And if Burke
has been his study, Bagehot has been his schoolmaster. The choice of
book and teacher is significant. _Mere Literature_ shows how Mr. Wilson
revered them in 1896; his public life proves that he learned their
lessons well. In _An Old Master and Other Essays_, he had already borne
witness to the genius of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, who, as
compared with Continental writers, illustrate in the field of economics
the Anglo-Saxon spirit of respect for customs that have grown by organic
processes.
Mr. Wilson's _Division and Reunion_ is an admirable treatment of a
question upon which a Southerner might have been expected to write as a
Southerner. He has discussed it as an American. His well-known text-book
_The State_, which has been revised and frequently reprinted, discusses
the chief theories of the origin of government, describes the
administrative systems of Greece and Rome and of the great nations of
medieval and modern Europe and of the United States, and treats in
detail of the functions and objects of government, with special
reference to law and its workings. His _History of the American People_,
though it contains many passages of insight and has the charm that comes
from intense appreciation of details, is too diffuse and repetitious.
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