Front Matter

Columbus at the Court of Spain.

Preface

It is not so many years since the school history was practically a dry chronicle of discoveries, settlements, and wars. A narrative that was in any degree personal and anecdotal was gazed upon askance as being necessarily unscholarly and undignified. Discoveries and settlements and wars there must be, and accounts of them must be written and made familiar; but the one and only way to bring past issues into the life of a child with any vividness is first to interest him in the actors themselves. Carlyle says that history is at bottom "the history of the great men who have worked here." There is no better introduction to the study of the Augustan Age than the story of the life of Augustus; not better way to arouse interest in the philosophy of Plato and Socrates than the tales of their lives.

This book is a collection of biographical stories of a number of the prominent men of the last three thousand years. Each one of these men was looked upon by hosts of his contemporaries as a hero. He was the ideal man of his time, and in the following stories one may trace that changing of ideals which has been the true history of the world. Holmes writes of having the same easy feeling among books that a stable boy has among horses. If a child can only gain that "easy feeling" among the men who have brought momentous events to pass, he has received the best possible preparation for the study of history.