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disappear. And although these peoples did sometimes 
get called English, I think we shall see that this is no good 
reason why we should do so. If now for the first time we 
were writing an account of our history and reviewing the 
past of our language, it might perhaps be better to begin by 
calling these peoples the English. But unfortunately we 
cannot do this. 
The second objection advanced against the term is that it 
is a misleading one and that it obscures the fact that the 
great parent stocks of the English people were these North 
German tribes. But does it? Who is misled.? That the 
English of to-day are a mixed race, but mainly springing 
from those who used to be called the Anglo-Saxons, is about 
as well recognized a fact and as widely known a fact as any 
historical fact can be. I was greatly astonished to find that 
Mr. E. A. Freeman, speakiog in Manchester at the prize-giving 
of the Mechanics’ Institutes, uttered words of wholesale 
condemnation of school histories as usually misstating that 
Julius Caesar encountered English in Britain and that he 
fought with our ancestors. It is partly true that he did 
fight with our ancestors, but I venture to say that not one 
of the students he addressed ever saw either this or the other 
statement in his school-books put as Mr. Freeman put it. 
Out of curiosity, I examined twenty-three school histories, 
price one penny upwards, and in every one the real truth was 
as correctly stated as Mr. Freeman could state it. In particu- 
lar, I consulted two friends of my early boyhood — “ Pleasant 
Pages” and Charles Dickens’s Child’s History of England. 
The only difference between them and Mr. Freeman was 
that they put the matter as an ordinary well-known part of 
history never doubted by anybody, instead of the recent and 
important discovery of a new historical school. 
Incidentally, I may remind you that the word “ Anglo- 
Saxon” is a very old one. It is not certain whether the first 
kingly title implying a common rule over the invaders was 
