Skills

A short review tied to the week. We learned the Church's teaching that work has dignity because the worker is made in God's image, and the virtue of working 'heartily, as for the Lord.' The Benedictine motto 'Ora et labora' — 'pray and work' — captures it: work itself, done well and offered to God, becomes a kind of prayer. Pray together briefly, offering today's schoolwork and chores to God, and ask for grace to see your daily tasks as a share in his work.

Two usage skills today. FIRST, commonly confused words (round two). Watch these pairs: AFFECT (a verb — to influence: 'Steam affected industry') vs. EFFECT (usually a noun — a result: 'the effects of industry'); THAN (comparison: 'bigger than') vs. THEN (time: 'and then'); ACCEPT (to receive) vs. EXCEPT (to leave out); LOSE (to misplace) vs. LOOSE (not tight); PRINCIPAL (chief, or a head of school) vs. PRINCIPLE (a rule or truth: 'a principle of justice'). When in doubt, recall the trick: 'A principal is your PAL'; 'effect' is usually the result (think End/Effect).

SECOND, consistent verb tense. Within a passage, do not jump between past and present without reason. WRONG: 'Napoleon RISES to power, then he CONQUERED much of Europe.' (present, then past). RIGHT: 'Napoleon ROSE to power, then he CONQUERED much of Europe.' (both past). Choose a tense for your narrative and stay in it; shift only when the timeline genuinely shifts (e.g., from past events to a present-day comment: 'Napoleon conquered Europe, and historians STILL debate his legacy').

Two maps capture the new 19th-century world. First, EUROPE after Napoleon. When Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815, the victorious powers met at the Congress of Vienna to redraw the map and restore stability. Led by Austria's clever statesman Metternich, they aimed for a 'balance of power' so no single nation could dominate again, and they restored many old monarchies. They strengthened the states around France to box it in, confirmed Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia as the great powers, and left the German and Italian lands as patchworks of small states — patchworks that nationalists would spend the rest of the century stitching into the unified nations of Germany and Italy. The Congress of Vienna kept Europe largely at peace among the great powers for nearly a century.

Second, the GROWING United States. After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the young nation stretched from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. The original states clustered on the eastern seaboard; beyond the Appalachians lay new states and territories; and the immense Louisiana Territory opened the path west. Today you will map both the rearranged Europe and the expanding America — the Old World restoring its balance, the New World racing toward the Pacific.

Finish your usage practice and your two maps. Write one sentence: how did the Congress of Vienna try to PREVENT another Napoleon, and do you think it would work forever?