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Show JAMESTOWJN. Three hundred years to a day from the date when the Susan Constant the Godspeed and the Discovery dropped anchor in Virginia waters the Jamestown Exposition was opened op-ened by the President of the United States. It is an intcrestiifg fact that only a few weeks before the opening, the records of the Virginia colonists came from the hands of the public printer in Washington. Corresponding close ly, as they do, with the diary of Governor Gov-ernor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony, Col-ony, which was printed some years ago by the State of Massachusetts, these wonderfully interesting and enlightening en-lightening records of the men of Vir ginia have heretofore been unavailable unavail-able to the general reader. This may account in part for the considerable misconception and misrepresentation mis-representation which have prevailed Mr. Thomas Nelson Page has called attention to the fact that with the exception ex-ception of the story of Capt. John Smith and Pocahontas, and the blemishes blem-ishes on the little colony, history has not much to say about it. Yet no settlement in America was inspired by more broadly patriotic motives than Jamestown, none contained braver or more self-sacrificing men and none has a record of greater suffering, suf-fering, danger and privation, or a larger loss of life. The Plymouth Colony sought a ' new world in order to secure religious liberty for themselves and their descendants. de-scendants. The Virginia settlers sought to hold a continent for England Eng-land ami Anglo-Saxon civilization and they held it. To them more than to any other men is due the fact that the United States to-day is the outgrowth out-growth of British rather than Spanish Span-ish ideals and forms of government. The beautiful and picturesque fair now open in Virginia is a fitting commemoration com-memoration of an event important not merely in the history of the nation, na-tion, or the continent, but in the progress pro-gress and civilization of the world Youth's Companion. I . o 1 |