Introductory American History | Page 3

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.
[Illustration: A MODERN STEAMSHIP AND AN EARLY SAILING
VESSEL The early emigrants came in small sailing vessels and
suffered great hardships]
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.
[Illustration: Cleopatra EGYPTIAN PHONETIC WRITING]
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.
[Illustration: Phoenician Early Greek Early Latin English GROWTH
OF LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET]
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