PROBLEMS OF COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION 411 



Western civilization depends closely upon social structure, so - 

 though in a much larger degree as social cohesion is much stronger 

 in the lower strata of mankind - - the civilization of a Hindu, or a 

 Malay, or a Hausa, depends not upon what we can teach him indi- 

 vidually, but how we can affect the structural character of the society 

 to which he belongs. To modify the direction of social evolution by 

 slow and natural methods, that is the most ambitious program we 

 can in reason set for ourselves; to take a Tagolog and make of him 

 an American is the naive impulse of inexperience. For though iso- 

 lated individuals may adopt the best thought of a higher civilization, 

 - we need but think of the negro valedictorians in our universities 

 and of men like the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, --they cannot hold 

 out against the social influences of their own race nor can they im- 

 part to it their acquired civilization. Societies must be viewed as 

 a whole, united by the strong bonds of tradition and of lasting and 

 intimate relations among the members. There is a life purpose, 

 unconscious though it be, even in the lowest forms of civilization. 

 This we cannot simply suppress by rough-shod measures, and substi- 

 tute for it point blank and indiscriminately the purposes and 

 methods of our own civilization. Indeed, we can do no more than, 

 by gradually substituting new economic forces and new social mo- 

 tives, to foster a development in the general direction of our own 

 civilization. 



Bearing in mind constantly the path which our own social evolu- 

 tion has traveled, and analyzing the conditions of its development 

 and progress, we shall give attention, first of all, to the creation of a 

 sound economic basis for social life in the colonies. The develop- 

 ment of a productive, in place of a purely consumptive, economy, 

 and an assurance of the increasing mobility of all factors in economic 

 life, are the first desiderata. All the higher elements of civilization 

 can be obtained only as the fruit of a wise and perfectly adjusted 

 economic system. The art of Florence arose after medieval human- 

 ity had served a long and laborious apprenticeship in industrial life, 

 and the dramas of Shakespeare could not have been written had the 

 nation been living merely from hand to mouth. The most element- 

 ary purpose of a civilized colonial policy would therefore seem to be 

 the prevention of the reckless and destructive use of the natural 

 wealth in forests and mines for mere private profit, and the encour- 

 agement of settled agricultural and industrial pursuits. The greatest 

 among the American negroes clearly perceives and founds his life- 

 work upon the fact that a race cannot be given a self-sufficing position 

 in civilized life unless it has a sound economic organization, and 

 unless it has trained itself to a productive industry. 



Among the essential duties of a civilized state there is none more 

 important than the guaranty to every individual under its rule of 



