And
since you are an American, you will need especially to understand your
country. You will be quite unable to grasp the meaning of the references
to her story which are made every day in conversation, in newspapers, in
books and magazines, unless you know that story; and you will also be
unable properly to fulfil your duties as a citizen of this Republic
unless you know it.
For the earliest years, and, more especially, for the story of the
deadly struggle between French and English for the possession of the
continent, the books to read above all others are those of Francis
Parkman. He has clothed history with romantic fascination, and no one
who has not read him can have any adequate idea of the glowing and
life-like way in which those Frenchmen and Spaniards and Englishmen work
out their destinies in his pages. The story of Columbus and of the early
explorers will be found in John Fiske's "Discovery of America," a book
written simply and interestingly, but without Parkman's insight and
wizardry of style--which, indeed, no other American historian can equal.
A little book by Charles F. Lummis, called "The Spanish Pioneers," also
gives a vivid picture of those early explorers. The story of John Smith
and William Bradford and Peter Stuyvesant and William Penn will also be
found in Fiske's histories dealing with Virginia and New England and the
Dutch and Quaker colonies.
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