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. Almost any boy or girl will find them
interesting, for they are written with care, in simple language, and not
without an engaging humor.

There are so many biographies of Washington that it is difficult to
choose among them. Perhaps the most interesting are those by Woodrow
Wilson, Horace E. Scudder, Paul Leicester Ford, and Henry Cabot
Lodge--all well-written and with an effort to give a true impression of
the man. Of the other Presidents, no better biographies exist than those
in the "American Statesmen" series, where, of course, the lives of the
principal statesmen are also to be found. Not all of them, nor, perhaps,
even most of them are worth reading by the average boy or girl. There is
no especial reason why the life of any man should be studied in detail
after he has ceased to be a factor in history. Of the Presidents,