Chapter I: The Scattered Children of Europe

THE EMIGRANT AND WHAT HE BRINGS TO AMERICA. The emigrant who lands
at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or any other seaport, brings with
him something which we do not see. He may have in his hands only a
small bundle of clothing and enough money to pay his railroad fare to
his new home, but he is carrying another kind of baggage more valuable
than bundles or boxes or a pocket full of silver or gold. This other
baggage is the knowledge, the customs, and the memories he has brought
from the fatherland.

He has already learned in Europe how to do the work at which he hopes
to labor in America. In his native land he has been taught to obey the
laws and to do his duty as a citizen. This fits him to share in our
self-government. He also brings great memories, for he likes to think
of the brave and noble deeds done by men of his race. If he is a
religious man, he worships God just as his forefathers have for
hundreds of years. To understand how the emigrant happens to know what
he does and to be what he is, we must study the history of the country
from which he comes.

ALL AMERICANS ARE EMIGRANTS. If this is true of the newcomer, it is
equally true of the rest of us, for we are all emigrants. The Indians
are the only native Americans, and when we find out more about them we
may learn that they, too, are emigrants. If we follow the history of
our families far enough back, we shall come upon the names of our
forefathers who sailed from Europe. They may have come to America in
the early days when there were only a few settlements scattered along
our Atlantic coast, or they may have come since the Revolutionary War
changed the English colonies into the United States.

Like the Canadians, the South Americans, and the Australians, we are
simply Europeans who have moved away. The story of the Europe in which
our forefathers lived is, therefore, part of our story. In order to
understand our own history we must know something of the history of
England, France, Germany, Italy, and other European lands.

WHAT THE EARLY EMIGRANTS BROUGHT. If we read the story of our
forefathers before they left Europe, we shall find answers to several
important questions. Why, we ask, did Columbus seek for new lands or
for new ways to lands already known? How did the people of Europe live
at the time he discovered America? What did they know how to do? Were
they skilful in all sorts of work, or were they as rude and ignorant
as the Indians on the western shores of the Atlantic?

The answers which history will give to these questions will say that
the first emigrants who landed on our shores brought with them much of
the same knowledge and many of the same customs and memories which
emigrants bring nowadays and which we also have. It is true that since
the time the first settlers came men have found out how to make many
new things. The most important of these are the steam-engine, the
electric motor, the telegraph, and the telephone. But it is surprising
how many important things, which we still use, were made before
Columbus saw America.

For one thing, men knew how to print books. This art had been
discovered during the boyhood of Columbus. Another thing, men could
make guns, while the Indians had only bows and arrows. The ships in
which Columbus sailed across the ocean seemed very large and wonderful
to the Indians, who used canoes. The ships were steered with the help
of a compass, an instrument which the Indians had never seen.

Some of the things which the early emigrants knew had been known
hundreds or thousands of years before. One of the oldest was the art
of writing. The way to write words or sounds was found out so long ago
that we shall never know the name of the man who first discovered it.
The historians tell us he lived in Egypt, which was in northern
Africa, exactly where Egypt is now. Some men were afraid that the new
art might do more harm than good. The king to whom the secret was told
thought that the children would be unwilling to work hard and try to
remember because everything could be written down and they would not
need to use their memories. The Egyptians at first used pictures to
put their words upon rocks or paper, and even after they made several
letters of the alphabet their writing seemed like a mixture of little
pictures and queer marks.

OLD AND NEW INVENTIONS. Those who first discover how to make things
are called inventors, and what they make are called inventions. Now if
we should write out a list of the most useful inventions, we could
place in one column the inventions which were made before the days of
Columbus and in another those which have been made since. With this
list before us we may ask which inventions we could live without and
which we could not spare unless we were willing to become like the
savages. We should find that a large number of the inventions which we
use every day belong to the set of things older than Columbus. This is
another reason why, if we wish to understand our ways of living and
working, we must ask about the history of the countries where our
forefathers lived. It is the beginning of our own history.

A PLAN OF STUDY. The discovery of America was made in 1492, at the
beginning of what we call Modern Times. Before Modern Times were the
Middle Ages, lasting about a thousand years. These began three or four
hundred years after the time of Christ or what we call the beginning
of the Christian Era. All the events that took place earlier we say
happened in Ancient Times. Much that we know was learned first by the
Greeks or Romans who lived in Ancient Times.

It is in the Middle Ages that we first hear of peoples called
Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Dutchmen, Italians, Spaniards, and
many others now living in Great Britain and on the Continent of
Europe. We shall learn first of the Greeks and Romans and of what they
knew and succeeded in doing, and then shall find out how these things
were learned by the peoples of the Middle Ages and what they added to
them. This will help us to find out what our forefathers started with
when they came to live in America.

QUESTIONS

1. What does the emigrant from Europe bring to America besides his
baggage?

2. Why are all Americans emigrants?

3. What did the earliest emigrants from Europe to America bring with
them?

4. Which do you think the more useful invention--the telephone or
the art of writing? Who invented this art? Find Egypt on the map.
How did Egyptian writing look?

5. Why was it a help to Columbus that gunpowder and guns were
invented before he discovered America?

6. When did the Christian Era begin? What is meant by Ancient Times?
By the Middle Ages? By Modern Times? In what Times was the art of
writing invented? In what Times was the compass invented? In what
Times was the telephone invented?

EXERCISES

1. Collect from illustrated papers, magazines, or advertising
folders, pictures of ocean steamships. Collect pictures of sailing
ships, ships used now and those used long ago.

2. Collect from persons who have recently come to this country
stories of how they traveled from Europe to America, and from ports
like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia to where they now live.

3. Let each boy and girl in the schoolroom point out on the map the
European country from which his parents or his grandparents or his
forefathers came.

4. Let each boy and girl make a list of the holidays which his
forefathers had in the "fatherland" or "mother country." Let each
find out the manner in which the holidays were kept. Let each tell
the most interesting hero story from among the stories of the mother
country or fatherland. Let each find out whether the tools used in
the old home were like the tools his parents use here.