MY DEAR
        CHILDREN,

    Some of you
          have heard already
               of the old Greeks;
        and all of you,
           as you grow up,
         will hear more
               and more of them.

    Those of you
         who are boys will,
           perhaps,
         spend a great deal
               of time
             in reading Greek books;
        and the girls,
           though they
            may not learn Greek,
         will be sure
              to come
                   across a great many stories
                  taken from Greek history,
           and to see,
         I may say every day,
            things which
             we should not have had
               if it
                had not
                    been for these old Greeks.

    You can hardly
          find a well-written book
        which has not
               in it Greek names,
           and words,
         and proverbs;
        you cannot
              walk through a great town
             without passing Greek buildings;
        you cannot go
               into a well-furnished room
             without seeing Greek statues
                   and ornaments,
           even Greek patterns of furniture
               and paper;
        so strangely
              have these old Greeks
                  left their mark
                       behind them
                     upon this modern world
             in which we now live.

    And as you grow up,
           and read more and more,
         you will find
             that we
                  owe to
                       these old Greeks
                     the beginners of
                       all our mathematics
                     and geometry -
                 that is,
           the science
               and knowledge of numbers,
         and of
               the shapes of things,
           and of the forces
              which make things move
                   and stand
                 at rest;
        and the beginnings
               of our geography
             and astronomy;
        and of our laws,
           and freedom,
          and politics - that is,
           the science of
             how to rule a country,
       and make it peaceful
              and strong.

    And we owe to them,
           too,
          the beginning
               of our logic -
             that is,
           the study of words
               and of reasoning;
        and of our metaphysics -
             that is,
           the study
            of our own thoughts
                    and souls.

    And last of all,
           they made
               their language so beautiful
             that foreigners
                used to take to it
                      instead of their own;
        and at last Greek
            became the common language
                   of educated
                 people all
                       over the old world,
           from Persia and Egypt
             even to Spain and Britain.

    And therefore it was
         that the New Testament
            was written in Greek,
           that it
            might be read and
                  understood by
                       all the nations
                           of the Roman empire;
        so that,
           next to the Jews,
         and the Bible
              which the Jews
                  handed down to us,
           we owe more
               to these old Greeks
             than to
                   any people upon earth.

    Now you
        must remember
               one thing - that
         'Greeks'
            was not their real name.

    They called themselves always
         'Hellens,'
            but the Romans miscalled
               them Greeks;
        and we have taken
             that wrong name
                   from the Romans - it
                would take a long time
                      to tell you why.

    They were
          made up of many tribes
               and many small separate states;
        and when you
              hear in this book
                   of Minuai,
            and Athenians,
         and other such names,
           you must remember
             that they
                were all different tribes
                       and peoples
                           of the
                         one great Hellen race,
         who lived in
             what we now call Greece,
           in the islands
               of the Archipelago,
         and along the coast
               of Asia Minor
         (Ionia,
           as they call it),
          from the Hellespont to Rhodes,
           and had afterwards colonies
               and cities
             in Sicily,
         and South Italy
           (which was called Great Greece),
          and along the shores
               of the Black Sea
             at Sinope,
               and Kertch,
             and at Sevastopol.

    And after that,
           again,
         they spread
               under Alexander the Great,
           and conquered Egypt,
         and Syria,
           and Persia,
         and the whole East.

    But that
        was many hundred years
              after my stories;
        for then
            there were no Greeks
                   on the Black Sea shores,
           nor in Sicily,
          or Italy,
           or anywhere
             but in Greece
                   and in Ionia.