but a hard-working student can do much in a few months. Permit me
to say, that one will see and experience more in two weeks abroad, than
many a learned man in America expects could be seen in a year. I sometimes
give the particulars of sights and adventures in detail, that the reader
may take an example of my experience, for any tour he may propose to make.
The times devoted to different places are given that he may form an
estimate of the comparative importance of different places.

Statistics form a leading feature of this work, and these have been
gathered and compiled with special reference to the wants of the student.
Many an American scholar studies the geography and history of foreign
countries at a great disadvantage, because he can not obtain a general
idea of the institutions of Europe, unless he reads half a dozen works on
the subject. To do this he has not the time. This work gives, in the
compass of a single volume, a general idea of all the most striking
features of the manners, customs and institutions of the people of some
eight different nations speaking as many different languages and dialects.

As the sights that one sees abroad are so radically different from what we
are accustomed to see at home, I feel pained whenever I think of
describing them to any one. If you would know the nature of my
perplexity, then go to Washington and see the stately magnificence of our
National Capitol there, and then go and describe what you have seen to one
who has never seen a larger building than his village church; or go and
see the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, and then tell your neighbor
who has never seen anything greater than a county fair, how, what he has
seen compares with the World's Fair! I too am proud of our country, (not
so much for what she now is, but because she promises to become the
greatest nation that ever existed), but it must be confessed, that America
presents little in the sphere of architecture that bears comparison with
the castles, palaces and churches of the Old World. The Capitol at
Washington, erected at the cost of twelve and a half millions, the City
Hall of Baltimore, perhaps more beautiful but less magnificent, and other
edifices that have been erected of late, are structures of which we may
justly be proud; but let us take the buildings of the "Centennial
Exposition" for a standard and compare them with some of those in Europe.
The total expenses incurred in erecting all t