IF ONE examines the mode of dress that held 

 with certain races even in the very earliest times 

 and compares the costumes of that period with 

 the costumes of to-day, one is struck with the rela- 

 tively small departure that has been made, at least as 

 regards the general types. Not that the digressions 

 have not been great enough in some of the intervening 

 centuries between the dawn of history and the present 

 time, as during certain periods of the Middle Ages 

 when comfort and convenience were not considered 

 in the costumes worn. But this is a practical age, 

 and it was necessarily a practical age when clothing 

 was first worn, and our clothes just at present are de- 

 signed along practical lines as were those of our remote 

 ancestors. And thus we have almost completed the 

 cycle, and returned to the simple type of garment worn 

 by our most remote civilized ancestors in the cooler 

 regions. 



If we go back and examine the kind of clothing of 

 that most remote ancestor who lived near the Equator 

 before he had developed sufficiently to begin conquer- 

 ing the colder regions, we should find him first with 

 no protective clothing at all, then gradually protecting 



[58] 



