The American Language; An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, first published in 1919, is H. L. Mencken's book about the English language as spoken in the United States.

The increasing study of Spanish in high schools and colleges has made necessary the preparation of a text of a simpler character than those now in common use.

In the present text, especially in the first selections, the language has been simplified so that reading may be begun at a very early stage in the pupil's work. It has not been considered necessary to supply notes, as the matter is simple and the vocabulary furnishes all necessary information. All verb forms occurring in the text, whether regular or irregular, are given in the vocabulary.

There is constant repetition of common words and expressions, so that comparatively long lessons may be assigned and the pupil may be enabled to acquire an extensive knowledge of useful every-day Spanish and become familiar with the structure of the Spanish sentence at an earlier period than has been possible heretofore.

Selection XII is taken from "Tradiciones y leyendas españolas" by Don Luciano García de Real (Barcelona, 1898). Selections IV, VI, IX, X, XIII, are taken from the "Biblioteca de las tradiciones populares españolas" (Madrid, 1886). The remaining selections are taken from various sources or adapted from English or German.

Many changes have been made in all the selections, except in the fables of Iriarte and the story by Fernán Caballero, in order to render the material suitable for beginners.

This book contains a detailed exploration of language, being an analysis of its nature, development, and origin.

The Politics of Aristotle is the second part of a treatise of which the Ethics is the first part. It looks back to the Ethics as the Ethics looks forward to the Politics. For Aristotle did not separate, as we are inclined to do, the spheres of the statesman and the moralist. In the Ethics he has described the character necessary for the good life, but that life is for him essentially to be lived in society, and when in the last chapters of the Ethics he comes to the practical application of his inquiries, that finds expression not in moral exhortations addressed to the individual but in a description of the legislative opportunities of the statesman. It is the legislator's task to frame a society which shall make the good life possible. Politics for Aristotle is not a struggle between individuals or classes for power, nor a device for getting done such elementary tasks as the maintenance of order and security without too great encroachments on individual liberty. The state is "a community of well-being in families and aggregations of families for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life." The legislator is a craftsman whose material is society and whose aim is the good life.