And to come down to a time within the memory of every schoolboy, the echoes of the Spanish-American conflict have hardly yet died away. The story of this short war in the summer of 1898 still rings in our ears—with its astounding naval victories at Manila and Santiago, the freedom of Cuba, and the destruction of the last vestige of the once mighty Spanish supremacy on this western continent!
2. Lessons of Wisdom and Inspiration to be learned.—But beyond and above all mere gratification and pleasure to be derived from the study of our country's history, there are in it lessons of wisdom to be learned, there is inspiration to noble living, there is an uplifting of the soul to a higher plane of thought and sentiment, there is constant aid in the development and upbuilding of manly and womanly character.
And when we think of the marvelous growth of less than three centuries which, beginning with the infant colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth, has made us a nation of more than seventy millions; when we think of the wonderful record of trial and triumph and unceasing progress, and of the great and good and wise men that have laid the foundations and reared the superstructure of this mighty temple of liberty,—we must be blind indeed and ungrateful beyond expression not to recognize with devout thankfulness the guiding hand of a beneficent Providence.
America, under God, stood at Plymouth for religious freedom; in the Revolution, for independence; in our civil war, for the preservation of the Union. She now stands for humanity, civilization, and the uplifting of the whole race.
3. The People of Ancient America.—Wise men who have made a special study of the subject tell us that this country has been continuously inhabited by generations of men for many thousands of years. Rude tools, and human skulls, intermingled with bones of animals of species long extinct, have been found in caves or dug out of deep layers of earth; and they indicate that in the Mississippi valley and on the Atlantic and Pacific slopes there lived, perhaps hundreds of ages ago, men of a low grade of culture.
In the great museums—as the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, the Peabody Museums at Cambridge and New Haven, and the natural history rooms at New York and elsewhere—may be seen thousands of the relics of vanished races of men and animals that once inhabited this continent.
4. The Red Men or Indians.—The Indians constitute a race by themselves. Whether they are descended from some of those prehistoric inhabitants of whom we have just spoken no one can say; but they make up an American type with marks as clearly recognized as those that distinguish the Mongolians and the Malays. For long ages the red men had spread themselves over the two continents, from Hudson Bay to Cape Horn. With few or no exceptions, all had the same copperish or cinnamon color, deep-set and intensely black eyes, high cheek-bones, straight black hair, with little or no beard; but the long lapse of time, the great varieties of environment, and perhaps other causes, brought about striking differences of appearance, of manners, customs, dialects, and the like.
5. Three Principal Divisions of the Indians.—The eminent historian, Dr. John Fiske, groups the Indians in three leading divisions,—as savage, barbarous, and half-civilized.
Ancient Cliff Dwellings.