Excerpt from History With a Match: Being an Account of the Earliest Navigators and the Discovery of America<br><br>Once the child understands that history does not consist of the heterogeneous dates and the stereotyped patriotic deeds of the average textbook he may take to reading history for the fun of it. He may acquire a taste for a pastime as valuable as playing the piano or studying poetry. There is nothing practical about history, and the new school of pedagogues who expect to distil culture out of plumbing and boilermaking may succeed in excluding history from the school curriculum. A great many historians help this process along by turning history into a sacred substance administered to the masses in large but indigestible doses. They are like cooks who recite chapters from a cook book rather than boil us a palatable pudding. The pudding, of course, has to be based upon certain definite principles of the culinary science. But when it is brought upon the table as a very evident combination of a little flour, some butter, eggs, raisins and cinnamon, we politely swallow a few spoonfuls, say No, thank you! To the ofier of a second help, and hasten to a better restaurant.<br><br>I do not want to get my metaphors mixed; therefore I shall ask somebody to let me have a match and begin with my story.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>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.