DON'T TREAD ON ME

A small nephew of the curator of a museum starts his hunt for sources of democracy in the museum after hours. With the American eagle as his guide, he turns back the pages of history to B.C. 1500 and Middle Europe, and then step by step, through identifying himself with the characters and settings of his visions, he traces democracy in its stumbling progress, through Athens of Pericles, Rome of the growing power of the plebians and the growing strength of Christianity, through the days of chivalry, through the development of the free town, through England at her points of emphasis of the people against the rulers, to Philadelphia in 1776. And the final story, set in Germany in , shows that even there, the germ of democracy has not been utterly snuffed out. It is not easy to make it convincing, but these stories are good enough in themselves, for the greater part, to hold the interest. The arbitrary use of the ""frame"" of the museum, may discourage some younger readers, may attract some others. And through the whole, the idea of democracy as of ancient growth, comes.