Abstract: As a representative figure of early American sociology in the Progressive Era, Charles Cooley’s marginal position in the history of contemporary sociology and his multiple representations in the study of the history of thought have constituted a strong tension. This paper attempts to use primary group and democratic ideal to connect a trilogy of Cooley’s works, namely his Human Nature and Social Order， Social Organization， and Social Process， to understand the unique American family and country feelings outlined in Cooley’s social thoughts. Cooley defined the problems encountered by the social transformation of the United States in the Progressive Era as moral degeneration and proposed that a great life oriented towards the modern world should be emerged from the primary group as a social ideal to help Americans overcome the crises. To this end， Cooley developed a theoretical thinking on the self-growth of modern individuals and their interaction with society from the perspective of social psychology. Cooley believed that the individual self was conceived in the original primal group， and through social psychological mechanisms of sympathy， imagination， and communication， it could grow in the cultural learning and group life of school education， further develop in the modern democratic society composed of public opinions， and sublimate into a mature patriotic spirit in the emergence of the international community， and finally reach a religious perfection towards the Great Life. Cooley’s mental schema was deeply rooted in the rich civic religious tradition of the United States. Cooley reconstructed this tradition through the analysis of sociological psychology， and laid the foundation for a new theory of human nature and social organization to consolidate and expand America’s democratic ideals. Paying attention to Cooley’s social thoughts in the Chinese context provides us with a comparative civilization perspective to carry on the sociological tradition of problem consciousness of the period of the Republic of China and reexamine the Chinese people’s feelings about family and country.

Key words: primary group, patriotism democratic ideal, civic religious, family and country feelings