Read "Dikes and Ditches" by Oliver Optic online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"All hands, attend lecture on board ship, ahoy! " shouted the boatswain of the Josephine, as the signal to this effect appeared on the Young America.
Ordinarily this call was not an agreeable one; for the students had voted that it was "dull music" to listen to a stupid lecture on geography and history; but in the present instance it was not so. The information communicated in regard to England and Scotland was so familiar to them that it was robbed of its interest; but the school-books contained only very meagre allusions to Holland and Belgium. Many of them had read Mr. Motley's eloquent descriptions of the bravery and devotion to principle of the Dutch people in their civil wars and in their terrible conflict with the Spaniards, and they were desirous of knowing more about the country and its inhabitants.