Chaptee I 



A MILLION YEARS OF CHILDHOOD 



What is civilization ? It is a sure sign of modern 

 progress, at least in sentiment, that this question now 

 rings out, defiantly, the moment we begin to speak or 

 write on such a subject. No earlier age in history 

 ever asked the question, or would have tolerated the 

 suspicion that it was not civilized. Yet very many 

 ask themselves to-day whether the historian of the 

 future, turning over the blood-stained pages of the 

 chronicle of the twentieth century, gazing with pained 

 astonishment at pictures of the conditions in which 

 the majority of the race still lived in the year 1921, 

 will call us civilized. 



We ought, therefore, to begin such a study as this 

 with a precise definition of civilization. But a 

 moment's reflection will show the reader that this 

 is impossible. Civilization is not a fixed standard of 

 institutions, or of mental and moral cultivation. It 

 is a relative term. When the ancient Greeks called 

 all other peoples " barbarians," the word literally 

 meant "stammerers" or "stutterers," and was not 

 quite so arrogant as is generally assumed. But the 

 Greeks saw that their own political institutions, their 

 forms of democratic citizenship, were far superior to 

 those of the other peoples of the world, and they 

 regarded themselves as — to use the modern word — 

 " civilized " ; that is to say, having a relatively high 

 standard of citizenship. 



