"I naturally have accepted the American point of view more and more. Impressions which at first struck me as strange slowly have become a matter of course. My interest in American problems has not decreased on this account, but the angle from which I see them has become a new one. It is no longer the national difference but more my professional lifework which has influenced my attitude toward the public questions. Not as a German but as a psychologist I have begun to take sides as to problems which stir the nation. In this spirit the following essays are written. Of course this psychological interest determines somewhat the selection of the subjects which I discuss. Problems like those of scholarship and education, of temperance and customs, of superstition and nervousness, stand nearer to the psychologist than those of trusts and tax legislation. Some may even think that this tends to exclude the real problems before the American mind and to give attention only to the by-problems. And yet in certain respects may not the less important problems be the most important ones?"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).