How did the book World History inspire Helen?

Helen loved studying history.  She received the book World History by William Swinton as a birthday gift when she turned thirteen.  She described this it as the "first book that gave [her] any real sense of the value of history."  The book gave Helen a new perspective on the world.  It was through reading it that she began to appreciate and understand history.  The book itself told the story of the history of civilization.  Helen loved how the book told a story of progress.  She appreciated how it showed that mistakes made by past civilizations taught later ones.  These later civilizations learned from the previous mistakes to make the world a better place.  Civilization rose and fell and rose again, and Helen loved reading about this movement of history.  She described what she read in the book, saying that "by liberty, tolerance and education the great and the wise have opened the way for the salvation of the whole world."