ENGLAND
I
THE COUNTRY AND ITS RACES
Papers,—
1. Geological and Prehistoric Britain; Relics of the Stone Age.
2. Physical Character of the Country, Scenery, Climate, Products.
3. The Druids and Their Remains; Stonehenge, etc.
4 The Celts; Divisions of the Race, folk lore, etc.
5. The Arthurian Legends.
Suggested Readings,—
Tennyson's "Idylls of the King."
Sir Thomas Malory.
II
THE ROMAN CONQUEST AND EARLY KINGDOMS
Papers,—
1. Julius Cæsar.
Invasion of England.
Roman remains in England.
Roman Roads as they are to-day.
Boadicea.
2. Early Saxon Kings.
Augustine's Conversion of Kent.
Columba at Iona.
Aidan at Holy Island.
Cædmon at Whitby.
Venerable Bede.
3. Alfred and the Danes.
Legends.
Dunstan.
The Danelaw.
Alfred's Reforms.
4. The Last Saxon Kings.
Edward the Confessor.
Harold.
Founding of Westminster Abbey.
(Have a paper on the Abbey if you wish.)
Suggested Readings,—
Death of Columba from Bede's Ecclesiastical History. (Bohn Library.)
Tacitus' "Agricola."
Bulwer's "Harold."
III
THE NORMANS AND ANGEVINS
Papers,—
1. The Normans and the Conquest.
Normans on the Continent.
Domesday Book.
Bayeux Tapestry.
2. The Feudal System.
(See "Ivanhoe," opening chapter.)
Castles, Chivalry, Cathedrals, Cruelties.
3. The Struggle with the Papacy.
Anselm.
Thomas à Becket.
4. England and the Crusades.
5. The Great Charter.
Suggested Readings,—
Chas. Kingsley's "Hereward the Wake."
Scott's "Talisman."
Maurice Hewlett's "Richard Yea and Nay."
Read the story of the murder of Thomas à Becket from Dean Stanley's "Memorials of Canterbury." Have some one who has seen the Domesday Book and the Magna Charta describe them.
IV
HENRY III AND THE FIRST TWO EDWARDS
Papers,—
1. The Universities and the Friars.
Roger Bacon.
2. The Guilds and Fairs.
3. The Jews in England.
Arrival, Special Laws, Famous Jews in English history.
4. The English Parliament.
Places where it has met.
Compare with our form of government.
Describe present buildings.
5. Wallace and Bruce.
Suggested Readings,—
Marlowe's "Edward II."
Jusserand's "Way-faring Life in the Middle Ages."
Jessopp's "Coming of the Friars."
Jane Porter's "Scottish Chiefs."
V
EDWARD III
Papers,—
1. Edward and Scotland.
Death of Bruce, Balliol.
2. Edward and France.
Creçy, Calais, Poitiers.
3. The Black Prince.
The Black Death.
4. Wiclif.
Story of the English Bible. Lollardy.
5. Chancer.
Mediæval Romances.
The Troubadours.
Suggested Readings,—
Froissart's Chronicle.
Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales."
VI
RICHARD II AND RICHARD III
Papers,—
1. The Peasants' Revolt.
Langland's "Piers Plowman."
2. Henry IV and Henry V.
Their characters, their Queens.
Agincourt.
3. Henry VI
The Wars of the Roses.
4. Joan of Arc.
5. Edward IV and Richard III.
"Warwick, the Kingmaker."
The Princes in the Tower.
Caxton.
Suggested Readings,—
Shakespeare's "Henry IV," "Henry V," "Henry VI," "Richard III."
Stevenson's "Black Arrow."
Rossetti's "The King's Tragedy."
De Quincey's "Joan of Arc."
VII
THE TUDORS
Papers,—
1. Henry VII.
Perkin Warbeck.
Sebastian Cabot.
Dean Colet.
Erasmus.
2. Henry VIII.
His Wives, Field of Cloth of Gold.
Quarrel with the Pope, More's "Utopia."
Tyndal's New Testament.
3. Edward VI.
Book of Common Prayer.
Boys' Schools in England.
4. Mary.
Philip of Spain.
Archbishop Cranmer.
Suggested Readings,—
More's "Utopia."
Shakespeare's "Henry VIII."
Scott's "Marmion."
Tennyson's "Queen Mary."
VIII
ELIZABETH, THE GREATEST TUDOR
Papers,—
1. Lady Jane Grey, and Mary, Queen of Scots.
2. Foreign Relations.
The Armada, Holland.
3. The Stage.
Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ben Jonson.
4. Literature.
Lyly, Spenser, Bacon.
5. The Adventurers.
Raleigh, Drake, Frobisher, Sir Philip Sidney.
Suggested Readings,—
Chas. Kingsley's "Westward Ho!"
Scott's "Kenilworth."
Sidney's "Defense of Poesie."
Spenser's "Faërie Queene."
Bacon's Essays.
IX
JAMES I AND CHARLES I
Papers,—
1. James I, The Man.
Birth, character, pedantry. The King James Version of the Bible.
2. The Gunpowder Plot.
3. England and the New World.
Landing of the Pilgrims.
Raleigh's Expeditions, etc.
4. Charles I.
Divine Right of Kings and Parliament.
Lane, Hampden, Pym.
5. Milton.
Suggested Readings,—
Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel."
Milton's "L'Allegro."
Hobbes' "Leviathan."
Longfellow's "Miles Standish."
X
THE COMMONWEALTH
Papers,—
1. Oliver Cromwell and Puritanism.
2. Ireland and Its Problems.
Home Rule.
3. Blake and the English Navy.
4. The Women of the Civil War.
(See Traill's "Social England," Vol. IV, p. 315.)
Suggested Readings,—
Carlyle's "Cromwell."
Evelyn's Diary.
Shorthouse's "John Inglesant."
Browning's "Strafford."
XI
THE RESTORATION
Papers,—
1. Charles II.
Character, Continental Experiences.
General Monk, The Triple Alliance.
The Plague and the Fire.
2. Science.
3. Literature and the Stage.
Milton's Epic.
Dryden.
Bunyan.
The Dramatists.
4. James II.
The Bloody Circuit.
Siege of Londonderry.
Coming of William of Orange.
The Battle of the Boyne.
Suggested Readings,—
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress."
Pepys' Diary.
Evelyn's Diary.
Dryden's "Annus Mirabilis."
Defoe's "History of the Great Plague."
Scott's "Peveril of the Peak."
Blackmore's "Lorna Doone."
Conan Doyle's "Micah Clarke."
XII
THE REVOLUTION, AND EVENTS TO GEORGE III
Papers,—
1. William and Mary.
Bill of Rights.
Bank of England.
2. Anne.
Marlborough.
Politics in England.
Union of Scotland, Ireland and Wales with England.
The young Pretender.
The Pamphleteers.
3. George I and George II.
Sir Robert Walpole.
Jacobin plots.
South Sea Company.
Methodists.
Clive in India.
French and English in America.
4. Literature.
Addison and Steele.
Swift.
Defoe.
Johnson.
Suggested Readings,—
Thackeray's "Henry Esmond."
Scott's "Waverley."
Southey's "Battle of Blenheim."
Addison's "Sir Roger de Coverley."
Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe."
Johnson's "Rasselas."
XIII
GEORGE III
Papers,—
1. The Industrial Revolution.
Wedgewood, Hargreaves, Watt.
Arkwright.
Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations."
2. The American Revolution.
The Parliamentary Leaders.
3. The French Revolution.
Burke's "Reflections."
The War in Spain.
Wellington and Waterloo.
Nelson (Lady Hamilton).
4. England and the Slave Trade.
William Wilberforce.
5. Art of the Period.
Painting.
Gainsborough.
Reynolds.
Romney.
Furniture.
Hepplewhite.
Chippendale.
Sheraton.
The Adams brothers.
Suggested Readings,—
Hugo's "Les Miserables" (Battle of Waterloo).
Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities."
Campbell's "Ye Mariners of England."
Wolfe's "Burial of Sir John More."
The Junius Letters.
Macaulay's "Warren Hastings."
Wilkes' "North Briton, No. 45."
Thackeray's "Four Georges."
XIV
THE VICTORIAN AGE (A)
Papers,—
1. Victoria, The Woman and the Queen.
Personality, husband, children, homes.
2. Victoria's Prime Ministers and their Policies.
Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli.
The Period of Reform.
Free Trade.
3. Victorian Wars.
Opium War in China.
Afghanistan.
Crimea.
Sepoy Mutiny.
Khartoum and Chinese Gordon.
Boer War.
4. The British Empire.
Australia.
New Zealand (Democracy).
South Africa.
Canada.
Suggested Readings,—
Victoria's "Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands."
Disraeli's "Lothair" and "Coningsby."
Morley's "Life of Gladstone."
Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade."
Kipling's "Barrack Room Ballads."
XV
THE VICTORIAN AGE (B)
Papers,—
1. The Growth of Democracy.
2. Industry and Invention.
3. Science.
Tyndall, Huxley, Darwin, Spencer.
4. Literature.
Poets, Novelists, Essayists, Historians, Dramatists.
5. Art.
Painting, Sculpture, Architecture.
Decorative Art (William Morris).
Suggested Readings,—
Lecky's "Democracy."
Huxley's "Lay Sermons."
Darwin's "Origin of Species."
Add Selections from the Victorian poets and novelists.
XVI
THE ENGLAND OF TO-DAY
Papers,—
1. Edward VII and George V.
As men, monarchs; their Queens.
2. Lloyd-George and Asquith.
Welsh Disestablishment.
Education Bill.
The Ulster Question.
3. Woman Suffrage in England.
Both Points of View.
English laws regarding women.
4. The European War of 1914.
Modern war weapons and devices.
5. Novelists, poets and playwrights of to-day in England. (See English literature.)
General References.
Encyclopædia Britannica and its year books, and bibliographies.
For literature, Halleck's "English literature" (American Book Co.).
For History, "A Short History of England," by E. P. Cheyney (Ginn & Co.).
For books not in your town library, write the State Librarian at your State Capital.