are two sets of facts to be emphasized: First, the characteristic species of the hotter waters are the same or very nearly the same the world over; second, the cell-structure of these species, members of the group of the Blue-Green Algæ, is far simpler than that of any other organisms thus giving to them and their brethren, the Bacteria, the greatest reasons for being considered the least changed of the descendants of the original stock. Of course, neither view can at present be demonstrated, and I put them forth only as suggestions and a stimulus to further consideration along these and similar lines.

THE NEGLECTED HALF OF AMERICAN
HISTORY.*

By BERNARD MOSES.

The fact that this country was the first on the American continent to become the seat of a federal government seemed to justify our fathers in calling it the United States of America. At the time this name was assumed, there was no other independent nation on this side of the Atlantic. England held in colonial subjection what she holds now on the north, and the rest of the continent on the south was covered by colonies of Spain and Portugal. Since then has come the great struggle for the emancipation of Spanish America and the later liberation of Brazil; and it is noteworthy that every independent state which has arisen from Spanish or Portuguese colonies, has some time made use of the federal form of political organization. Every great state from Mexico to Chile has, at some period of its history, done this nation the honor of imitating the form of government established by the makers of our federal constitution. If all these nations have not adhered permanently to this form, it has been because of the force of the traditions of centralization generated during three hundred years of Spanish absolutism.

The federal states in the southern half of the continent were naturally less ambitious in their names than this

*An address delivered at a meeting of the Southern California Teachers' Association in Los Angeles, April 1, 1898.

nation. They assumed such modest titles as the United States of Mexico, the United States of Colombia, or the United States of Brazil. Our name ignores the rest of the continent. The pupil in the Mexican school, when he studies the history of the United States of Mexico, has constantly impressed upon him the fact that he is studying only the history of a single nation. The pupil in a school of this country, on the other hand, is led by the very name of his book to think of himself as studying American history, or he is led to think that what lies beyond the limits of this country is not worth considering. The same narrow and exclusive conception of American history has, moreover, ruled in the establishment of professorships in some of our colleges. Not one of the occupants of these chairs, so far as I am informed, has conceived of the field of his instruction in American history, as broader than the history of the nation to which he belongs. But American history, in its proper sense, embraces all attempts to found and develop civilized society on this continent, whether these attempts were made by the English, the French, the Portuguese, or the Spanish. These attempts grasped in one comprehensive view indicate to the student of American history the field of his investigations. But under the present order of things, our studies in all the schools, from the lowest to the highest, are confined to the settlements and social growth on a comparatively small part of the territory of the American continent. The settlements and the development of civilized life on the rest of the continent constitute the subject-matter of what I call the neglected half of American history.

There is undoubtedly a reason for doing what we do in historical study, but there is no reason for not doing more. We emphasize the history of European nations, because they are historically our antecedents. The basis of our culture and the fundamental principles of our political organizations are of European origin. It is, therefore, impossible to know our place in the world without tracing the

line our descent, and marking the stages of our progress from barbarism to civilization. But in the whole course of advance of European peoples, there is no external event comparable with the discovery and settlement of the American continent; no other event so full of historical significance for the human race, or more fruitful in suggestions and positive instruction concerning the nature and growth of society. It is here, moreover, that American students of history will find the proper field for their inquiries. Now and then an American historian whose circumstances permit him to spend the greater part of his life in Europe will be able to enter as a rival among European historians in treating European subjects. In this work he will sometimes have an advantage of point of view. His thought will often be freer for not being involved in the stereotyped prejudices of the classes of European society; and as a sharer in the popular life of this continent he will be able to appreciate, perhaps more justly than a European, the significance of the popular movements whose record is a part of European history. Thus Motley's story of the Dutch Republic owes much of its classic importance to the fact that the blood of sturdy New England independence flowed in the author's veins. Yet, in general, in the future, original work in European history will be for Europeans, and the majority of American historians will find in American affairs themes quite worthy of their highest powers.

In order, however, to see any portion of American history in its true light, we must stand where the whole continent lies within our horizon. We must see the growth of society here under whatever nation it has been planted and fostered. Every student who grows to maturity in our schools must know the similarities and contrasts which these several colonies and independent nations present. For it is only by knowing these things that he can fully comprehend the historical development and true position of any one of these nations. In history the matter of supreme importance is not in knowing events in themselves, but events in their

proper relations, and for this reason the students in our high schools and colleges have a just claim to instruction which shall cover the history of the continent, and present at least the two great and contrasted systems of colonization and government that have been organized and carried out in the English and Spanish colonies, and in the independent nations that have arisen out of these colonies.

At a time when the blast of the war-trumpet is the most striking sound that falls on our ears, it may not be an especially opportune moment to affirm that the children and youth of this country should devote a portion of their energies to a consideration of the social and political achievements of our prospective enemy. At such a time the popular mind is not likely to be in a position to receive the sober truth with respect to the hostile nation. All information concerning that nation passes at this time through a transforming medium of prejudice, and is received by the mind in an ugly aud distorted condition. In spite of this natural disposition, it is of the highest importance that we should know and be able correctly to appreciate our neighbors, whether hostile or friendly; not as a concession to the neighbor, but for our own advantage. We need this knowledge to prevent us from falling into what we may call a national provincialism, an attitude which is sufficiently illustrated by the thought that as individuals we sometimes become absorbed in the life of an important community, or of a great city, and mistake the social currents we feel around us for the greater currents of the world's movement. In the same way a citizen of this country, under the influence of the absorbing events happening around him is likely to make the mistake of concluding that this is the world. This danger for us, in the course of time, will become more and more immanent, as our free land becomes fully occupied and the internal movement of the population ceases. The ordinary citizen in the interior of the country will then see the world only as he finds it around him, and provincial ignorance will place him in antagonism to everything but