Review of Ourselves and the World. The Making of an American Citizens

Abstract

Reviews the book, Ourselves and the World. The Making of an American Citizens by Frederick E. Lumley and Boyd H. Bode (1931). With the theses that "democratic society is the kind of society that constantly watches for and continually creates opportunities for individual growth," and "the only worth-while end that human beings know anything about on this earth is individual growth," these authors have successfully accomplished the difficult task of writing an unbiased exposition of modern social and political (at least American) organization. Starting with the helpless, asocial baby the writers illustrate the development of the human personality as a social one, and then turn to the social institutions--family, industry, education, press, religion and government--which make our modern world. Throughout the argument rests on modern psychological concepts. In the last section is given a lucid description of our own governments, local, state and national. In the hands of a skillful, well informed teacher this book should be an intellectual treat for high school seniors or college freshmen. The content is thought provoking, the presentation is sometimes naive. The apt and intelligent drawings of Mr. Wiser sound the keynote to each chapter. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)