordinary uprisings against political evils fail to accomplish permanent results, seemed to him to afford convincing evidence that attention must be given to the roots and not confined to the branches; and that this foundation work must represent patient, persistent, and unselfish efforts for the promotion everywhere of the basic virtues of true patriotism, intelligence, integrity, and fidelity in citizenship relations. Believing that this work could be best accomplished through a permanent national institution which should invite and command the coöperation of good citizens everywhere, regardless of party, creed, sex, or class, he sought the advice and coöperation of a few distinguished men in the preparation of plans for such an institution. The assistance sought was willingly extended by such citizens as Morrison R. Waite, William Strong, and S. F. Miller, then respectively Chief Justice and Justices of the United States Supreme Court; by Theodore Woolsey, Noah Porter, F. A. P. Barnard, Mark Hopkins, Julius H. Seeley, and Theodore W. Dwight, among educators; and by such other eminent Americans as U. S. Grant, William Fitzhugh Lee, Robert C. Winthrop, Hugh McCulloch, John J. Knox, Orlando B. Potter, A. H. Colquitt, George Bancroft, Hannibal Hamlin, John Jay, Right Reverend William I. Kip, David Swing, and Phillips Brooks.

The result of conferences and correspondence with these and other citizens of like character led to the founding, in 1885, of the American Institute of Civics, which was subsequently chartered under the laws of Congress, and was dedicated to the service of promoting the qualities in citizenship which Washington sought to promote by his latest labors and final bequests, and which he, in common with Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison, believed to be necessary “to the security of a free constitution,” and to the welfare of the government and people of the United States. Its distinctive purposes are succinctly set forth in its charter as follows:

Organized under such auspices and with such purposes it represents the only practical and sustained effort which has been made by the people of the United States for the realization of the aims above outlined; and with persistency of purpose and increasing usefulness it has for more than twelve years prosecuted its mission for the safeguarding of American institutions.

Political conditions past and present clearly justify the views of Washington and his contemporaries, and the opinions of the Institute’s founders, as to the need of a central source of salutary influences in the form of a national institution wholly devoted to a propaganda of the principles and ideas comprehensively described in Washington’s words as “the fundamental maxims of true liberty.”

The sole object of this national, non-partisan, non-sectarian, popular, and permanent institution, is to voice these maxims, to inspire the spirit and give force to the principles which should have supreme control in affairs of government, citizenship, and social order.

What the national military establishments at West Point and Annapolis are intended to accomplish in the way of preparing a few citizens for useful service in times of war, it is the purpose of this popular civil institution, with patriotic insistency and through all available efficiencies, to aid in accomplishing through provisions for properly preparing all citizens for the highest service of their country at all times.

In the accomplishment of its objects, it directs its endeavors not so much to the creation of new agencies as to the giving of inspiration and energy to those already existing; and in pursuing this wise policy it has been a most useful factor in establishing the solidarity and increasing the power of the influences which represent civic virtue and true patriotism.

Its efficiencies include, beside its National Board of Trustees, composed of thirty-three members, and its advisory faculty, composed of twelve members, the following departments:

1. Department for the extension of information and activities promotive of good citizenship, through which provisions are made for home studies, and for lectures, discussions, studies, etc., in connection with schools, lyceums, civic associations, labor organizations, and institute clubs; this work being carried on with the coöperation and under the supervision of councillors in the communities where they reside, and with the aid of a corps of lecturers now numbering more than two hundred.

2. Department of Educational Institutions conducted in coöperation with State and local officers of public instruction, teachers in elementary and high schools, and members of faculties in nearly two hundred and fifty higher institutions of learning.

3. Publication Department, through which the equivalent of nearly twenty million pages of octavo matter has been issued under its auspices.

4. Department of Legislation, in connection with which councillors and citizens generally have efficiently aided in securing needed reforms in the administration of public affairs, the protection and elevation of the suffrage, and the conservation of the highest interests of citizens and the state in other respects.

5. Department of Applied Ethics, in connection with which efforts are made to properly and efficiently enlist the great body of citizens, including youths as well as adults, who profess to be governed by the highest concepts of duty, in practical labors for the establishment of wise, just, and salutary civic and social conditions.

It is obvious that an institution of this character cannot depend for its maintenance upon citizens of merely negative virtue, nor can it expect the sympathy of scheming politicians to whose plans and power it is in direct opposition. Its dependence must be solely upon the willing services and financial support of those members of the body politic who are animated by the spirit of Washington, and who believe that in matters affecting the highest interests of our free institutions, such as civic virtue and civic fidelity, formation is better than re-formation, and that to constantly maintain salutary political conditions is infinitely preferable to frequent and disappointing struggles with corruptible elements, which through neglect of civic duty have been permitted to secure controlling power; in other words, that it is better to safely guard our inheritance of freedom than to battle for its rescue from unworthy hands.

The Institute admits to membership in its National Body of Councillors all citizens who are commended to its Board of Trustees, by those already members, or by other citizens of known high character, as worthy of such membership by reason of their ability to contribute in some degree to the accomplishment of its purposes. It does not solicit the membership of citizens whose political affiliations are such as to rank them among those who are contributing to the evils which it seeks to correct. Its councillors are asked to share in an undertaking which tests the character of their citizenship by offering no rewards for their coöperation. It has employed no paid officers and no paid agents for the solicitation of funds. The united activities of its members have enabled it, and it is believed will continue to enable it, to present in itself an eloquent object-lesson in patriotism and a potent appeal to the spirit in citizenship—the true Americanism—which it seeks to foster. Its contributing councillors are asked for annual remittances of sums of from $2.00 upward, in accordance with their financial ability and the degree of their interest in its work. Those contributing $3.00 or more annually are entitled to receive all of its own publications, and also The Arena, whose aims are largely identical with its own, and through which its official announcements will hereafter be published.

It will be seen that the degree of responsibility resting upon its councillors financially and otherwise is a matter for their own determination, and one which will be decided in accordance with the disposition of each to recognize the truth, that the patriotic and unselfish labors of those who have gone before us, and of which we enjoy the priceless benefits, have laid upon us a sacred obligation which we can discharge only by the performance of similar labors.

The foregoing statements, however encouraging, are chiefly significant as indicative of what may be, rather than of what has been, accomplished. Gratifying as the results of the Institute’s work have been, they represent but a tithe of what it might have accomplished with a larger degree of moral and pecuniary support. The extent of its field and the magnitude of the labors necessary in order to make it widely and effectively useful, when compared with the resources at its command, have constantly presented difficulties which would have discouraged its officers but for their abiding confidence in the ultimate willingness of the American people to give to it the measure of support warranted by the importance of the objects to which it is devoted. It has been not inaptly compared to a noble piece of enginery, whose highest possibilities in the way of efficiency and usefulness cannot be realized because the fuel furnished is insufficient for the supply of motive power. Its highest possibilities are, in truth, little more than dreams, the fulfilment of which may not be realized in the lives of those who are now giving it such unselfish service as they find possible in the midst of other pressing occupations.

The time must soon come when it will be necessary to make arrangements for the permanent establishment of its central efficiencies, with adequate provision for its maintenance, at some suitable point yet to be selected. The suggestion has been made by some of the most distinguished of its councillors, that the descendants of American patriots cannot more worthily honor the memory of their sires, or more effectively promote the safety and perpetuity of the institutions for which they battled, than by making it their mission to maintain the American Institute of Civics. The fact that it was conceived, established, and has been conducted in the spirit of truest patriotism, and the results which it has already accomplished through services rendered wholly in the spirit of the words upon its corporate seal, “Ducit Amor Patriæ,” would seem to prove its title to the confidence and support of all who are proud of the fact that their forbears have been among the founders and defenders of our American institutions. It may not be a vain hope that this thought will, in some manner and at some time, take definite shape, perhaps in the form of a national memorial building at the capital, devoted to the collection and preservation of material illustrative of the nation’s history and progress, and to memorials of its illustrious dead. As has been said elsewhere,

However this may be, the Institute, by its many years of patient, persistent, and, in view of the circumstances, remarkably successful activities, has established a claim upon the confidence and support of good citizens which must in due time receive suitable recognition. Further than this, these activities may be regarded as a necessary and fitting preparation for labors which shall be more fruitful in results, and in the hope of which those who have hitherto directed its affairs have found inspiration and encouragement.

It has been truly said that,

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