1.  How was it that the king of a tribe could claim to own all the
    land in the country which he had invaded?
 2.  Did the kings, lords, and fighting men contribute anything to the
    welfare of the working classes?
 3.  Would the peasants have been better off if all the fighting men,
    lords, dukes, kings, etc., had suddenly been killed?
 4.  Can you see why in some countries in Europe a man who earns his
    living is looked down upon by the nobles?
 5.  What is meant by saying that the feudal system turns society
    upside down?
 6.  Why did the farmers continue to feed the fighting men?
 7.  Explain how the use of gunpowder in warfare helped to break up the
    feudal system.
 8.  How did the rise of cities also help to do away with the feudal
    system?

CHAPTER V

  A Babel of Tongues

The great family of languages.—­Few languages in Europe not belonging to the family.—­The dying Celtic languages.—­The three branches of the Germanic family.—­The influence of the Latin tongue on the south of Europe.—­The many Slavic peoples.—­The map as divided by kings without regard to peoples and languages.—­The strange mixture in Austria-Hungary.—­The southeast of Europe.—­The Greeks and Dacians.—­The Roman colonists.—­The Slavs.—­The Volgars.—­The Skipetars.—­A hopeless mixture.

In Chapter II it was pointed out that almost all the peoples of Europe were related, in one big family of tribes.  It is likely that the forefathers of the Celts, the Latins, the Germans, the Greeks, and the Slavs belonged to one big tribe which had its home back in the highlands of Central Asia.  As a general rule, the relationship of peoples to each other can be told by the languages which they speak.  If two tribes are related because their forefathers once belonged to the same tribe, it is almost certain that they will show this relationship in their languages.

The language of England a thousand years ago was very much like the language of the Germans, for the English were originally German tribes.  Even today, it is easy to see that English is a Germanic language.  Take the English words house, father, mother, brother, water, here, is, etc.  The German words which mean the same are haus, vater, mutter, bruder, wasser, hier, ist.  It is very plain that the two languages must have come from the same source.

There are professors in European colleges who have spent their whole lives studying this relationship of languages.  These men have proved not only that almost all the languages of Europe are related, but that the language of the Persians, and that of some of the old tribes in Hindustan also belong to one great family of tongues.  Let us take the word for mother.  In one of the ancient languages of Hindustan it was matr; in the Greek, it was matar; in the Latin mater (maetar); in the Bohemian matka;