THE 



POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



LESSONS IN ETHNOLOGY. I. 



INTRODUCTION TRANSMISSION OF QUALITIES, KTO. 



TH term Ethnology is derived from two Greek words, i6t>ot 

 1 irth-nos), a body of men, a nation, caste, or race; and \6yoi 

 (log-os), a word, discourse, etc. It is the science which treats of 

 the races of mankind. It was formerly called Ethnography, 

 the second part of this word being taken from ypd<pu (graph-o), 

 I engrave, I write. Ethnography then was a writing about, or a 

 description of, the races of the world. As, however, inquiries 

 on this subject have of late taken a wider range, and assumed 

 a more scientific aspect it being held needful now not merely 

 to describe the characteristics of a race, but also to attempt to 

 discover how those characteristics arose Ethnology, the latter 

 part of which is derived from the same root as the word logic, 

 has become the more appropriate term. A cognate science ia 

 Anthropology, and it is necessary to distinguish between the 

 two. According to Dr. Latham, anthropology specially investi- 

 gates the relation in which man stands to the inferior animals ; 

 but this is too limited a view. For what is the etymological 

 construction of the word anthropology ? It is made up of 

 HvBpuwos (an-thro-pos), man, and \6yos, meaning (as already 

 explained) discourse. Anthropology, then, is a discourse about 

 man, and its cultivators profess " to study man in all his leading 

 aspects, physical, mental, and historical, to investigate the 

 laws of his origin and progress, to ascertain his place in 

 nature, and his relation to the inferior forms of life." Such, 

 at least, is the comprehensive programme of the Anthropo- 

 logical Society of London, which, founded in 1863, succeeded, 

 within a short space of time after its foundation, in battling its 

 way into public notice. Ethnology would, then, be one depart- 

 ment of the great science of anthropology, and this we deem 

 the correct view. 



Having now traced out the limits of the field, it is needful 

 next to enter on its exploration. No two members of the same 

 family come into the world in all respects alike, and the original 

 i inferences grow more, instead of less manifest, as the young 

 V eople advance to maturity. When at length they go forth 

 to push their way in the world, perhaps one enters the Church, 

 another the army, and a third the navy ; while a fourth goes 

 out to India, returning home only in the evening of his days. 

 To the original differences have now been superadded others 

 resulting from diversity of climate, food, habitation, profession. 

 and mental and moral habits. The modifications of colour and 

 general appearance produced by the tropical climate on that 

 member of the family who spent the best years of his life in 

 India will be specially apparent. Every one knows that, in all 

 likelihood, he will be darker than his compeers. As colour is 

 one of the points on which the various races of men depart 

 widely from each other, it should be noted how great are the 

 alterations in this respect which can be effected by ordinary 

 influences, even within the first generation. A traveller, speak- 

 ing from observation, says that a European acquires a tawny 

 skin by residing for some time in Egypt, and a bronzed one 

 by living in Abyssinia ; he becomes pallid on the Arabian coast, 

 of an unhealthy white in Syria, cloar brown in the deserts of 

 Arabia, and ruddy in the Syrian mountains. Nay, more, his 

 hair becomes darker, acquires a softer textnre, and shows a 

 tendency to curl. It will be perceived that the changes in the 

 colour and in the textnre of the hair constitute an approach, 

 however faint, to a race of mankind more remote than any 

 other from the European. 



A second and important question now arises. Are slight 

 differences of organisation among members of a family, either 

 appearing by some occult law at birth, or produced at a sub- 

 sequent period by various natural causes, transmitted from one 



131-N.E. 



generation to another? The answer must be that they are no, 

 though not uniformly, yet at least occasionally. In various 

 works, among which we would instance one Dr. Theodor 

 Waitz'a excellent "Introduction to Anthropology," edited in 

 English by J. F. Collingwood, Esq., Hon. Secretary of the 

 Anthropological Society much important evidence ia adduced 

 with regard to the descent of natural or acquired peculiarities 

 to the second, if not to remoter generations. For instance, an 

 officer whose little finger had accidentally been cut across, and 

 had in consequence become crooked, transmitted the same 

 defect to his offspring. Another officer, wounded at the battle 

 of Eylau, had his scar reproduced on the foreheads of hi* 

 children. When the newborn infants of Europeans are com- 

 pared with those of savage nations, the shape of the toes in 

 the former is found to have been modified by the fact that 

 their parents were in the habit of wearing shoes. It has often 

 been observed that the Hapsburg, or Austrian royal family, 

 for some generations back, have had a thick upper lip, which 

 first appeared after an ancestor of theirs had intermarried with 

 the Polish family of Jagellon. A gentleman communicates the 

 information that he has himself witnessed a single white lock 

 of hair in two successive generations of a family, which family 

 moreover bore a surname that may possibly have been first 

 suggested by the phenomenon now described. Observations 

 analogous to those which have just been recorded have been 

 made also in the case of the lower animals. We have space 

 for only two. In Carolina, a dog which had accidentally lost 

 its tail transmitted the defect to its descendant? for three 

 or four generations. A sheep in Massachusetts, with a long 

 body and short legs, in 1791 became the progenitor of an 

 apparently permanent breed, possessing the same charac- 

 teristics. This now occurs in various parts of North America, 

 is called the otter sheep, and is prized by farmers, as its short 

 limbs prevent its being able to leap over the fences. It is 

 thus abundantly evident that physical peculiarities are trans- 

 missible both in the case of man and of the lower animals. 

 So are instincts, temper, etc., in animals, and mental and moral 

 qualities in man. A vicious horse generally breeds another 

 of the same kind ; a docile one similarly repeats itself. Children 

 among ourselves generally take after their parents. True, 

 numerous instances have occurred in which a wise man has 

 begotten a fool, or the son of a poet has been prosaic to the 

 last degree, or the first-born of an eminent naturalist has cared 

 nothing for his distinguished father's pursuits. But it is not 

 by any means always so ; witness, for example, the Hookers, 

 father and son, both of the highest eminence in botany. The 

 two sets of facts may be harmonised by remembering that the 

 sons who departed so widely from their fathers' mental charac- 

 teristics, may in this respect have closely resembled their 

 mothers. In many cases the intellect of an able man is in- 

 herited from his mother, so much so, that, as has been pointed 

 out, the popular phrase is not father- but mother-wit. There 

 is, then, nothing in what has now been stated to overthrow 

 the observation that mental and moral qualities can be trans- 

 mitted from parents to children. Nay, more ; when mothers 

 have had to pass through scenes of terror like some of those 

 which arose in connection with the first French revolution the 

 fright in which they have been has in some cases told on the in- 

 tellect of any children to whom they may have shortly afterwards 

 given birth ; thus new mental types may be created by passing 

 event'. So, also, training laboriously imparted to dogs, tends 

 to become to them a second nature, and more or less to modify 

 the instincts of their offspring; there being in this, as in 

 similar cases, a certain analogy between man and the inferior 

 animals. With such a law of variability operating during 

 thousands of years, it was inevitable that diverse races should 



