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THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



aggregate, the Danes may be honourably distinguished as the best-instructed people in Europe. 

 That amounts to saying broadly that they are the best-educated people in the world. It is 

 exceedingly doubtful whether there can be found in the whole country an individual Dane, 

 man or woman, in possession of the normal faculties, who is unable to read and write. 



Another attribute of these people is their natural pride. Each man estimates his own 

 worth and his individual rights as high as those of any other member of the community. Yet, 

 though belief in the innate dignity and the natural equality of men is deeply rooted in their 

 minds, they divide society into grades and ranks. Each rank possesses rights and privileges, duties 

 and exemptions, the absolute propriety of which is not challenged by members of the other 

 classes. The first great distinction established is that between the nobles and the citizens. This 

 severance of the people into two great classes is not dependent on the possession of wealth. 

 The ownership of a million kroner would not ennoble one man; the lack of a single coin would 

 not disrank another. Xo matter how wealthy a person may be whose family has not been 

 graded with the titled class, he is regarded as distinctly inferior in rank, although the noble 

 may be as poor as the proverbial church mouse. The citizen who owns money, merchandise, 

 ships, enterprise, and skill may gain all kinds of honorary titles, from councillor-at-law to 

 Privy Councillor; his breast may be covered with all the crosses, stars, ribands, and orders of 

 the State, which, though rarely bestowed on commoners, are by no means impossible to attain: 

 even so, he must not, with all these distinctions, entertain any hope of being raised into the ranks 

 of the nobility. On the other hand, the nobility, comprising the two grades of count and baron, 

 are very numerous. In by far the greatest number of cases they may be described as pitiably 



Photo by Xeurdein Freres] 



A BELGIAN PEASANT WOMAN AND HER DRAUGHT-DOGS. 



[Pat-is. 



