Excerpt from A History of Mediaeval and Modern Europe for Secondary Schools

The main purpose of this book is to tell the story of the building of Europe, in a way useful for students in the secon dary schools, or, in other words, to answer the question how the European nations, especially the prime units in civiliza tion, England, France, Germany, and Italy, came to be what they are to-day. There has been an earnest effort not to take too much for granted in the way of previous information, not to overload the student with facts and names of which so little can be told that they cannot body-out in his imagina tion, and not to cover any but the essential features of the main subjects.

While our story must for completeness go back to the fall of the Roman Empire, common sense dictates that for most students the mediaeval era is of relatively less importance than the last four centuries. The amount of space allotted to given events is, therefore, increasingly ample as recent times are approached: thus, there is a much longer discussion. Of Napoleon than of Charlemagne. On the other hand, it has seemed needfu] to keep the treatment of even the modern period within fair limits, especially by adhering closely to the study of Europe only. Thus there is merely an allusion to many of the events which created the British Empire, and the student will have to go elsewhere to learn how France acquired a great dominion in North Africa, and how Russia was checked by Japan in the Far East. This is a misfortune, for such a process as the open ing of China may prove to be a matter of more importance in universal history than the whole Thirty Years' War, but the limitations on the time of most students and the need of adhering to the main thread of what is at best a very long narrative, seem to forbid the treatment of many fascinating as well as valuable problems.

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