Alexander the Great King of Macedon
By Jacob Abbott
Most prudent persons would have advised a young prince, under such circumstances, to have decided upon the latter course. But Alexander had no idea of bounding his ambition by any such limits. He resolved to spring at once ultimately into his father’s seat and not only to possess himself of the whole of the power his father had acquired but to immediately commence the most energetic and vigorous efforts for a significant extension of it. His first plan was to punish his father’s murderers. He caused the circumstances of the case to be investigated and the persons suspected of having been connected with Pausanias in the plot to be tried. Although the designs and motives of the murderers could never be entirely ascertained, still several persons were found guilty of participating in it.
They were condemned to death and publicly executed. Alexander next decided not to change his father’s appointments to the great state offices but to let all the public affairs departments go into the same hands. How sensible a line of conduct was this! In the circumstances where he was placed, most ardent and enthusiastic young men would have been pleased and vain at their elevation and replaced the old and well-tried servants of the father with personal favourites of their age, inexperienced and incompetent and as conceited as themselves. Alexander, however, made no such changes. He continued the old officers in command, endeavouring to have everything go on just as if his father had not died.
Genre: History
Read or download Book
Jacob Abbott
Jacob Abbott (November 14, 1803 – October 31, 1879) was an American writer of children’s books.
Biography
Abbott graduated from Bowdoin College in 1820. At some point during his years there, he supposedly added the second “t” to his surname to avoid being “Jacob Abbot the 3rd” (although one source notes he did not begin signing his name with two t’s until several years later). Abbott studied at Andover Theological Seminary in 1821, 1822, and 1824. He taught at Portland Academy and was a tutor at Amherst College the following year. From 1825 to 1829, Abbott was a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Amherst College; was licensed to preach by the Hampshire Association in 1826; founded the Mount Vernon School for Young Ladies in Boston in 1829, and was principal of it in 1829–1833; was pastor of Eliot Congregational Church (which he founded), at Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1834–1835; and was, with his brothers, a founder, and in 1843–1851 a principal of Abbott’s Institute, and in 1845–1848 of the Mount Vernon School for Boys, in New York City.
He was a prolific author, writing juvenile fiction, brief histories, biographies, religious books for the general reader, and a few works in popular science. He wrote 180 books and was a coauthor or editor of 31 more. He died in Farmington, Maine, where he had spent part of his time after 1839 and where his brother, Samuel Phillips Abbott, founded the Abbott School. His Rollo Books, such as Rollo at Play, Rollo in Europe, etc., are the best known of his writings, having as their chief characters a representative boy and his associates. In them, Abbott did for one or two generations of young American readers a service not unlike that performed earlier, in England and America, by the authors of Evenings at Home, The History of Sandford and Merton, and The Parent’s Assistant. To follow up on his Rollo books, he wrote about Uncle George, who used him to teach young readers about ethics, geography, history, and science. He also wrote 22 volumes of biographical histories and a 10-volume set titled The Franconia Stories.
Jacob Abbott
