PUBLISHERS' ANNOUNCEMENT.

It is now conceded by all educators that school instruction should be supplemented by reading matter suitable for use by the pupil both in the school and in the home. Whoever looks for such reading, however, must be struck at first with the abundance of what is offered to schools and parents, and then with its lack of systematic arrangement, and its consequent ill adaptation to the needs of young people.

It is for the purpose of supplying this defect, that the publishers have decided to issue a series of volumes, under the general title of the YOUNG FOLKS' LIBRARY FOR SCHOOL AND HOME.

These books are intended to meet the needs of all children and youth of school age; from those who have just mastered their first primer, to those who are about to finish the high school course. Some of the volumes will supplement the ordinary school readers, as a means of teaching reading; some will reënforce the instruction in geography, history, biography, and natural science;

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while others will be specially designed to cultivate a taste for good literature. All will serve to develop power in the use of the mother tongue.

The matter for the various volumes will be so carefully selected and so judiciously graded, that the various volumes will be adapted to the needs and capacities of all for whom they are designed; while their literary merit, it is hoped, will be sufficient to make them deserve a place upon the shelves of any well selected collection of juvenile works.

Each volume of the YOUNG FOLKS' LIBRARY will be prepared by some one of our ablest writers for young people, and all will be carefully edited by Larkin Dunton, LL.D., Head Master of the Boston Normal School.

The publishers intend to make this LIBRARY at once attractive and instructive; they therefore commend these volumes, with confidence, to teachers, parents, and all others who are charged with the duty of directing the education of the young.

SILVER, BURDETT & CO.

PREFACE.

ASIA affords a greater variety of profitable topics for study than any of the other continents.

The vast extent of its lands, the great variety of its climate and productions, its magnificent scenery, including the loftiest mountains in the world and many of the noblest rivers, cannot be omitted from a child's study without leaving his conception of the world very imperfect.

It is remarkable that the ancient civilizations of India, China, and Japan grew to such perfection while the world was comparatively young, and have continued. through so many centuries. The manners and customs of a people do not necessarily indicate character. Because a Chinaman shakes his own hand, when an American would shake his friend's hand, it does not follow that the Chinaman's greeting is any the less cordial. Every American child needs this knowledge to counteract his imperfect and exaggerated view of the civilization of his own country.

It is a good influence in the same direction to know that the progressive races of Europe and the New World had their origin in Asia; and that in Asia have arisen all the forms of religion which have so greatly influenced the history of man,- including Christianity.

It must tend to correct a child's overestimate of life

in the New World to know that in Asia and Egypt were taken the first steps in learning and civilization.

The variety of people who have their homes in Asia, and the variety in their mental and moral life, must impress a child with new and broader views of the world. To know all these facts enlarges the child's conception of the world, quickens his sympathy with humanity, arouses his patriotism, and does much to curb his own self-conceit.

We Americans need to know what has been done in the world in order to have banished from our minds the supercilious notion that we can begin our study of life where the world began thousands of years ago, and in one short generation outstrip all the thinking and progressive men of the ages.

The historical element is a marked feature of this book. The author has had constantly in mind the close relation between geography and history. Without the bits of history which have been introduced, much of the life of Asia as it exists to-day would be meaningless.

A careful study of Asiatic life must tend to breadth of view, respect for others, quickened sympathy, and a chastened patriotism.

A work like the following needs to be read with a good map before the reader; so that the various pictures formed in his mind will be forever associated with the peoples and lands in which the reality exists. Such a map, accurate and excellent in all its details, has been engraved especially for this book.

BOSTON, January 21, 1897.

LARKIN DUNTON.