These books may be found in almost any public library, and on the shelves there, too, you will probably find Elbert Hubbard’s “Little Journeys,” which give flashlight portraits of statesmen and soldiers and many other people, vivid and interesting, but sometimes distorted, as flashlights have a way of being.

Perhaps the librarian will permit you to look over the shelves where the biographies and works dealing with American history are kept.  Don’t be over-awed by the number of volumes, because there are scores and scores which are of no importance to you.  Theodore Parker had a wrong idea about reading, for once upon a time he undertook to read all the books in a library, beginning at the first one and proceeding along shelf after shelf.  He never finished the task, of course, because he found out, after a while, that there are many books which are not worth reading, and many more which are of value only to specialists in certain departments of knowledge.  No man can “know it all.”  But every man should know one thing well, and have a general knowledge of the rest.

For instance, none but an astronomer need know the mathematics of the science, but all of us should know the principal facts concerning the universe and the solar system, and it is a pleasure to us to recognize the different constellations as we gaze up at the heavens on a cloudless night.  None but a lawyer need spend his time reading law-books, but most of us want to know the broad principles upon which justice is administered.  No one but an economist need bother with the abstract theories of political economy, but if we are to be good citizens, we must have a knowledge of its foundations, so that we may weigh intelligently the solutions of public problems which different parties offer.

So if you are permitted to look along the shelves of the public library, you will have no concern with the great majority of the books you see there; but here and there one will catch your eye which interests you, and these are the ones for you to read.  You have no idea how the habit of right reading will grow upon you, and what a delightful and valuable habit it will prove to be.  Like any other good habit, it takes pains at first to establish, an effort of will and self-control.  But that very effort helps in the forming of character, and the habit of right reading is perhaps the best and most far-reaching in its effects that any boy or girl can form.  I hope that this little volume, and the other books which I have mentioned, will help you to form it.

* * * * *

CHAPTER II

THE BEGINNERS

Nearly five hundred years ago, there lived, in the beautiful old Italian city of Genoa, a poor wool-comber named Dominico Colombo, and about 1446, a son was born to him and to his wife, Susanna, and in due time christened Christoforo.

The world into which the child was born was very different to the one in which we live.  Europe was known, and northern Africa, and western Asia; but to the east stretched the fabulous country of the Grand Khan, Cathay, Cipango, and farthest Ind; while to the west rolled the Sea of Darkness, peopled with unimaginable terrors.