A SCHOOL HISTORY of the UNITED STATES By WILLIAM H. MACE Professor of History in Syracuse University. Author E THE PREFACE LEMENTARY text-books on History should be so simple and transparent in style that the child can come into immediate possession of the meaning without overcoming obstacles in the shape of strange words and involved sentences. It has been the aim of the writer to fulfill this condition. At the same time an attempt has been made to have the narrative vivid in order that the pupil may not escape the impression that American History is an interesting movement, and that, whether in coöperation or in collision, men are always struggling to attain great ends. This quality seizes upon the human and dramatic feelings of the child and holds his interest in the subject. As a result the people who inhabit the world of history are made akin to those who are in action in the real world around him. To encourage this interest and to enable the pupil to enter more fully into the spirit of the past, important and typical events have been frequently made to stand out vividly by a somewhat full description. To impress great historical scenes upon the mind of the young is as important as to paint them on canvas. As a further stimulus to the sympathetic and constructive imagination, and as an appeal to the higher tastes, ten full-page illustrations in colors have been introduced. These illustrate ten of the most dramatic or important events in American History and serve as historical milestones to the pupil. The grouping of events into series and of a number of series into periods, on the basis of the common movement of which they were a part, is one of the most important helps to a right understanding of History. Hence, although the chronological order has been followed in arranging events in natural series, no event foreign to a particular series has been permitted to break up the continuity because it happened to occur between two events of a series. Such events are, Holding to this in turn, placed in a series of their own. To enable the pupil to see more clearly that any event has The Study Questions are not intended to take the place The experience and scholarship of a number of public |