In studying the history of the English and Dutch settlements the way will again be a way through a trackless wilderness unless the teacher is bold enough to make a judicious selection among the many details which must appear in every text-book, neglecting all the others and insisting that his students obtain a clear comprehension of the two or three leading motives which are ever present in the colonizing efforts of both these nations. First, the student should be compelled to grasp clearly the significance of the trading and colonizing companies which were formed in such profusion in both England and Holland in the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. Cheyney (“European Background,” pp. 137-139), mentions seventy of them. If teacher and student will follow carefully the activities of these companies in America they will find a key to the history of the founding of most of the Atlantic coast colonies. Second, before attempting to follow the history of the English colonies in America, the history of the Protestant revolution in Europe must be reviewed and the attitude of James I toward all dissenters, Protestant and Catholic alike, must be made clear. These two finger posts, the trading companies and the religious agitation in England will serve to guide many a student who might otherwise lose his way. To attempt at this time to introduce into the history of the colonies anything about the boundary disputes, the attempts at colonial union, the growth of colonial institutions or even the economic conditions which surrounded the life of the colonists is, it seems to us, a mistake. Literature of the Period. A word or two in closing about the literature of this period. Of sources, here, as throughout American history, there are four collections which are extremely valuable for use in the secondary schools: (a) Hart’s American History Told by Contemporaries, (b) Macdonald’s Documents of American History, (c) The American History Leaflets, (d) The Old South Leaflets. Of the works of secondary authorities, those especially fitted for use in secondary schools are (a) Thwaites, “Colonies,” (b) Fisher’s “Colonial Era,” (c) Fiske’s “Discovery of America” and his other works on the settlement and history of the Atlantic coast colonies, (d) Parkman’s “Pioneers of France in America” and his other works on the explorations of the French, (e) the earlier volumes of Harper’s “The American Nation,” and (f) the earlier chapters of Doyle’s and Lodge’s histories of the English colonies in America. European History in the Secondary School D. C. KNOWLTON, PH.D., Editor. Medieval History a Problem.