NETHERLANDS 



4123 



NETHERLANDS 



four Leyden, Utrecht, Groningen and Am- 

 sterdam were established in the Middle Ages. 

 There is also a state agricultural school, which 

 teaches forestry as well as farming. 



Language and Culture. Most of the Nether- 

 landers speak the tongue we know as Dutch, 

 which is a near relative of Plattdcutsch, or Low 

 German. Flemish, the language of Limburg 

 and Brabant, is not very different. Each prov- 

 ince in the whole land is said to have a dis- 

 tinct accent or dialect. Many of the Dutch 

 words bear a close resemblance to those of our 

 own tongue, and a traveler in the country who 

 knows both English and German has little dif- 

 ficulty in understanding the signs on shops or 

 wagons. One striking peculiarity of Dutch 



1855), the first Dutchman to write a standard 

 history of his own land. 



National fame in music and in art have not 

 accompanied each other in Holland, as they do 

 in most countries. Though to-day Amsterdam 

 has, under Mengelberg, one of the best known 

 philharmonic orchestras in Europe, the Dutch 

 are not a musical people, and have produced 

 no composers. But the Netherlands has given 

 the world some of its greatest painters Rem- 

 brandt, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, van der Meer 

 or Vermeer of Delft and many others (for 

 more about the art of Holland, see PAINTING). 

 In another field of art the nation to-day pos- 

 sesses one who is considered by many to be 

 without an equal Louis Raemakers, the car- 



*<K 



BBl)))|i/V \Jf\ I 17 1 



Ml 



FRANCE 



LOCATION MAP COMPARATIVE AREAS 



lands Is one of the smallest anil <?) nf tin- In si iruvrriu-d countries in the world. Its 

 Is only 12,648 square miles, and is therefore only about half that of tin- small American state of 

 West Virginia. The province of Quebec, in the Dominion of Canada, is more than fifty times as large. 



spelling appear- in tin- word ij*. which is the 

 exact equivalent in meaning and sound of the 

 German cis and the English ice. 

 Dutch literature is little known outside its 

 nd, and educated Netherlanders read 

 many books in English, French and German. 

 Erasmus the scholar, Spinoza the philosopher 

 or de Groot, tin- father of inter- 

 national law, were among tin world's greatest 

 but hkr all men of their time, they wrote 

 in I iong the leading writers in the 



Diltrh 1 muuaL'e are .Ioo>t van deli Yondel 



(1587-1679), a dramatist; Jakob Cats (1577- 

 1660). and Will, -u I'.ilderdijk (1756-1831), 



ts; II. ndnk Tollrm (1780-1856)-, who WI 



ISQ2- 



1868) tl.e Waltrr Scott of h.s country; NiU- 

 laax 1S14-1903), author of descri) 



ches of his people; Louis Coupenis (born 

 1863), a novdifit; and IV-trus J. Blok (born 



toonist whose stirring pictorial interpretations 

 of events in the War of the Nations created 

 new standards for journalistic drawing. 



The Country. No name in all geography is 

 better suited to its purpose than Netherlands, 

 for it exactly describes the country which bears 

 it Holland, too, is appropriate, if. as many 

 think, it originally meant Hollow-land. Part 

 of the little kingdom is below the sea, which i- 

 back by the famous dikes (dijkcn), and 

 the mean lev. 1 of tin' whole country is only 

 about thirty fert higher. But for Limburg. 

 in winch the land rises in one pla- iglit 



of over 1,000 feet, the mean level would be 



low. T than it 18. 



Iron onre called ih.- N.-th Hands the 

 alluvium of TV. nrh riven T 

 the Rhine, ilir M '1 Maas) and 



ill.- Scheldt, have built up a large part of Hie 

 kingdom. Other parts have been i 



