mildewed from long inactivity-the || than I have time to tell you of, have pioneer machines of one immense and increasing branch of our national industry. 8. Of the produce of our country we send to England chiefly cotton, with some provisions, and get for them cottons, woollens, hardware and crockery. To France we send cotton and tropical produce, for silks, woollens, cottons, wine and brandy. To Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Venezuela, the British West Indies, and Brazil, we send flour, fish, lumber and manufactured goods, for sugar, coffee, and other tropical produce. Mexico gives us specie for manufactures; and China, teas and silks, for furs and specie. Sweden and Norway send us iron; and Russia, iron and hemp,'but take little produce in return. Our grain and provisions are beginning, too, to be exchanged, with foreign countries, in vast quantities. 9. You will see on the map how the people of the Western States communicate with the Eastern States, - by the lakes, across the mountains by railroads and canals, or by the Mississippi, the Gulf, and the Atlantic. Sail-ships have been towed several hundred miles up the Mississippi, to be loaded, and make a grand sight, with their white sails, among the trees and bluffs. 10. Throughout all our United States, my young friends, we can see, in the period I am giving you a history of, a great desire to do good to all. Almost all States are doing something for the education of the young, and many more at Pawtucket? 8. What products go to England? What comes instead? To the West Indies? Re turns? Brazil? Mexico? China? North Europe? What of our grain and provisions? 9. How do the people of the Western States communicate with the Eastern? What of sail ships in the Mississippi? 10. What of education? 11. Of Amer established public schools, so that every child can attend, and be well taught. 11. Every one of you, American children, who is ten years old, is better educated than most of those barons and warriors, of whom we read as being famous in England, and on the continent of Europe, a thousand or five hun dred years ago; they could not write their names. These classes are now highly educated in those countries. 12. In Massachusetts they have had for some years, and recently they have established in New York, Normal Schools, to prepare teachers. At Boston, they have just established an institution of schools for adults, for reading, writing and arithmetic, with other branches, and a law allows any town in Massachusetts to do so. 13. In the United States we now pay great attention to the unfortunate deaf, dumb and blind, and to the insane; and societies are formed to improve the condition of prisoners for crime. In the twenty years preceding 1845, the temperance reform, which began in 1825 in the United States, and spread over that country and Europe, has wiped away the stain of intoxication -blessed fathers and mothers and children-diminished poverty, crime and taxes, and brightened the prospects of the nation. 14. In 1840, the Congress of the United States passed a bankrupt law, that is a law by which, if any one owed money, and could not pay, he was discharged if he honestly gave up all he had to his creditors; and if any one, who had property, would not pay his just debts, his ican children? 12. Normal schools? Schools for adults? What of the insane? 13. Deaf? Dumb? Blind? Of temperance reform? 14. Of the bankrupt law? Explain what that means. When was GENERAL VIEW.- SCIENCE-VIRTUE-PROGRESS. property could be taken from him, and divided, by the proper officer, among his creditors. A great many millions of dollars of debts were settled in this way; there were some objections to this law, however, and, in 1843, it was repealed. 15. Something has been done for science; an astronomical observatory has been erected at Cambridge, Mass.; another at Cincinnati, Ohio. There was also founded at Washington, in 1842, a National Observatory, to watch the movements of the heavenly bodies, and to note = their appearances, to be of use in sailing on the ocean, and in surveying on the land, and in knowing the seasons. 16. In 1839, the United States government received, by the will of James Smithson, a generous Englishman of enlarged and liberal views, about five hundred thousand dollars, to found at Washington, D. C., an institution for the diffusion of useful knowledge among men; which, in 1846, was by Congress duly established. 17. The United States are also surveying and mapping off all our sea-coast, its rocks, shallows, and waters, under Mr. A. D. Bache; it was begun in 1807,|| under the late Mr. Hassler, interrupted for fifteen years, and then resumed. 18. In 1838, also, the United States sent out an exploring expedition, which sailed towards the South Pole, where they discovered a continent, and sailed along it more than one thousand five hundred miles; then examined the western coast of America, the islands and bays of the Pacific Ocean, and returned in 1842. At Washington, in one of the public buildings, may be seen a large it repealed? 15, 16. What has been done for science? The National Observatory? What is it for? What of its doings? What of the Smithsonian institution? 17. Of the coast survey? 18. Of the United States Exploring Expedition? 19. 225 collection of beasts, birds, and other curiosities, brought home by this expedition. A splendid book, giving an account of this, was published in 1845. 19. The United States, in 1844, made a very important and advantageous treaty with the old empire, China, which has never, until the year 1842, adopted the practice of making treaties. 20. I should not be doing our country justice, if I did not tell you of one glori ous deed of kindness. In 1847, a dreadful famine happened in Ireland, — the potatoes, their chief food, becoming diseased, and the crop failing. More than a million persons are said to have perished! From one end of our land to the other, contributions of clothes, provisions, and money to vast amounts, were sent and given to the poor Irish. Congress sent two ships of war to carry some of these stores, and probably fifty other vessels carried the rest. All contributed, from the day-laborer, who gave his labor freely to stow the cargoes, to the man of millions, who gave his thousands of dollars. Never has history exhibited such a pleasing instance of the active sympathy of the great masses of one nation with the suffering masses of another. 21. In taking a single glance over the whole American continent, in the year, 1848, you would still find all the vari ous appearances which are ever presented in the history of nations. Some parts yet inhabited by savages, without government or any certainty of occupation and livelihood; roaming from place to place, as the beasts on which they live are driven about;-gluttonous and lazy when food is abundant, and then starving or enduring almost incredible exertions in the pursuit of their prey. In Of China? 20. National kindness? 21. Nationa. progress? another part, the half-civilized tribes add the labors of keeping flocks and herds, or of a little agriculture, to the hunter's life, and have some regular government and known rules of conduct among themselves. Elsewhere, you would see the nations made up of conquerors and conquered, subject to a few military chieftains, who alone reap most of the benefits of the civilization which exists, but whose rulers are continually changing, one oppressor for another, and whose cities are in the midst of constantly recurring revolutions, more or less violent and bloody. 22. In other parts still, you would see that the governments have become settled, and have begun to find out that the good of the whole nation is the end of government. Some states have expressly acknowledged that the cultivation of the arts and sciences of social and intellectual life, and the faithful execution of good laws, are the duties which a government owes to the whole of its constituents, the people. They have also felt the great truth, that an ignorant people cannot be safe, free and happy, and that a good government must provide proper Education for every child, and even every adult within its borders; and more to be noticed yet, that instead of confining the higher teaching to a few comparatively small classes called professional, it must provide opportunities of practical and scientific education for every class of citizens. How this has been done, and the various instances of it, you have learned from this History; you have been taught the annals of states, their beginnings, their progress, their difficulties, and the good that, publicly and privately, man has been doing to man. This last is Patriotism and Philanthropy, and is the carrying out of that grand injunction of Christianity, "Love one another." 23. In short, you will thus see, my young friends, that in this New World, where we can mark the progress of nations, it is the progress of gradual improvement; at every successive change, the mass of the people gain in prosper. ity and happiness. That each of you may take an active part in, assist and enjoy that improvement and that success, is the wish of your friend, who now bids you farewell, till he meets you in the Second Book of History, where you will be told about the Eastern Hemisphere, or in the Third Book, where you may learn Ancient History. CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX. estimated at $900,000,000 pr. ann. 130 -The author would recommend that the pupil be made familiar with this Table. -- Note. 43 1848. Massachusetts Agricultural Insti- by Provis. Gov. of France, in Mh. 212 1. 12 16 1847. 34 1847. 1 1847. Lowell had about 30,000 inhab. 27 37 1847. Lawrence founded, on the Merri- 28 43 64 68 1847. 1,530,000 miles of railroad travel, than Boston, 1848. 800,000 people in Cuba, . 209 1847. President's message sent by mag. 1848. Massacres in Hayti, .209 1847. 1848. The Bahamas contained 3,000 1847. telegraph to St. Louis, in 12 hours, 89 . 110 1847. 64 steamboats on Lake Erie, 130 1845. 1845. 1845. Board of Education estab. in Me.. 16 31 1845. to note improvements in art, &c. 199 1847. The Northwestern States produced 1845. Fire in New York, which destroyed 64 Utica (New York) had 15,000 inh. 68 . 159 1845. |