Edward R. Shaw

“ The great wonder of Holland is the dikes. Holland is near the sea, and so dikes are built along the beach to keep the water out. The dikes are strong walls made of earth and stones. They are very high, and so thick that on the top there is a road to walk and ride on. In some parts of Holland there are houses also on the top of the dikes. If it were not for these dikes, the sea would flow in on the land. Then it would cover the houses and towns, and drown the people.
Did you ever hear the story of the little boy and the hole in the dike? ”

“ It has been thoroughly proved in our newer pedagogical practice that the child in the first school year is much interested in descriptions of the Indian and the Eskimo. Whenever descriptions of the Indian and the Eskimo have been given him, they have not only fulfilled their purpose in furnishing material for reading and the interrelation of several activities of expression, but they have revealed to him the fact that there are other people in the world, who differ very much from those he has seen. ”

“ They do not go to school, for the Eskimos have no schools. They are very fond of stories, but they cannot read them in books. So their mothers tell them stories. The mothers cannot read, either. The stories they tell are what they heard from their mothers. Are you not happy that you can read stories for yourself?
Perhaps you think the Eskimo children are unhappy? Oh, no! Though they cannot read books, they play all kinds of games. There is a funny game they play in the house. All the children get on their knees in a ring. Then they hold their toes with their hands and move along by jumps. ”

“ The men do nothing but hunt. They hunt the guanaco and the ostrich. The guanaco is nearly as large as a cow, and has a head like a camel. Its flesh is good to eat, and the people make cloaks of its skin.
[Illustration: Hunting Ostriches.]
The ostrich is the largest bird in the world. Its legs are very long, and it has a long neck. It cannot fly, for its wings are too small, but it can run very fast. It can run faster than a horse. It is hard for the hunter to catch it. He rides on horseback, and catches the ostrich with a bo'las. ”

“ A great many of the people in Switzerland live by keeping cattle and sheep and goats. Their houses are in the valleys. But in spring, when the snow begins to melt and the grass begins to grow, the men drive their flocks up the mountain sides to feed. There they stay till the end of summer. The men take with them a supply of food, and they sleep in huts on the mountain side.
There is a kind of goat in Switzerland called the chamois. It lives high up in the mountains. It is very hard to hunt the chamois, for it can go into places where a man cannot follow it. ”

“ Wherever you go in Holland you see windmills. When you see them far off they look like giants with their arms stretched out. The arms are shaped like ladders. The arms have sails on them to catch the wind. It is the wind that makes the arms go round. With these windmills the people pump up water, and grind corn, and saw wood. The land is very flat and low. There are no swift running streams to turn the mills. So the people build windmills. ”

“ The forests are so dark in many places that one could not see to read at noonday. Only a few white men have been in the land of the pygmies and seen them. They are shy, like children, and hide their faces when spoken to.
Some of the pygmies are black and some are red. They do not wear much clothing. They do not need much, for the weather is always very warm in the country in which they live. The men and boys wear only a strip of cloth around their loins.
Many of the pygmies have no houses. They wander from place to place, and sleep on the ground under a bush. ”

“ China seems a curious country. Boys shout out loud in school. They read and write backward. Men fly kites, like boys. Women have feet as small as babies' feet. At dinner nuts and fruits are eaten first. Men work like animals. There are many ways in which the Chinese are different from the people in our country.
JAPAN
[Illustration: Japanese Children.]
How would you like to ride in a wagon drawn by a man instead of a horse? That is the way people ride in Japan. Japan is a country a long way off, near China. You would think that a man could not run very fast drawing a wagon. ”

“ Have you ever heard of the Arabs? They are people with brown skin and dark eyes. They live in a country called Arabia. It is a very warm country. There is never any snow in Arabia. A great part of it is covered with sand. For miles and miles you would see nothing but sand. Often the sand is so hot that you could not walk on it in your bare feet. ”

“ The child is not interested, at that stage of his intellectual development which falls in the first or the second school year, in the situation of countries. It does not matter to him exactly where, geographically, the people about whom he reads live. He is satisfied if some general statement is made to the effect that they live far away to the north, where the cold countries are, or in the south, where it is warm and sometimes hot, or on the other side of the world. ”

“ There are farms in Korea, where they grow wheat, rice, rye, tobacco, cotton, watermelons, and many kinds of fruit.
If you were in Korea, you would think it the strangest country in the world. They do many things very unlike the way we do them. With us bright-colored things are worn by women. In Korea the men wear bright colors. They have a funny way of selling eggs there. They place ten eggs end to end in a row, and put straw around them. Then they tie strings around the straw between the eggs. This is called a stick of eggs. ”

“ The camel is very useful to the Arabs. Perhaps you have seen a camel. It is much larger than a horse. It has a great hump on its back. It has large feet with broad, flat soles; and it can walk or run over the sand without sinking.
The camel can carry a very heavy load. It gives milk which is good to drink. Its hair is made into cloth. Its flesh is good meat. It can bear thirst and heat far better than a horse can. It can travel and carry a load in the desert for three or four days without drinking. ”

“ But perhaps the most wonderful thing in China is the Great Wall. It was built by kings a long time ago. They wanted to keep savage people from coming into the country. The wall is built very high and very wide. It is so wide in some places that eight horses can be driven on top of it side by side. It is hundreds of miles long. The people of China think it is very wonderful. They think there is nothing so wonderful in all the rest of the world. ”

“ The snow is often so deep that the reindeer has to dig a hole so large that its body is almost hidden.
The reindeer are not put in stables. They like to be out in the cold and snow. They are able to take care of themselves.
The Lapps eat a good deal of meat. Their meat is the flesh of the reindeer. They are very fond of fat. All people who live in very cold countries eat a great deal of fat. It helps to keep them warm. The Lapps also have milk and cheese. ”

“ The cold nose must then be rubbed with snow. You would think this a strange way to keep it from freezing, but it is the best way to take out the frost.
There are many kinds of houses in Russia. The houses have to be made very warm. So they are built with double walls. In rich people's houses they have stoves like ours. But in the poor people's houses the stoves are built of brick. They always burn wood, for coal costs too much in Russia. The stoves are sometimes built very high. Often they are as high as the ceiling. Sometimes people lie on top of the great stove to keep themselves warm. ”

“ The girls take part in the football. One of their games is the "stick and ring" game. The ring is made of skin and is sometimes covered with beads. Each boy has a stick, and he throws it at the ring while it is rolling along the ground. The game is to send the stick through the ring. Every boy tries to strike every other boy's stick to stop it from going through the ring.
The Indian boys sometimes play at fighting battles. They form themselves into two armies, and one army fights against the other. They fight with balls of wet clay. Often the battle lasts two or three hours. ”

“ The schools in China are only for boys. The boys make a great deal of noise in school. A Chinese teacher thinks the boys are idle if they do not study their lessons out loud. So each boy shouts as loud as he can. When the boy has learned his lesson, he goes up and gives his book to the teacher. ”

“ Arab poets made songs about Hassan and his horse.
The Arabs do not eat very much. Their chief meal is supper. They have supper in the evening. They are very fond of coffee. Did you ever hear of Mocha coffee? It comes from Mocha, a town in Arabia. Most of the Arabs take their coffee without sugar or milk.
They always make their bread in thin cakes. Then they bake the bread on hot iron plates or in an open oven. They also have ground wheat cooked with a little butter. Arabs who are rich have mutton or camel's flesh, and also rice. All eat vegetables and fruits of various kinds. ”

“ It is some time before the girls can do it well. Some girls are so skillful at this game that they can keep jumping a long time without falling.
Some people in Russia have very queer cradles for their babies. One kind of cradle is a basket which hangs by ropes from the ceiling. Another kind of cradle is made of cloth sewed to a wooden frame. This cradle also hangs from the ceiling. In some places in Russia the nurses who take care of the babies wear dresses to show whether the baby is a girl or a boy. If it is a boy the nurse wears a blue dress. ”

“ In Switzerland, instead of a king, they have a president, as we have. And in past times they had brave men who fought to make their country free. One of their great men was William Tell. The Swiss love his name as strongly as we love the name of George Washington. ”

“ After this is done, an old man of the tribe comes to the white man and the black man. He puts the white man's arm over the black man's arm. When their arms are together, he makes a small cut in each arm. He makes this cut to draw blood. Then the old man puts salt and the dust of banana leaves into the blood, and rubs both arms together. The black man and the white man are then blood brothers.
These people have also a strange way of taking care of their canoes. When they are not using them, they keep them under water. ”

“ There are bears and wolves and foxes in Lapland. These animals are sometimes very fierce. They would come into the people's tents and houses at night, were it not for the dogs. Nearly every person has a dog. Even the hoys and girls have dogs. The dogs are very brave. They are not afraid to attack wolves or bears.
But you will wish to know about the children in Lapland. You have heard about the old woman who lived in a shoe. The Lapp baby has a cradle shaped like a shoe. ”

“ Indian girls have dolls, and they dress them and sing them to sleep. They play "house," and often have doll-house moving.
[Illustration: Indian Girls.]
Indian men and boys are fond of swimming, and they are very good swimmers. They are also fond of sailing in their canoes. The canoe is made of the bark of the birch tree. The Indians paddle their canoes. They can make them go very fast.
Many of the Indians now live in houses and have farms the same as white men, and they raise corn and vegetables and fruit. They have horses and cows and sheep as other farmers have. ”

“ One game is like battledoor and shuttlecock. They use their feet to strike the shuttlecock. They do this so fast that the shuttlecock hardly ever falls to the ground. The Chinese are fond of flying kites. Even old men fly kites. They fly their kites in the spring-time. Chinese kites are of all sizes and shapes. Some are like birds. Some are like fish. Some are like butterflies.
[Illustration: Chinese Kite.]
There is no other such land in all the world for lanterns as China. ”