29 
The plan of Stonehenge restored, and of Stonehenge as at 
present, were shown, and a theory propounded as to the con- 
struction. After the concluding slide, which was an artistic 
picture of a homestead in the early iron age, the lecturer con- 
cluded as follows :— 
“Thus out of the mists of the past, there crawls into our 
ken a being in whom we recognise our own form and linea- 
ments. He is a comparatively weak animal among monsters 
such as now people our nightmares: but in his brain there 
lurks a cunning, and in his hands a dexterity, that are better 
than strength. His babblings, at first mere emotional and im- 
itative cries, become gradually symbolic, and shape them- 
selves into speech. He covers himself with skins, and seeks 
shelter in caves. Then he stumbles upon the secret of fire- 
making, fashions himself weapons and tools of wood and stone, 
and begins to subdue other animals to his uses. After a few 
ages, he learns to wattle a hut on a defensive mound, or to 
drive piles into shallow water and build his cabin upon them. 
The baking of clay and the smelting of metals are gradually 
mastered, and art begins in the rude patterns which he scratches 
on his pots and weapons. Meanwhile the forces of Nature 
and the mysteries of life and death have been inspiring him 
with crude fancies, which, handed on with infinite variations 
from father to son, have grown into a body of grotesque myths, 
clustering round a system of witchcraft and anti-craft, in 
which lies the germ of religion. So can romance be woven out 
of history, and the beginnings of our complex social life and 
our present-day civilisation, trace themselves down the long 
avenue of time and development. 
‘ For he who first chipped a flint was the father of all sculp- 
tors; he who first scratched a picture of man or mammoth 
was the father of all painters; he who first piled stones 
together was the father of all builders of abbeys and cathe- 
drals ; he who first bored a hole in the reindeer’s bone to make 
a whistle, or twanged a stretched sinew, was the father of all 
musicians ; he who first rhymed his simple thoughts, was the 
father of all poets; he who first strove to penetrate the 
mystery of sun and star was the father of all astronomers. 
And as the progress of the world from its past to its present 
state is like the growth of each of us from childhood to maturity, 
so must this peep into the childhood of the world be to each of 
us of greater or less interest, and the saga of humanity, even 
from paleolith to motor car, full of lessons to the educator 
and the sociologist.” 
