A history of the United States of America, on a plan adapted to the capacity of youths ...

Front matter

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Preface

More than ten years have elapsed since the first publication of the following work, during which period, it has passed through forty-four editions, comprising more than one hundred and fifty thousand copies. The inconvenience attending frequent alterations in a school-book, m connection with the unexpected patronage of the work, has deterred the author from attempting any revision of it, although he has been aware, for years, that it admitted of important improvements.

At -length, admonished that the advanced slate of our schools ana academies demands a more full and complete work, the author has aevoted some months to a careful and thorough revision of it. Besides correcting some errors, he has endeavored to supply important deficiencies, especially in relation to the earlier and later portions of the History, by which the quantity of matter has been greatly increased. He has, in particular, endeavored to do more justice to the "forefathers " of the land, in compliance with a suggestion of the late distinguished principal* of the Female Seminary in Wethersfield, Ct., whose public recommendation of the work was as flattering as unexpected.

The author has retained the plan originally adopted, from a convic tion of its general excellence ; and in this he has been strengthened by the patronage which has been given to the work by a generous, but discerning public. For the benefit of the pupil, who may not at once understand the plan of the volume, the following brief explanation is added:— The principal object of dividing the History into periods is to aid the memory, by presenting certain marked eras, from which tne whole subject of dates may be readily and distinctly viewed.

Two sizes of type are employed. The matter in larger type is designed to give a brief outline of the History of the United States, and may be read in connection. The matter in smaller type is to be regarded rather in the light of notes, which, without studying exact regularity, are thrown in as they may subserve the purposes of illustration and completeness in the delineation of events, or as they may contribute to support the interest and establish the recollections of the reader.

* Rev Joseph Emerson.