"These Books about men are also the most important to us,because we ourselves are human beings,and may learn from such Books what we ought to think and to do and to try to be.Some of them describe what sort of people have lived in old times and in other countries.By reading them,we know what is the difference between ourselves in England now,and the famous nations which lived in former days.Such were the Egyptians who built the Pyramids,which are the greatest heaps of stone upon the face of the earth:and the Babylonians,who had a city with huge walls,built of bricks,having writing on them that no one in our time has been able to make out.There were also the Jews,who were the only ancient people that knew how wonderful and how good God is:and the Greeks,who were the wisest of all in thinking about men's lives and hearts,and who knew best how to make fine statues and buildings,and to write wise books.By Books also we may learn what sort of people the old Romans were,whose chief city was Rome,where I am now;and how brave and skilful they were in war;and how well they could govern and teach many nations which they had conquered.It is from Books,too,that you must learn what kind of men were our Ancestors in the Northern part of Europe,who belonged to the tribes that did the most towards pulling down the power of the Romans:and you will see in the same way how Christianity was sent among them by God,to make them wiser and more peaceful,and more noble in their minds;and how all the nations that now are in Europe,and especially the Italians and the Germans,and the French and the English,came to be what they now are.--It is well worth knowing (and it can be known only by reading)how the Germans found out the Printing of Books,and what great changes this has made in the world.
And everybody in England ought to try to understand how the English came to have their Parliaments and Laws;and to have fleets that sail over all seas of the world.