70 A PRINCE WHO RAN AWAY 407 71 AMERICA GETS RID OF HER KING 412 72 UPSIDE DOWN 420 73 A LITTLE GIANT 428 74 FROM PAN AND HIS PIPES TO THE PHONOGRAPH 435 75 THE DAILY PAPERS OF 1854-1865 443 76 THREE NEW POSTAGE STAMPS 449 77 THE AGE OF MIRACLES 454 78 GERMANY FIGHTS THE WORLD 460 79 YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND TO-MORROW 465 This page is not for you, boys and girls. It is for that old man or woman--twenty, thirty, or forty years old, who may peek into this book; and is what they would call the PREFACE To give the child some idea of what has gone on in the world before he arrived; To take him out of his little self-centered, shut-in life, which looms so large because it is so close to his eyes; To extend his horizon, broaden his view, and open up the vista down the ages past; To acquaint him with some of the big events and great names and fix these in time and space as a basis for detailed study in the future; To give him a chronological file with main guides, into which he can fit in its proper place all his further historical study-- Is the purpose of this first SURVEY OF THE WORLD’S HISTORY. This part is not for you, either. It is for your father, mother, or teacher, and is what they would call the INTRODUCTION In common with all children of my age, I was brought up on American History and given no other history but American, year in and year out, year after year for eight or more years. So far as I knew 1492 was the beginning of the world. Any events or characters before that time, reference to which I encountered by any chance, were put down in my mind in the same category with fairy-tales. Christ and His times, of which I heard only in Sunday-school, were to me mere fiction without reality. They were not mentioned in any history that I knew and therefore, so I thought, must belong _not_ to a realm in time and space, but to a spiritual realm. To give an American child only American History is as provincial as to teach a Texas child only Texas History. Patriotism is usually given as the reason for such history teaching. It only promotes a narrow-mindedness and an absurd conceit, based on utter ignorance of any other peoples and any other times--an intolerant egotism without foundation in fact. Since the World War it has become increasingly more and more important that American children should have a knowledge of other countries and other peoples in order that their attitude may be intelligent and unprejudiced.