This little book is designed to meet the child's natural desire to learn or hear of other people than those living in the part of the world about him. It has been thoroughly proved in our newer pedagogical practice that the child in the first school year is much interested in descriptions of the Indian and the Eskimo. Whenever descriptions of the Indian and the Eskimo have been given him, they have not only fulfilled their purpose in furnishing material for reading and the interrelation of sever

On the other side of this great round world is a country called China. When it is dark here, and we are going to sleep, the sun is just waking up the children in China and telling them it is morning. When we get up in the morning they are just bidding the sun good night. When it is light here it is dark there. So they have day when we have night. Chinese children look like little men and women, for they dress like their fathers and mothers. Boys and girls dress nearly alike. They both dress in s

How would you like to ride in a wagon drawn by a man instead of a horse? That is the way people ride in Japan. Japan is a country a long way off, near China. You would think that a man could not run very fast drawing a wagon. But in Japan some men can run as fast as horses. The wagon is like a buggy, but it has only two wheels. They call this wagon a jin-rik'i-sha. The streets in Japan have no sidewalks. The houses are only one or two stories high. They are built of wood. They have no windows or

Have you ever heard of the Arabs? They are people with brown skin and dark eyes. They live in a country called Arabia. It is a very warm country. There is never any snow in Arabia. A great part of it is covered with sand. For miles and miles you would see nothing but sand. Often the sand is so hot that you could not walk on it in your bare feet. Those great tracts of sand are called deserts. In many parts of Arabia water is very scarce. It rains very seldom, and in some places there are no river

What funny hats they wear in Korea! But, you will ask, where is Korea? It is near Japan, a country you have read of in this book. The people of Korea look a little like Chinamen. They have yellow skin and slanting eyes. Their hair is long, straight, and black, and they wear it in a very strange way. The boys and girls wear their hair down their backs in braids tied with ribbons. The men and women have their hair in little topknots that stand straight up. But I must tell you about the strange hat

How would you like to go to school at six o'clock in the morning? That is the time many children go to school in India. India is a large country in Asia. The children stay in school till nine o'clock. Then they go home for breakfast, and go back to school at ten. At two o'clock they go home for dinner. They go back again at three to stay till evening. You will think that this is a long time to be at school. In some of the schools they have no desks or chairs, but the boys and girls sit on the fl

Jingle! jingle! jingle! Where does the merry sound come from? It comes from a sleigh drawn by a reindeer. The sleigh is called a "pulk'ha." It is made of birch wood. It has no runners. It goes on a little keel like that on the bottom of a boat. The sleigh is very low. It is pointed at the front like a rowboat, and is flat at the back. There are no seats in it. The driver sits in the bottom. The reindeer draws the sleigh, and goes very fast. If the driver is not very careful the sleigh may be ups

Very strange people live in Greenland. They are called Eskimos. Greenland is a country very far north. It is always cold there. So the children need warm clothing. Their stockings are made of birdskin. The soft feathers keep their little feet very warm. Their shoes are made of sealskin. An Eskimo girl does not wear skirts. Her clothes are like her brother's. Her trousers are made of white bearskin. Her jacket is made of fur. When she goes out sleigh riding, she puts on fur mittens. Do you know w

"Your nose! your nose, sir!" This is a cry often heard in the streets of Russia. Russia is a very large country. Part of it is in Europe. A great part of it is very cold. When a person in the cold part of Russia goes out riding in winter, he has to cover his face, all except the nose and eyes. Sometimes his nose gets very cold, and would freeze if some one did not cry out, "Your nose, sir!" Why? When one's nose gets so cold, it becomes numb. It has no feeling. One would not know that it was free

Switzerland is a land of mountains and hills and valleys and beautiful lakes and streams. Every year many people go from all parts of the world to see the beautiful Swiss mountains and valleys. Sometimes large masses of snow and ice, mixed with earth, fall or slide down the sides of the mountains with a loud crash. As they slide, they tear away rocks and trees, and bury houses and villages beneath them. These masses of snow and ice are called avalanches. Snow falls all the year round on the tops

The people who live in Holland are called Dutch. There are many canals in Holland. In some of the towns they have canals instead of streets. There are bridges across the canals for people to go from one side of the street to the other. In some of the streets they have no sidewalks, and nothing between the houses but canals. In most of the houses they have no carpets. They scatter white sand on the floor every morning. They keep their houses very clean. In their kitchens they have open fireplaces

Have you ever seen a man with pictures on his body? Perhaps you have seen a sailor with a picture of a ship on his arm. In Patagonia nearly all the men and boys have pictures on their bodies. Patagonia is in the southern part of the world. It is winter in that country when it is summer here, and summer there when it is winter here. Patagonia is a very flat country. There are very few hills and no large trees or fine flowers there. But there is plenty of good grass, which sometimes grows very tal

Perhaps you have read in fairy tales of very little people called dwarfs. There are old stories which tell us about very small men who lived a long time ago in Africa. They were called pygmies. They were only one foot high, and they built their houses with eggshells. They lived in holes in the ground. They had goats and sheep which were much smaller than themselves, and they had corn which they cut down with axes, as we cut down trees. This is what we are told about them; but, of course, those s

Long, long ago, before Columbus found America, the Indians lived where we live now, There were no cities or houses then, such as we have. There were no farms or gardens or fences or roads. A large part of the country was covered with trees. The rest was great grass plains and swamps. The Indians built their houses where they pleased, beside the rivers or near the mountains or on the wide plains. What sort of houses did they live in? They lived in tents made of skins. The Indian tents were called

The Philippine Islands are far away on the other side of the earth, near China. There are a great many of these islands. Most of them are small. But some of them are large islands, and many people live on them. The largest of the islands is called Luzon. The largest town in this island is Manila. Many tribes of people live in the Philippine Islands. Each tribe has a language of its own. It is very warm in these islands. So the people need but little clothing. Their houses are not very high. The

Far away in Africa, near where the pygmies live, there is a great river called the Kongo. The land on either side of this river for many miles is called the Kongo Valley. There are hundreds of miles of great woods in this valley. These woods are not like our woods. They are very thick with vines and plants. There are also a great many kinds of trees. In the woods are birds with very bright colors. There are birds called sunbirds. Often green, yellow, scarlet, and purple feathers are found on the

Perhaps you have heard of the Amazon River. It is the largest river in the world. It is four thousand miles long, and more than fifty miles wide where it flows into the sea. This river is in Brazil. Brazil is far south of us. There are great forests along the banks of this river. They run back from the river for hundreds of miles. They are the largest forests in the world. A great many kinds of trees grow in these forests. Some of the trees are very high. Often the trees are covered with vines o