For moral educative purposes in the training of the young the history
of America, from the early explorations and settlements along the
Atlantic coast to the present, has scarcely a parallel in history. It
was a race of moral heroes that led the first colonies to many of the
early settlements. Winthrop, Penn, Williams, Oglethorpe, Raleigh, and
Columbus were great and simple characters, deeply moral and practical.
For culture purposes, where can their equals be found? And where was
given a better opportunity for the display of personal virtues than by
the leaders of these little danger-encircled communities? The leaven
of purity, piety, and manly independence which they brought with them
and illustrated, has never ceased to work powerfully among our people.
Why not bring the children into direct contact with these characters in
the intermediate grades, not by short and sketchy stories, but by full
life pictures of these men and their surroundings? We have not been
wholly lacking in literary artists who have worked up a part of these
materials into a more durable and acceptable form for our schools. We
need to make an abundant use of this and other history for our boys and
girls, not by devoting a year in the upper grades to a barren outline
of American annals, but by a proper distribution of these and other
similar rich treasures throughout the grades of the common school.
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