REVIEW BY DATES.

Continue the CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD from 1860 to 1877, presenting under each year its principal events. For the years of the war, select the most important battles from the Abstract on pages 290, 291, and 292. For the subsequent years, glean from the text the events that seem to be of most

moment.

WE may here with profit take a brief view of the recent history of Mexico and Canada, the nearest neighbors of the United States.

MEXICO. After the war with the United States, a series of revolutions took place in Mexico, till in 1858 Juarez (hoo-ah'reth) established himself as president. His administration became popular, by reason of his instituting various reforms. The inability of the government, however, to meet the claims of France for damages alleged to have been sustained by French subjects resident in the country, afforded the Emperor Napoleon III. a pretext for sending over an army to enforce his demands, which he did in 1863. Part of the country was overrun, the capital was seized, and the government overthrown. Mexico was constituted an empire, and the Archduke Maximilian, brother of the emperor of Austria, was placed at its head.

The United States refused to acknowledge Maximilian, and denied the right of any European power to establish a monarchy in North America. In compliance with its remonstrances, the French army was withdrawn in 1867. Maximilian, unable to sustain himself, was captured and shot, and the republic was restored. Latterly, the country has been comparatively peaceful. Provision has been made for public education, and the condition of Mexico has improved, though the raids of border-thieves into Texas have given great dissatisfaction to the United States.

CANADA.-The British possessions north of the United States are now, with the exception of Newfoundland, all united in what is known as "The Dominion of Canada." The Dominion consists of seven provinces-Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island-together with Hudson Bay Territory, which was purchased of the Hudson Bay Company and annexed. The affairs of each province are managed by its own legislature, while those of the whole are regulated by a parliament in which all are represented, a governor-general being the executive head. This union has consolidated the strength of the colonies, and led to the undertaking of important internal improvements.

PROGRESS OF THE COUNTRY.

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CONCLUSION.

WE have thus traced the history of our country from feeble beginnings, through its early struggles and later triumphs, till we have seen it become one of the great powers of the earth. Our Federal Republic now (1877) consists of thirty-eight states and ten territories, besides the District of Columbia, a tract of sixty-four square miles, in which the national capital is situated.

Within ninety years our population has increased from four to forty-five millions. Nearly eighty thousand miles of railroad, and more than that number of telegraph-line, traverse the land in all directions and connect its principal cities. The West, rich in the precious metals, richer still in its vast fields of the useful minerals, richest of all in its agricultural resources, though populated in parts with unprecedented rapidity, is still in its infancy; its greatness, when it is fully developed, who can estimate?

The ingenuity of the people of the United States has passed into a proverb. To them are due many of the inventions which have contributed most to the comfort and improvement of the race. Not to mention other triumphs of their manufacturing industry, their printing-presses and sewing-machines, their safes and fire-engines, their lifeboats and agricultural implements, have no equals elsewhere. The general diffusion of intelligence, and the comfortable condition of the working-classes, are specially noticeable; they are attributable, in a great measure, to the glorious system of common-school education which is the pride of our country.

It is not long since it was asked, "Who reads an American book?" Now the question is, who does not cherish as household words the names of our charming fiction-writers,

scientists, as the names of Simms and Kennedy, Poe and Maury, abundantly testify. In magazines and school-books especially, the United States has nothing to fear from a comparison with the most cultivated of the older nations.

The record of our country thus far has been honorable and brilliant. Continuing in such a career, with the safeguards of education thrown around its citizens, may it prove to the world, despite the fate of republics heretofore, that there is no reason why free institutions may not be eternal!

THE END.

TABLE OF THE SEVERAL STATES,

SHOWING THE FIRST SETTLEMENT, DATE OF ADMISSION, AREA, POPULATION, AND NUMBER OF ELECTORAL VOTES.

[If the suggestions made at the ends of the Chapters have been followed, the student will have a CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD of the principal events in American his tory, prepared by himself. We shall here present only a few leading dates, which should be remembered as land-marks.]

Discovery of America by Columbus, 1492.

First permanent English settlement, at Jamestown, 1607.

Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, 1620.

Washington born, 1732.

French and Indian War, 1754-1763.

Stamp Act in force, 1765-1766.

Revolutionary War, 1775-1783.

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

Government organized under the Constitution, 1789.

Washington City made the capital, 1800.

Louisiana purchased from France, 1803.

War with Great Britain, 1812-1815.

Florida ceded to the United States by Spain, 1819.

Mexican War, 1846-1848.

California obtained by treaty, 1848.

The Civil War, 1861-1865.

Emancipation Proclamation, 1863.

Slavery abolished in the United States, 1865.