Excerpt from History of Commerce and Industry This book is an outgrowth of eleven years' experience in teaching history to commercial classes at the Philadelphia Cen tral High School. In preparing it the aim has been the same as the aim Of the teaching: viz., to present the essentials of his tory from the commercial and industrial point of view. The purpose has been to furnish the history Of a great movement or tendency rather than the history of nations. It will be Obvious to those who use the book that the 'writer's interests have been primarily in commercial history. The writer accepts as true a recent statement Of Canon Hen son, that knowledge Oi the past is a great emancipating power Of the present, and that ignorance Of the past is one of the present's greatest curses. History treated as a record of social progress may become one of the great cementing forces Of society. With what aspect of the past shall history deal? It is quite correct to say that history is the outgrowth of the age in which it is written and that the various interpretations which have been given it are but reflections Of the varying and dominant interests Of society. Not many years ago, Edward A. F ree man's famous dictum, history is past politics and politics are present history, found general acceptance; but this sentiment is no longer generally approved. Clearly there is at present a desire to select those interests Of the past which most bear on the present. For a considerable time, the tendency has been Obvious for both writers and teachers to emphasize economic and social history rather than the history Of war or Of the evolu tion Of governmental systems. 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.