George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are honored for doing entirely different things: Washington because he successfully carried out a war for independence, Lincoln because he successfully crushed a war for independence. As in these two outstanding instances, a principle absolutely correct within certain limits may not be so under other conditions. In the field of public affairs and social relations, principles equally good in their place often come into conflict; and it is there that the student of political science finds his most interesting problems. President Lowell has observed such conflicts with the wisdom that comes from long experience and has discussed them in a book that will stimulate thought, arouse discussion, and lead to a reconsideration of many questions.

For twenty-four consecutive years the graduating class in Harvard College asked President Lowell to address them at their Baccalaureate Sunday service, a request which he never refused. The ardent friend of all college men everywhere and a devoutly religious man, he preached of the heart kept with diligence. As his religion was universal, there is in his sermons nothing denominational or sectarian. Above all else it was practical, and the principles of right conduct which he drove home year after year he believed should be the commonplaces of every man's life. These sermons are the unpretentious words of a man of action with a strong religious conscience saying farewell to a group of men who had enjoyed extraordinary privileges and owed a corresponding debt to the public. His language is so simple as to be almost deceptive, but the substance is deep, thoughtful, and moving, and as appropriate now as when the addresses were delivered, particularly those delivered during the First World War and post-war periods.