It
comprehends the biographies of eminent navigators and explorers,
pioneers on land and sea. It describes the important undertakings of
Columbus, Magellan, Cabot, Raleigh, Drake, and others, who were daring
leaders at the great period of maritime discovery. The pioneer
explorers of New England and the other colonies bring out strongly
marked characters in the preparatory stage of our earliest history.
Smith, Champlain, Winthrop, Penn, Oglethorpe, Stuyvesant, and
Washington are examples. In the Mississippi valley De Soto, La Salle,
Boone, Lincoln, and Robertson, are types. Still farther west Lewis and
Clarke, and the pioneers of California complete this historical epoch
in a series of great enterprises. Most of them are pioneers into new
regions beset with dangers of wild beasts, savages, and sickness. A
few are settlers, the first to build cabins and take possession of land
that was still claimed by red men and still covered with forests. The
men named were leaders of small bands sent out to explore rivers and
forests or to drive out hostile claimants at the point of the sword.
Any one who has tried the effect of these stories upon children of the
fourth grade will grant that they touch a deep native _interest_.
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