Excerpt from An Elementary History of England: With Illustrations, Tables, Maps, and Plans The present work is not meant absolutely for beginners. The writers are convinced that the best way of kindling the first interest in history in young children is by the oral narration of picturesque stories and biographies. For this stage no text-book seems necessary or even desirable. But as children grow a little older there is a, danger in relying altogether on detached incidents and episodes. It is almost equally hazardous to trust exclusively to oral teaching without book. In many cases both these methods tend towards leaving little save a passing impression on the pupils mind. They are too often destitute of any permanent or tangible result. At first permanent impressions of detail do not much matter, but after a time they are necessary. An elementary text-book may attain the ends desired in two ways. One method is simply to write out at length the same sort of historical details that the teacher has hitherto given viva voice. But to follow this plan for the whole of English History needs a volume of considerable dimensions. The writers have therefore deliberately rejected the method of attempting to tell a large number of familiar stories at length. They have preferred to adopt the second possible way. This is to put together a fairly continuous narrative, even at the risk of some parts of it being less attractive than they might have been made by the fuller mode of proceeding. 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.