Introductory American History | Page 4

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
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.
RUINS WHICH SHOW HOW THE ANCIENTS LIVED. In many of
these cities are ancient buildings or ruins of buildings, bits of carving,
vases, mosaics, sometimes even wall paintings, which we may see and
from which we may learn how the Greeks and Romans lived. Near
Naples are the ruins of Pompeii, a Roman city suddenly destroyed
during an eruption of the volcano Vesuvius.
For hundreds of years the city lay buried under fifteen or twenty feet of
ashes. When these were taken away, the old streets and the walls of the
houses could be seen. No roofs were left and the walls in many places
were only partly standing, but things which in other ancient cities had
entirely disappeared were kept safe in Pompeii under the volcanic
ashes.
The traveler who walks to-day along the ruined streets can see how its
inhabitants lived two thousand years ago. He can visit their public
buildings and their private houses, can handle their dishes and can look
at the paintings on their walls or the mosaics in the floors. But
interesting as Pompeii is, we must not think that its ruins teach us more
than the ruins of Rome or Athens or many other ancient cities. Each has
something important to tell us of the people who lived long ago.

ANCIENT WORDS STILL IN USE. The ancient Greeks and Romans
have left us some things more useful than the ruins of their buildings.
These are the words in our language which once were theirs, and which
we use with slight changes in spelling. Most of our words came in the
beginning from Germany, where our English forefathers lived before
they settled in England. To the words they took over from Germany
they added words borrowed from other peoples, just as we do now. We
have recently borrowed several words from the French, such as tonneau
and limousine, words used to describe parts of an automobile, besides
the name automobile itself, which is made up of a Latin and a Greek
word.
[Illustration: RUINS OF A HOUSE AT POMPEII The houses of the
better sort were built with an open court in the center]
In this way, for hundreds of years, words have been coming into our
language from