A

SHORT HISTORY

OF THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For the Use of Beginners

BY

HORACE E. SCUDDER

AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES

WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

SHELDON & COMPANY

NEW YORK AND CHICAGO

RANAQ COLLEGE LIEKART

BY EXCHANGE FROM NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY FEB 27 1932

Oopyright, 1890,
BY HORACE E. SCUDDER.

PREFACE.

CAREFUL observers of our public schools are well aware that the average limit of school age is not above thirteen or fourteen years. Within that period pupils are expected to learn to read, to write, and to spell; to have a fair acquaintance with numbers and with geography; and to be able to express themselves with some facility in the ordinary forms of composition. If, therefore, the majority of children in America are to learn anything of their country's history while they are in school, they should have it brought to their attention in some other form than is

common.

With this in mind I have prepared the following book. 1 have made it, purposely, for the most part a flowing narrative rather than a series of compact lessons. Thus it may be used as a reading-book and accomplish a double purpose by offering exercise in reading, and by putting the reader in possession of the essential facts in the history of the country. I have sought not so much to emphasize particular incidents as to quicken interest in the continuous growth of the nation; to show in some slight way that history is not the narrative of a series of chance events, but of a steady development; to explain, ever so lightly, something of the why and wherefore of our present nation.

If, therefore, any one is disposed to find fault because I have not made this book more of a story, let him consider that I have been writing a school-book, and have been more eager to give beginners a just notion of their country, than to give them the means of passing a few agreeable hours. I would rather run the risk of being a little tame than throw away an opportunity for making on a child's mind some lasting impression of the causes of his citizenship.