252 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



ORIGIN OF OUR RACE. 



WE are apt to dwell somewhat too complacently on the 

 good qualities of our nation, forgetting, or in some 

 cases misapprehending, the origin of the race, and the 

 presumable (even if it were not the observed) existence 

 of other qualities. It is well we should remember 

 that the English people is one of the oldest, strongest, 

 and most obstinate breeds in the world. And what is 

 the English people ? The school text-books of history 

 tell us that, in the main, it has descended from the 

 Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, who conquered the country 

 in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era. 

 A large admixture of Danes and Scandinavians must 

 be admitted, seeing that once and again the Anglo- 

 Saxons were beaten by Norwegian and Danish invaders, 

 who, like themselves, made permanent settlement in 

 the island. A strongly marked, but less widely 

 reaching element was infused into the blood of the 

 nation, according to these accounts, by the Norman 

 Conquest, bringing French and Flemish blood, as well 

 as that of the old sea warriors of the Northern Seas. 

 Some of our best modern historians take this view of 

 the nation. They show that the basis of our present 

 society is Anglo-Saxon; that our language is in the 

 main Teutonic. Norman and Norman-French have 

 produced such effects on laws and on language as 

 might be expected from the character of the Norman 



