9 



And thus mankind had fairly learned something from the 

 earth : how to put in the seed, and to gather the increase ; 

 how to seek the hidden metals, copper, tin, and afterwards 

 iron. But, like the country lad who thinks he can learn 

 enough in two quarters' schooling, mankind thought that 

 wheat and game and wild fruits were enough to find out, and 

 sat down for an indefinite rest. Thus, at least, did our an- 

 cestors, and why should we trouble ourselves about those of 

 other people ? We might as well confess now as later that 

 our ancestors, the Jutes, or Saxons, or Germanni, or what 

 not, were the slow boys, the dunces of the family. For years 

 and years they fought and idled until good Mother Earth 

 thought they never would learn anything. Down to the time 

 of the Christian era they had not even a history, and then 

 their history was written by two foreigners, Csesar and Taci- 

 tus. It is a wholesome discipline to our vanity to reflect that 

 when the inhabitants of Greece and Italy were at the height 

 of their civilization, our progenitors went half-naked, and 

 were scarcely more tamed than American Indians. They 

 lived on game and on the milk and cheese of their domesti- 

 cated animals. Agriculture they scorned as a trade that took 

 away a man's mind from the only noble exercises, war and 

 hunting. Were we to meet one of those Germans with his 

 rough spear and shield, an untanned deer's hide flung across 

 his shoulder, and his long red hair tied in a knot on top of his 

 head, it would stick in our throats to exclaim reverentially : 

 " Thou art my grandfather fifty-four times removed." And 

 had he been thus addressed he would not have understood. 

 His rude tongue had a small list of short, pointed words, like 

 "good," "bad," "kill," "blood." In their altered forms they 

 still exist with us, and it is a notable fact that when a man 

 is in a towering rage he betakes himself to the short, fierce 



