Text-Books. As to the methods by which these ends should be accomplished, it is our firm conviction that each teacher can best work these out for himself. Certain broad generalizations may, however, be of value. First, no text-book is so perfect that it can be accepted as a complete, an infallible guide. Of necessity, every text-book will approach the subject from the point of view of a single individual. The teacher, at least, should therefore be acquainted with the point of view of several other writers on the same subject. Again, because it is designed to meet the needs of many different minds, it will inevitably contain many facts that the teacher will want to omit; it will omit some things that the teacher may want to include. Finally, it will often present facts in an order or in a way that the teacher may desire to change. For these reasons, while we believe that a single text-book should be in the hands of every pupil, the teacher should insist from the beginning that the book is to be used merely as a guide, not as a Scripture, every page and line of which is to be accepted as infallible. Second, both the teacher and the student, especially the teacher, should be familiar with the most important sources of American history and with the best secondary authorities on the period under discussion. It will be our aim as we go along to indicate from month to month what are generally considered as the best books in each period. Periods of American History. With these few generalizations in mind, we may now approach the particular subject of this article. The early history of North America divides itself into three more or less well-defined epochs. First, there is the period of discovery, exploration, and settlement extending over the two centuries from the time of Columbus to the end of the seventeenth century. Second, there is the century from 1664 to 1763 during which the various nations which had planted colonies in North America were struggling for dominion and supremacy on the continent. Third, there is the period of twenty years during which the English colonies were moving steadily, step by step, toward their complete independence. Needless to say, none of these epochs is clear and distinct. Discovery, exploration, and settlement go on far into the eighteenth century, even into the nineteenth; colonial wars have their roots in national differences which have their beginnings in Europe and America long before the year 1700; and the causes for the American Revolution must be sought in colonial institutions which were in process of development from the day that the first Englishman landed on the continent. Nevertheless, for purposes of class room discussion, the teacher may safely insist upon this threefold division of colonial history. The European Background.