s of children as they advance from year to year? There are
few, if any, single nations whose history could furnish a favorable
answer to this question. The English in America began their career so
late in the world's history and with such advantages of previous
European culture that several of the earlier historical epochs are not
represented in our country. But perhaps Great Britain and Europe will
furnish the earlier links of a chain whose later links were firmly
welded in America.

The _history of our country_ since the first settlements less than
three hundred years ago is by far the best epitome of the world's
progress in its later phases that the life of any nation presents. On
reaching the new world the settlers began a hand-to-hand,
tooth-and-nail conflict with hard conditions of climate, soil, and
savage. The simple basis of physical existence had to be fought for on
the hardest terms. The fact that everything had to be built up anew
from small beginnings on a virgin soil gave an opportunity to trace the
rise of institutions from their infancy in a Puritan dwelling or in a
town meeting till they spread and consolidated over a continent. In
this short time the people have grown from little scattered settlements
to a nation, have experienced an undreamed-of material expansion; have
passed through a rapid succession of great political struggles, and
have had an unrivaled evolution of agriculture, commerce, manufactures,
inventions, education, and social life. All the elements of society,
material, religious, political, and social have started with the day of
small things and have grown up together.

There is little in our history to appeal to children below the fourth
grade, that is, below ten years; but from the beginning of the fourth
grade on, American history is rich in moral-educative materials of the
best quality and suited to children. We are able to distinguish _four
principal epochs_: 1. The age of pioneers, the ocean navigators, like
Columbus, Drake, and Magellan, and the explorers of the continent like
Smith, Champlain, LaSalle, and Fremont. 2. The period of settlements,
of colonial history, and of French and Indian wars. 3. The Revolution
and life under the Articles of Confederation till the adoption of the
Constitution. 4. Self-government under the Union and the growth and
strengthening of the federal idea. While drawing largely upon general
history for a full and detailed treatment of a