In many countries of the world, people can confidently tell you the meaning of their town or city, but most people who live in Manchester, Oxford or Birmingham would not be able to explain what the name of their city means. The name of every British town and city, however, has a long history.

Two thousand years ago, most people living in Britain were Celts. Even the word “Britain” is Celtic. Then the Romans arrived and built camps which became cities called “castra”. This is why there are so many place names in England which end in “-chester” or “-caster” – Manchester, for example.

After the Romans left Britain, it was attacked by tribes (部落) called the Anglo-Saxons who were from the area of Europe that is now Germany and Holland. Without the Roman army, it was impossible to protect the country from these people. The names of their villages often ended in “-ham” or “-ton”. Some got their name from the leader of the village, so Birmingham, for example, means “Beormund’s village”.

Twelve hundred years ago, the Vikings came to England from Scandinavia. They traded with the Anglo-Saxons but lived in their own villages. These often ended in “-by” or “-thorpe”. The name “Kirkby” means “a village with a church” and Scunthorpe was the village of a man called Skuma.

Finally, in 1066, England became Norman – the Normans gave us the place name “grange”, which means farm.

And how about London? Experts cannot agree. The Romans called the city Londinium, but they were not the first inhabitants (居民). People once believed that the United Kingdom’s capital city got its name from the castle of a King called Lud, but this is very unlikely. Our best guess today is that the name comes from a Celtic word meaning a fastflowing river. Like a number of British place names, its history is lost in time.

Canals have to be built on a level, otherwise the water drains out of them and the canal becomes useless. This was the great problem facing the early canal builders, and they overcame it in different ways. The early engineers like James Brindley simply followed the outlines of the countryside and kept their canals level though it often meant choosing very roundabout routes.

Later engineers, such as Thomas Telford, developed a new technique known as “cut and fill”in which they fixed a level through very accurate surveying. This allowed them to fill in the hollows on a route with the exact amount of soil they took from the higher ground. By this method, very direct routes could be taken, which cut down the time of a journey very considerably. A good example of this type of canal is Telford's Liverpool and Birmingham Junction Canal, which he began in 1826 to provide a direct route from the Midlands to the River Mersey.

It was seldom possible to build a completely level canal, of course, whichever method was used, and most canals were provided with locks in which barges were raised or lowered to new levels. If you look at the diagram on the right, you can see a barge being raised in a lock by means of water which was allowed into the lock basin, or pound, from the upper level of the canal. When a barge had to be lowered, water was allowed out of the pound into the lower level of the canal.

Why should I teach my children history? That sounds like a stupid question to even ask. But, as I hear different home schooling teachers discuss history, I get the idea that there may be different reasons for teaching history. Let me briefly explain the three good reasons for studying history and two bad reasons for studying history.

The major reason I see for studying history is that we can learn from the past. I am convinced that the world would be a much better place if more people understood the successes and failures of the past and the things that made these successes and failures. However, as the unfortunately true statement goes “the one thing we seem to learn from history is that we don’t seem to learn from history.” Perhaps at least in teaching history, to my children I can do a small part in changing this.

A second major reason for studying history is that it is hard to understand the current political climate in the absence of an understanding of its historical context. We can not even understand why we are and where we are without history, much less (更不必说) try to figure out where we are going or how we should get where we want to be.

I teach my children history, for one more reason. I purchased a set of historical audio (录音机) tapes for our children. My seven-year-old son listened to them over and over. It was my hope that he would become inspired by the accomplishments of people like the Wright brothers to accomplish things by himself. I think that it is good that we celebrate the accomplishments of people like Martin Luther King Jr. In doing so, young people are called on to stand for the principles that he stood for and accomplish what he accomplished. I also think that by studying people like Adolph Hitler, people can learn to stand against the things that he stood for.