The New Individualism.

OINCE the time when the first adventurous European set sail for the newly discovered land to the far west, critics have said that the predominant American characteristic has been individualism.There are others, but this one overtops them all.That old spirit of initiative and aggression-that something which is forever calling us out of the old and on to the new, this has been called the spirit of the American race.And rightly so.Our national character-so far as we have any-supports the assertion without further discussion, and our his- tory furnishes ample explanation of it.Indeed, America was born from out a long battle of individualism.The reactionary conflict in Europe which started with the rebellion against the extreme in- stitutionalism of the medieval church and ended with the extreme individualism of the French Revolution could not but have its effect upon America.Seeking freedom from the oppression of outworn institutions, Spanish, English and French individualists came in rapid succession to the new land.Some came ostensibly for gold, some for adventure, some for religious liberty,-but deeper than these surface reasons, they all came that they might leave behind forever that old world where individual thought and action was held to be s\nonvmous with political crime, if not indeed with anarchy.These