us and Grotius, and thinkers
like Spinoza, and taking the lead even to-day in the study of
Christianity and in the interpretation of the Bible. But my course in
the present lecture is determined by historical or philosophical rather
than by patriotic interest, and I shall endeavour to characterize and
group events as impartially as if my home were at Leyden in the Old
World instead of Cambridge in the New.

First of all, I shall take sides with Mr. Freeman in eschewing
altogether the word "Anglo-Saxon." The term is sufficiently absurd and
misleading as applied in England to the Old-English speech of our
forefathers, or to that portion of English history which is included
between the fifth and the eleventh centuries. But in America it is
frequently used, not indeed by scholars, but by popular writers and
speakers, in a still more loose and slovenly way. In the war of
independence our great-great-grandfathers, not yet having ceased to
think of themselves as Englishmen, used to distinguish themselves as
"Continentals," while the king's troops were known as the "British." The
quaint term "Continental" long ago fell into disuse, except in the slang
phrase "not worth a Continental" which referred to the debased condition
of our currency at the close of the Revolutionary War; but "American"
and "British" might still serve the purpose sufficiently whenever it is
necessary to distinguish between the two great English nationalities.
The term "English," however, is so often used with sole reference to
people and things in England as to have become in some measure
antithetical to "American;" and when it is found desirable to include
the two in a general expression, one often hears in America the term
"Anglo-Saxon" colloquially employed for this purpose. A more slovenly
use of language can hardly be imagined. Such a compound term as
"Anglo-American" might perhaps be logically defensible, but that has
already become restricted to the English-descended inhabitants of the
United States and Canada alone, in distinction from Spanish Americans
and red Indians. It is never so used as to include Englishmen.
Refraining from all such barbarisms, I prefer to call the English race
by the name which it has always applied to itself, from the time when it
inhabited the little district of Angeln on the Baltic coast of Sleswick
down to the time when it had begun to spread itself over three great
continents. It is a race which has shown a rare capaci