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286072

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by

CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN & SON.

PRINTED BY MOORE BROS.

PREFACE.

VERY teacher has experienced a difficulty in dealing with the

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subject of History, and is compelled to acknowledge with regret that most pupils leave school, and even college, possessed of only very hazy, uncertain, and therefore totally valueless views regarding the simplest historical subject.

Yet this failure seems unavoidable when we consider how history is generally taught. Some pupils are hurried through a number of textbooks, overloaded with details, all of which they are expected to master, and some of which, strange to say, a few highly favored memories succeed in retaining until examination is over. Others are taught from one book only; that is, they are made to depend for their views of the most important events on the mere ipse dixit of one man. Granting even that he is a perfectly competent guide, the writer exercises too much power over both teacher and pupil, and often succeeds in making them lazy, ignorant and self-sufficient. By pretending to tell everything necessary to be known, he eradicates all taste for independent investigation. Once through his book, the pupil shuts it up for ever, and thinks he knows history.

Besides, a universal (school) history can hardly help splitting on one of two rocks - tiresome dryness, if the subject is handled with the aim to give full information, or too great diffuseness, if the object is to make it light and interesting.

From no one book can any one be taught history. But suppose a book prepared on a strictly scientific basis, where history, while breaking itself up and separating into distinct periods, each with its LEADING EVENTS, its PECULIAR CHARACTER, and its REPRESENTATIVE MEN, continually preserves that unity which impresses itself on the attention, and presents the vicissitudes of centuries as A VAST, CONTINUOUS, HARMONIOUS WHOLE; suppose it to be not so much exhaustive as suggestive, and offering throughout the means of satisfying the excited curiosity by referring to accessible, readable and trustworthy authorities; - by such a book may not pupils be so trained in history as to find that their intelligence has been really strengthened and expanded?

Such a book, it seems to me, my friend has tried to write. It is essentially a SCHOOL-BOOK for the benefit of both teacher and pupil. Its chief and distinctive features are:

1. The Table of Contents, so arranged as to impress firmly the grand outlines of history on the imagination and memory.

2. The Chronological Table of only 420 dates, exhibiting the representative men of all ages at that particular period of their lives in which their influence, for good or evil, was at its height.

Both these (the first part of the Table of Contents and the Chrono

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logical Table) are intended to be thoroughly committed to memory; a task easily regulated, as the difficulty depends entirely on the time that the pupil can devote to his historical studies.

This Chronological Table is the grand pivot on which the other parts of the book turn; as they were all written solely to vivify, illustrate and explain it.

The plan to be pursued is, therefore, obvious. The pupil is to get by heart, each day, a certain number of dates, generally the fewer the better, and to look out all information regarding them to be found in the Dictionary and Appendix. This, though an easy task, owing to the perfect order of arrangement, has the great advantage of giving him something solid to do in preparation of his lesson, besides merely exercising his memory. This will lead by degrees to a habit of inquiry, the means of satisfying which are amply provided in the lists of books accompanying every period.

It is evident that by means of the different parts of this work, the teacher can ask and the pupil can answer, without reference to any other book, thousands of important questions in history; and that the

labor done by the pupil, calling as it does his judgment as well as his memory into play, cannot fail to turn the school study of history into a pleasing and profitable pursuit, instead of an unwelcome and irksome task.

Other merits of the book might be pointed out; but the intelligent teacher will discover them for himself.

In conclusion: The author deserves the gratitude of teachers, for he has furnished us a most efficient help in, perhaps, the most difficult department of our labors. May our pupils have the full benefit of it; and when passing from under our care, may they carry with them a taste in literature for something higher than the universal light-reading of the day, — the healthful, bracing, and elevating truths of history; that as men and citizens they may be proof against the sophistries of smart magazinists, "brilliant" lecturers, and crafty politicians; and by their knowledge and virtue do their part to refine society, and protect and perpetuate the Republic.

PHILADELPHIA, May, 1870.

E. R.

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