596 EACE AND CIVILIZATION. 



from anarchy. And if this is the case when the externals of govern- 

 ment alone are altered, how much more is it the case if we attempt to 

 uproot the whole of a civilization and social life 1 ? We may despotically 

 force a bald and senseless imitation of our way on another people, but 

 we shall only destroy their life without implanting any vitality in its 

 place. No change is legitimate or beneficial to the real character of a 

 people except what flows from conviction and the natural growth of 

 the mind. And if the imposition of a foreign system is injurious, how 

 miserable is the forcing of a system such as ours, which is the most 

 complex, unnatural, and artificial that has been known — a system 

 developed in a cold country, amid one of the hardest, least sympathetic, 

 and most self-denying and calculating of all peoples of the world. Such 

 a system, the product of such extreme conditions, we attempt to force 

 on the least developed races, and expect from them an implicit subservi- 

 ence to our illogical law and our inconsistent morality. The result is 

 death; we make a deadhouse and call it civilization. Scarcely a single 

 race can bear the contact and the burden. And then we talk compla- 

 cently about the mysterious decay of savages before white men. 



Yet some people believe that a handful of men who have been muti- 

 lated into conformity with civilized ideas are better worth having than 

 a race of sturdy, independent beings. Let us hear what becomes of 

 the unhappy products of our notions. On the Andaman Islands an 

 orphanage, or training school, was started and more than forty children 

 were reclaimed from savagery, or torn from a healthy and vigorous life. 

 These were the results: "Of all the girls two only have continued in 

 the settlement, the other survivors having long since resumed the cus- 

 toms of their jungle homes. - - - Physically speaking, training has 

 a deteriorating effect, for of all the children who have passed through 

 the orphanage probably not more than ten are alive at the present time, 

 while of those that have been married two or three only have become 

 parents, and of their children not one has been reared." 1 Such is the 

 result of our attempts on a race of low but perfect civilization, whom 

 we eradicate in trying to improve them. 



Let us now turn to our attempts on a higher race, the degenerated and 

 Arabized descendants of a great people — the Egyptians. Here there 

 is much ability to work on, and also a good standard of comfort and 

 morality, conformable to our notions. Yet the planting of another 

 civilization is scarcely to be borne by them. The Europeanized Egyp- 

 tian is in most cases the mere blotting paper of civilization, absorbing 

 what is most superficial and undesirable. The overlaying of a French 

 or English layer on a native mind produces only a hybrid intellect, 

 from which no natural growth or fertility can be expected. Far the 

 more promising intellects are those trained by intelligent native teachers, 

 where as much as can be safely assimilated has grown naturally as a 

 development of the native mind. 



Yet some will say, why not plant all we can % What can be the harm 



'E. H. Man, "On the Andaman Island/' Authrop. Jour., XIV, 265. 



