in possession of all the facts
regarding the life of the early Aryans is not considered a sufficient
reason for withholding from the child those facts that we have when they
can be adapted to his use. Information regarding the early stages of
Aryan life is meager. Enough has been established, however, to enable us
to mark out the main lines of progress through the hunting, the fishing,
the pastoral, and the agricultural stages, as well as to present the
chief problems that confronted man in taking the first steps in the use
of metals, and in the establishment of trade. Upon these lines, marked
out by the geologist, the paleontologist, the archaeologist, and the
anthropologist, the first numbers of this series are based.

A generalized view of the main steps in the early progress of the race,
which it is thus possible to present, is all that is required for
educational ends. Were it possible to present the subject in detail, it
would be tedious and unprofitable to all save the specialist. To select
from the monotony of the ages that which is most vital, to so present it
as to enable the child to participate in the process by which the race
has advanced, is a work more in keeping with the spirit of the age. To
this end the presentation of the subject is made: First, by means of
questions, which serve to develop the habit of making use of experience
in new situations; second, by narrative, which is employed merely as a
literary device for rendering the subject more available to the child;
and third, by suggestions for practical activities that may be carried
out in hours of work or play, in such a way as to direct into useful
channels energy which when left undirected is apt to express itself in
trivial if not in anti-social forms. No part of a book is more
significant to the child than the illustrations. In preparing the
illustrations for this series as great pains have been taken to furnish
the child with ideas that will guide him in his practical activities as
to illustrate the text itself.

Mr. Howard V. Brown, the artist who executed the drawings, has been
aided in his search for authentic originals by the late J. W. Powell,
_director of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D.C._;
by Frederick J. V. Skiff, _director of the Field Columbian Museum,
Chicago_, and by the author. Ethnological collections and the best
illustrative works on ethnological subjects scattered throughout the
country have been caref