BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

It is designed in the bibliographical notes to indicate some authorities to which reference may be made for greater detail than is possible in an elementary work like the present.  It is believed that the notes will prove a help to teacher and pupil in special investigations, and to the reader who may wish to make selections from excellent sources for purposes of self-culture.  It is hardly necessary to add that it is sometimes worth much to the student to know where valuable information may be obtained, even when it is not practicable to make immediate use of it.

Certain books should always be at the teacher’s desk during the instruction in civil government, and as easily accessible as the large dictionary; as, for instance, the following:  The General Statutes of the state, the manual or blue-book of the state legislature, and, if the school is in a city, the city charter and ordinances.  It is also desirable to add to this list the statutes of the United States and a manual of Congress or of the general government.  Manuals may be obtained through representatives in the state legislature and in Congress.  They will answer nearly every purpose if they are not of the latest issue.  The Statesman’s Year Book, published by Macmillan & Co., New York, every year, is exceedingly valuable for reference.  Certain almanacs, particularly the comprehensive ones issued by the New York Tribune and the New York World, are rich in state and national statistics, and so inexpensive as to be within everybody’s means.

TAXATION AND GOVERNMENT.—­As to the causes of the American revolution, see my War of Independence, Boston, 1889; and as to the weakness of the government of the United States before 1789, see my Critical Period of American History, Boston, 1888.  As to the causes of the French revolution, see Paul Lacombe, The Growth of a People, N.Y., 1883, and the third volume of Kitchin’s History of France, London, 1887; also Morse Stephens, The French Revolution, vol. i., N.Y., 1887; Taine, The Ancient Regime,—­N.Y., 1876, and The Revolution, 2 vols., N.Y., 1880.  The student may read with pleasure and profit Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities.  For the student familiar with French, an excellent book is Albert Babeau, Le Village sous l’ancien Regime, Paris, 1879; see also Tocqueville, L’ancien Regime et la Revolution, 7th ed., Paris, 1866.  There is a good sketch of the causes of the French revolution in the fifth volume of Leeky’s History of England in the Eighteenth Century, N.Y., 1887; see also Buckle’s History of Civilization, chaps, xii.-xiv.  There is no better commentary on my first chapter than the lurid history of France in the eighteenth century.  The strong contrast to English and American history shows us most instructively what we have thus far escaped.