Introductory American History

CHAPTER I. The Scattered Children of Europe

THE SCATTERED CHILDREN OF EUROPE

THE EMIGRANT AND WHAT HE BRINGS TO AMERICA. The emigrant who lands at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or any other seaport, brings with him something which we do not see. He may have in his hands only a small bundle of clothing and enough money to pay his railroad fare to his new home, but he is carrying another kind of baggage more valuable than bundles or boxes or a pocket full of silver or gold. This other baggage is the knowledge, the customs, and the memories he has brought from the fatherland.

He has already learned in Europe how to do the work at which he hopes to labor in America. In his native land he has been taught to obey the laws and to do his duty as a citizen. This fits him to share in our self-government. He also brings great memories, for he likes to think of the brave and noble deeds done by men of his race. If he is a religious man, he worships God just as his forefathers have for hundreds of years. To understand how the emigrant happens to know what he does and to be what he is, we must study the history of the country from which he comes.

ALL AMERICANS ARE EMIGRANTS. If this is true of the newcomer, it is equally true of the rest of us, for we are all emigrants. The Indians are the only native Americans, and when we find out more about them we may learn that they, too, are emigrants. If we follow the history of our families far enough back, we shall come upon the names of our forefathers who sailed from Europe. They may have come to America in the early days when there were only a few settlements scattered along our Atlantic coast, or they may have come since the Revolutionary War changed the English colonies into the United States.

Like the Canadians, the South Americans, and the Australians, we are simply Europeans who have moved away. The story of the Europe in which our forefathers lived is, therefore, part of our story. In order to understand our own history we must know something of the history of England, France, Germany, Italy, and other European lands.

WHAT THE EARLY EMIGRANTS BROUGHT. If we read the story of our forefathers before they left Europe, we shall find answers to several important questions. Why, we ask, did Columbus seek for new lands or for new ways to lands already known? How did the people of Europe live at the time he discovered America? What did they know how to do? Were they skilful in all sorts of work, or were they as rude and ignorant as the Indians on the western shores of the Atlantic?

The answers which history will give to these questions will say that the first emigrants who landed on our shores brought with them much of the same knowledge and many of the same customs and memories which emigrants bring nowadays and which we also have. It is true that since the time the first settlers came men have found out how to make many new things. The most important of these are the steam-engine, the electric motor, the telegraph, and the telephone. But it is surprising how many important things, which we still use, were made before Columbus saw America.

For one thing, men knew how to print books. This art had been discovered during the boyhood of Columbus. Another thing, men could make guns, while the Indians had only bows and arrows. The ships in which Columbus sailed across the ocean seemed very large and wonderful to the Indians, who used canoes. The ships were steered with the help of a compass, an instrument which the Indians had never seen.

Some of the things which the early emigrants knew had been known hundreds or thousands of years before. One of the oldest was the art of writing. The way to write words or sounds was found out so long ago that we shall never know the name of the man who first discovered it. The historians tell us he lived in Egypt, which was in northern Africa, exactly where Egypt is now. Some men were afraid that the new art might do more harm than good. The king to whom the secret was told thought that the children would be unwilling to work hard and try to remember because everything could be written down and they would not need to use their memories. The Egyptians at first used pictures to put their words upon rocks or paper, and even after they made several letters of the alphabet their writing seemed like a mixture of little pictures and queer marks.

OLD AND NEW INVENTIONS. Those who first discover how to make things are called inventors, and what they make are called inventions. Now if we should write out a list of the most useful inventions, we could place in one column the inventions which were made before the days of Columbus and in another those which have been made since. With this list before us we may ask which inventions we could live without and which we could not spare unless we were willing to become like the savages. We should find that a large number of the inventions which we use every day belong to the set of things older than Columbus. This is another reason why, if we wish to understand our ways of living and working, we must ask about the history of the countries where our forefathers lived. It is the beginning of our own history.

A PLAN OF STUDY. The discovery of America was made in 1492, at the beginning of what we call Modern Times. Before Modern Times were the Middle Ages, lasting about a thousand years. These began three or four hundred years after the time of Christ or what we call the beginning of the Christian Era. All the events that took place earlier we say happened in Ancient Times. Much that we know was learned first by the Greeks or Romans who lived in Ancient Times.

It is in the Middle Ages that we first hear of peoples called Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Dutchmen, Italians, Spaniards, and many others now living in Great Britain and on the Continent of Europe. We shall learn first of the Greeks and Romans and of what they knew and succeeded in doing, and then shall find out how these things were learned by the peoples of the Middle Ages and what they added to them. This will help us to find out what our forefathers started with when they came to live in America.

QUESTIONS

1. What does the emigrant from Europe bring to America besides his baggage?

2. Why are all Americans emigrants?

3. What did the earliest emigrants from Europe to America bring with them?

4. Which do you think the more useful invention--the telephone or the art of writing? Who invented this art? Find Egypt on the map. How did Egyptian writing look?

5. Why was it a help to Columbus that gunpowder and guns were invented before he discovered America?

6. When did the Christian Era begin? What is meant by Ancient Times? By the Middle Ages? By Modern Times? In what Times was the art of writing invented? In what Times was the compass invented? In what Times was the telephone invented?

EXERCISES

1. Collect from illustrated papers, magazines, or advertising folders, pictures of ocean steamships. Collect pictures of sailing ships, ships used now and those used long ago.

2. Collect from persons who have recently come to this country stories of how they traveled from Europe to America, and from ports like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia to where they now live.

3. Let each boy and girl in the schoolroom point out on the map the European country from which his parents or his grandparents or his forefathers came.

4. Let each boy and girl make a list of the holidays which his forefathers had in the "fatherland" or "mother country." Let each find out the manner in which the holidays were kept. Let each tell the most interesting hero story from among the stories of the mother country or fatherland. Let each find out whether the tools used in the old home were like the tools his parents use here.

CHAPTER II. Our Earliest Teachers

OUR EARLIEST TEACHERS

ANCIENT CITIES THAT STILL EXIST. In Ancient Times the most important peoples lived on the shores of the Mediterranean. The northern shore turns and twists around four peninsulas. The first is Spain, which separates the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean; the second, shaped like a boot, is Italy; and the third, the end of which looks like a mulberry leaf, is Greece. Beyond Greece is Asia Minor, the part of Asia which lies between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.

The Italians now live in Italy, but the Romans lived there in Ancient Times. The people who live in Greece are called Greeks, just as they were more than two thousand years ago. Many of the cities that the Greeks and Romans built are still standing. Alexandria was founded by the great conqueror Alexander. Constantinople used to be the Greek city of Byzantium. Another Greek city, Massilia, has become the modern French city of Marseilles. Rome had the same name in Ancient Times, except that it was spelled Roma. The Romans called Paris by the name of Lutetia, and London they called Lugdunum.

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