Excerpt from A Child's Guide to American History Man's mental powers have not grown or developed in historic times. We are no greater than were our ancestors. We live more comfortably than they only because we have added to what they bequeathed us. Each generation adds a little to what it receives from the past, and thus the conditions of the present rest on the accumulated inheritance from the ages. Were it possible to erase or destroy the past, man would be reduced to the lowest state of savagery, to the condition Of the lower animals - without tools, or clothing, or language, or traditions. A record Of the past we call History. But history is more than a record of the past; it is a study of humanity, the greatest of all studies, and is second only to the study of the human life in our own times, in which we are all unconsciously engaged every day. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.