dame Taine-Paul-Dubois, of
Menthon St. Bernard, France, and Henry Holt & Co., of New
York.

* * * * *

SAMUEL ELIOT

History of the United States

Samuel Eliot, a historian and educator, was born in Boston in
1821, graduated at Harvard in 1839, was engaged in business
for two years, and then travelled and studied abroad for four
years more. On his return, he took up tutoring and gave
gratuitous instruction to classes of young workingmen. He
became professor of history and political science in Trinity
College, Hartford, Conn., in 1856, and retained that chair
until 1864. During the last four years of that time, he was
president of the institution. From 1864 to 1874 he lectured on
constitutional law and political science. He lectured at
Harvard from 1870 to 1873. He was President of the Social
Science Association when it organised the movement for Civil
Service reform in 1869. His history of the United States
appeared in 1856 under the title of "Manual of United States
History between the Years 1792 and 1850." It was revised and
brought down to date in 1873, under the title of "History of
the United States." A third edition appeared in 1881. This
work gained distinction as the first adequate textbook of
United States history and still holds the place it deserves in
popular favor. The epitome is supplemented by a chronicle
compiled from several sources.

The first man to discover the shores of the United States, according to
Icelandic records, was an Icelander, Leif Erickson, who sailed in the
year 1000, and spent the winter somewhere on the New England coast.
Christopher Columbus, a Genoese in the Spanish service, discovered San
Salvador, one of the Bahama Islands, on October 12, 1492. He thought
that he had found the western route to the Indies, and, therefore,
called his discovery the West Indies. In 1507, the new continent
received its name from that of Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine who had
crossed the ocean under the Spanish and Portuguese flags. The middle
ages were Closing; the great nations of Europe were putting forth their
energies, material and immaterial; and the discovery of America came
just in season to help and be helped by the men of these stirring years.

Ponce de Leon, a companion of Columbus, was the first to reach the
territory of the pr