236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



European or in New England fashion." This is only one phase of a 

 wide-spread and mischievous tendency to impose the particular habits 

 of the new teachers, as being an essential element in race-development, 

 without regard to the natural leanings of the people in question. 

 Many of our customs are purely arbitrary, and it is worse than folly to 

 attempt to impose them upon a new-found race. The civilization of 

 New England is undoubtedly an admirable one, but why insist on 

 making New - Englanders out of Hottentots? Educate tliera, Chris- 

 tianize them, but do not oblige them to conform to customs which are 

 the accident of another climate and another race. In nothing is this 

 disposition to enforce conformity with an arbitrary standard more in- 

 jurious and yet more absurd than in the matter of clothes. It would 

 be hard to maintain that the frock-coat or the linen shirt-front of the 

 present representatives of the Anglo-Saxon race are either graceful in 

 the abstract or especially adapted to the use and comfort even of their 

 wearers. Why, then, impose them upon the Sandwich-Islander, or why 

 make them a test of the civilization of the American Indian, by classify- 

 ing the tribes into the savages and those that wear " citizens' clothes " ? 

 We affirm with all seriousness that there is no reason why the inhabit- 

 ant of the tropics should be expected to wear clothing in form or ma- 

 terial like what happens to be in vogue among the dwellers in the 

 temperate zone on the other side of the globe. The grotesque combi- 

 nations in the habiliments of the Hawaiians, as described by Mark 

 Twain, are as painful to the reason as they are ludicrous to the imagi- 

 nation. Why, for example, need the good missionary women have 

 exerted themselves to make a broadcloth coat for the king of the isl- 

 ands ? It and what it represented have been a fruitful source of dis- 

 ease and death to the simple people of that balmy summer clime. 



But we may go a step further, and declare that even if a wise lib- 

 erality allows the savage to dress somewhat in accordance with the 

 requirements of his climate and his pursuits, there yet remains a 

 certain conflict between the minimum demands of civilization in this 

 respect and his bodily welfare, at least until he and his descendants be- 

 come educated into a tolerance of the new requirement, dress. Consider 

 that we are supposing the case of a dweller in the tropics, where, as a 

 matter of protection, clothing is not required. The temperature is for 

 the most part balmy, and, when it does grow colder, that wonderful 

 mechanism whereby the body is protected from the changes in the 

 surrounding medium does its perfect work. The skin, shiny, tough, 

 and hardy, performs its function well, and " catching cold " is a rare 

 thing. The man, as an animal, has no more need of clothing than the 

 beasts around him. But, when he becomes civilized, this must aU 

 change. His smooth, dark skin must be covered. Decency and the 

 laws of society require it. It is inevitable, so soon as he begins to be 

 anything more than an animal. What happens ? That skin, shut in 

 from the sun and air, loses its quick power of accommodation. Its 



