possibly we may discover , by the way , new matters of interest , -in any case , we may clear up our ideas.
let us look , then, at some typical moments in the history of Europe and see what were the ideas of citizenship which they embodied in their institutions or which found expression in the thought of their best thinkers, and then turn to the life of our own day and ask how far and in what proportions these several ideas have been incorporated , or may hereafter be incorporated , in the thought and practice of our everyday life . Matthew Arnold compares man's efforts to construct society and government to a child forming one word after another from a heap of letters put in his hand