PREFACE A TEXT-BOOK of American history for beginners should aim to present a clear and somewhat comprehensive account of the chief influences that have shaped the destiny of our country and have given to it its preëminence among the nations of the earth. Educators are now quite generally agreed that this can be done in the most satisfactory manner through a series of biographies of the famous persons who have had most to do in connection with those influences. Men make history; and the telling of history in stories of the lives of its makers has a quality of concreteness very attractive to children, who usually fail to be interested in chronological narratives wherein the personal element is less prominent. In this volume only such biographies are presented as are necessary to the continuity of the narrative as a whole. The story of no man's life is related merely because of the man, but because of its value as a link in our country's history. All the biographies in their order comprise a connected account of the discovery, settlement, and development of the United States. The plan of the |