Although Stuart Sherman has been accused of "hero worship" in his unremitting praise of great men, The Genius Of America has a very certain purpose beyond the mere idolatry of titans. Sherman's hero is that continuous power of the national life in the existence of which all our great men appear but as momentary eddies and transient formations in the current.

They have achieved greatness only in proportion to their capacity to receive this streaming energy. Therefore, this work is not mere bowing at the altars, but examining the historical currents which have erected them. Chapters include: ''The Genius of America,'' ''What is a Puritan?,'' ''A Conversation on Ostriches,'' ''The Shifting Center of Morality: A Study of the Vulgar Tongue,'' ''The Superior Class,'' ''The Point of View in American Criticism,'' and ''Literature and the Government of Men: An Apology for Letters in the Middle West."