82 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



have received an ample education, and have remained for many years in civilised 

 society, they lose none of their innate love of their ow^n national usages, which 

 they have almost invariably resumed when chance has left them to choose for 

 themselves. Such has been the experience of the Spanish and Portuguese 

 missionaries in South America, and of the English and their descendants in the 

 northern portion of the continent.* 



However much the benevolent mind may regret the inaptitude of the Indian 

 for civilisation, the affirmative of this question seems to be established beyond a 

 doubt. His moral and physical nature are alike adapted to his position among 

 the races of men, and it is as reasonable to expect the one to be changed as the 

 other. The structure of his mind appears to be different from that of the white 

 man, nor can the two harmonise in their social relations except on the most 

 limited scale. Every one knows, however, that the mind expands by culture ; 

 nor can we yet tell how near the Indian would approach the Caucasian after 

 education had been bestowed on a single family through several successive 

 generations.! 



* Those distinguished travellers, Spix and Von Martins, mention that an Indian of the Coroados 

 tribe of Brazil, was brought up in the adjacent European colony, and so far educated that he was 

 ordained priest, and read mass ; " but all at once he renounced his new profession, threw aside his 

 habit, and fled naked into the woods to his old way of life.'^ — Trav. in Brazil^ II, p. 242. 



My friend Dr. Casanova, who has resided several years in Chili, informs me that instances like 

 the preceding are not unfrequent in that country, even when the Indians have been taken at a very 

 tender age, and every inducement has been held out to enlist their feelings in favor of civilised hfe. 



" At an early period of the existence of Harvard University," says Dr. Warren, " our pious 

 ancestors placed there a number of young Indians. These, after a short term of study, uniformly 

 disappeared, and I believe the name of Caleb Chees-chaumuck stands on the college catalogue, a 

 solitary instance of a native regularly graduated. — A recent example of the difficulty of reducing the 

 young savage to the habits of civilised life, is well known in this vicinity. The government of the 

 United States, after the late Indian war, placed the son of the Prophet Tecumseh at the West Point 

 establishment of cadets. The young man conformed at first with apparent ease to the strict discipline 

 of the institution; but on their visit to this place in 1821, he availed himself of an opportunity to quit 

 them, and has not, I believe, since rejoined the corps.'^* 



The Mohawk warrior Thayendanegea, more familiar by the name of Brant, received a Christian 

 education, and even joined in the Christian communion ; yet he was readily induced by the British 

 government to resume his savage propensities against the American colonies, and became one of the 

 most bloody and remorseless destroyers in the annals of Indian warfare. 



t" Variety of powers in the various races," observes Mr. Laurence, "corresponds to the differ- 



* Comparative View of the Sensorial Systems in Men and Animals, p. 95.— I may add, that Dr. Warren does not 

 suppose the Indians incapable of attaining the sciences and arts ; but that the reason of their having made so little 

 progress, is to be traced to injudicious and inadequate means of instruction. 



