The Mentor, No. 32, Historic Spots of America THE MENTOR “A Wise and Faithful Guide and Friend” VOL. 1 NO. 32 HISTORIC SPOTS OF AMERICA JAMESTOWN PLYMOUTH ROCK TICONDEROGA INDEPENDENCE HALL THE ALAMO GETTYSBURG [Illustration] _By ROBERT McNUTT McELROY_ _Head of the Department of History and Politics, Princeton University_ A few years before the settlement of the territory now known as the United States the people of Europe had witnessed a great naval battle in which two kinds of civilizations contended for supremacy. England and Spain were the combatants, and the issue, as we now clearly see, was whether the old idea of monarchy or the new idea of democracy should dominate two continents. Gold from Mexico and Peru had made Spain a great power. Successive royal inheritances had given to her kingly line the control of a large part of Europe. She was the champion of the Church of Rome, and regarded it as her mission to prevent all heretics from planting colonies in the New World. England, on the other hand, was the champion of Protestantism, whose doctrine of the direct responsibility of the individual led logically to democracy in government. England won the battle, destroying Spain’s great Armada, and thus opening the New World to the settlement of men professing Protestant doctrines; for as soon as Spain’s power on the seas was shattered Protestants could plant colonies without danger of having them destroyed by a Spanish man-of-war. [Illustration: JAMESTOWN ISLAND _The exact site of the original settlement. Once a peninsula, this ground has been cut away from the mainland by the constant washing of the river. It is now protected by a stone wall._] THE VIRGINIA COMPANY [Illustration: OLD CHURCH AT JAMESTOWN _A ruined tower of the earliest colonial days._] [Illustration: JAMESTOWN CHURCH _A reproduction of the church built 1639-1647. This building was put up for the Jamestown Exposition in 1907, using the old tower, which can be seen in the background, for its entrance._]