CAPACITY FOR EDUCATION. 235 



be said that man has improved his mental faculties beyond 

 a certain point ; his greatest admirer can scarcely claim for 

 him perfection either moral or intellectual; and evidences 

 are constantly being brought before us of the decided limi- 

 tation of intellectual or moral improvement in various savage 

 races. With them the experiment has been tried over and 

 over again of c civilising ' them, and has failed. On the other 

 hand, it may be most truthfully asserted that the lower ani- 

 mals have not yet had the benefit of the persistent, patient, 

 kindly efforts of man to develope their moral or intellectual 

 nature. The degree of mental cultivation which is possible 

 in their case has not yet been properly tested or realised ; 

 their mental potentialities are therefore as yet almost un- 

 known. We have yet to determine in them, what are the 

 new powers they are capable of acquiring ; what latent facul- 

 ties may be developed ; what is the nature of certain apti- 

 tudes that they appear to possess, but of whose character 

 and modus operandi we are at present ignorant ; and what is 

 the probable limitation of their progressibility or improv- 

 ability. These form most interesting problems in the com- 

 parative psychology of the future. 



Concerning the non-improvability, the non-progressiveness, 

 of savage man, his incapacity for education or civilisation, 

 recent testimony concerning the African negro has been laid 

 before the world by Livingstone, Monteiro, Burton, Baker, 

 and other travellers. Livingstone tells us that ' a gentleman 

 of superior abilities has devoted life and fortune to elevate 

 the Johanna men, but fears that they are an unimprovable 

 race.' Monteiro ' has but a poor opinion of the capacity of 

 the African, and but little hope for his future. He believes 

 that all the efforts hitherto made to elevate and civilise him 

 have failed, and his conclusions on the subject coincide 

 essentially with those of Burton and with those of most 

 other authorities who have examined it dispassionately 

 (' Nature '). Monteiro himself says, ' I can see no hope of 

 the negro ever attaining to any considerable degree of civili- 

 sation, owing to his incapacity for spontaneously developing 

 to a higher or more perfect condition. . . . The negro must 

 ever remain as he has always been, and as he is at the present 

 day.' 



