Celts:—One of the early Aryan races of southwestern Europe; the Welsh and the Highland Scotch are descended from the Celts.
Slavs:—The race of people inhabiting Russia, Poland, Bohemia, and Servia.
Latin races:—The French, Spanish, and Italian people, whose languages are derived chiefly from the Latin.
Orient:—The far East—India, China, Japan, etc.
Norman:—The Norman-French from northern France had been in possession of England for the greater part of a century (1066-1154) when Henry, son of a Saxon princess and a French duke (Geoffrey of Anjou) came to England as Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet line of English kings.
Stratford:—A small town on the Avon River in England; the birthplace of Shakespeare.
dight:—Clothed. (What does an unabridged dictionary say about this word? Is it commonly used nowadays? Was it used in Shakespeare's time? Why does the author use it here?)
see it steady and see it whole:—A quotation from the works of Matthew Arnold, an English poet and critic.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY
What has been the disadvantage of having our history written by New England men? Do you know what particular New England men have written of American history? What state is President Wilson from? What is meant by the "Suppression of the South"? Why does the author put in the phrase "we have learned"? Does he believe what he is saying? Show where he makes his own view clear. What "story" is it that one "almost wishes" were true? Went out from the North: Where? How are the Northerners and the Southerners changed after they have gone West? What "new temper" do they have? How do they show their "impatience of restraint"? What eastern mountains are meant here? How did our nation gain new life when the pioneers looked westward from the eastern ridges? Why are we spoken of as a "great compounded nation"? What are our "mighty works of peace"? The author now shows how the Middle Seaboard States were a type of the later form of the nation, because they had a mixed population. What does he think about the influence of the Puritan and the Southerner? Note the questions that he asks regarding the course of American history. See how he answers them in the pages that follow. Why does he say that the first frontiersmen were "timid"? When, according to the author, did the "great determining movement" of our history begin? Why does he call the picture that he draws a "singular" one? What is meant by "civilization frayed at the edges"? How do the primitive conditions of our nation differ from the earliest beginnings of the European nations? (See the long passage beginning "How different.") What is meant by "Europe frontiered"? Look carefully on page [261], to see what the author says is "the central and determining fact of our national history." What is the "great word" of our history? Has the author answered the questions he set for himself on page [256]? What is happening to us as a nation now that we have lost our frontier? What is the relation between the East and the West? Perhaps you will like to go on and read some more of this essay, from which we have here only a selection. Do you like what the author has said? What do you think of the way in which he has said it?