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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 1908)
IS ' Jf.k' MEASURE PSkwM -IZED MAN " ;7T WOULD 'w ...... 1W t. if! . 1 IWV HOa, -..(. ' w;:. .; :..-.:;..-..' , , ... H W. - - mv ll x 'T i . r L j . .-"Twer' . . ' . - &", '. ;s- it v,, if III the average for ,' and th.v have sliown an amazing fmilily I I I W r JLdnX " 'V ill for progress. There are many talented v I Jo ' w v ' - 1 musicians among them. o that the Car- j- , & -r yit VtJ . 1 lislc Indian schoo! band is famous a ISU"iri itV, - 'V' J over the country. Several Indians have f& fZ W " S ' ' f (tone to Congress, and have taken places g Iflf '" 3 4 ' - - A- ' I 1 of .nnucnee in other warns. Vi ' , , VHf! V J MENT SHOWS THAT UNCIVIL -' IF GIVEN THE , OPPOi2TUNIrr JBQUiL HIS WSTS tS. sis V Zy- J r i mm-: IE savages of the world round ie- fenders recently intone the foremost scientific, men of Europe. Here noted scholars presented argu ments to prove that In many cases the aborigines of the world were not so far behind elvlllred man In respect to natural brain power as the world has been wont to believe. No less a savant than Principal Jev or.s. -of the Durham University, speaking to the lower culture section of the His tory of Religions Congress. In London advanced the remarkable proposition that to exchange the environment of the s.iv ag and the civilized man Of Europe, mould demonstrate in a few generations that the former would accustom his ways himself to civilization Just as certainly as the white man. surrounded only by wild and savage, conditions, would lapse Into the Ways of the aborigine. Then came a sertts of astonishing propositions. I.. T. Hobhouse. Professor of Sociology at lxndon University, compared the skull of the Polynesian with that df an Kng lishman. He admitted that the brain reservoir of the savage was just as sreat as that of the Briton, and he further con ceded that the natural life of the savaga spared him many of the weakening im pulses that result from the rices -of the man of civilization. The only cause of the undoubted mental superiority of the Englishman, he con eluded, was because the latter profited by the intellectual bequests of previous generations, while the Polynesian malned at the same mental level as his remote ancestors. This was quite an admission for an Englishman to make, but It was east In the shade by the retort of Profcssjr Plechmann. a German savant, who told how he had been studying the arts of hjpnotism and suggestion, which are now takina- a more potent place In the medical beliefs of the modern world The professor told how he had been astounded to find that the savages of many countries had. through their medl cine men. long exercised these aria of Influence and suggestion that have the effect of curing a person of ills through the brain rather than through the body. Another expert sneered at the self superior pose of the white man. and re called how in England until the eight ecnth century there was a belief magic, and that not much more than a century and a half ago persons suspect ed of witchcraft were burned In many civilized countries. He argued that considering the supe rior advantages of the white man's countries, the progress made was far from being great enough in comparison to pennit the patronizing of the savage in all parts of the world. But the most wonderful of all the arguments for the possibilities of the savage were purely mathematical. They represented the researches of Professor Sol las. a noted German scholar. He adduces the law of dimensions to show that there is no reason why the savage should not some day be the equal of his white brother, provided that brain capacity counts. He even demonstrated that no im measurable chasm exists between pre historic man and the cultivated citizen of today. Professor Sollas made an exhaustive series of measurements. The results lie attained surprised him. for he ex reeled to find the skull of the modern man of education would demonstrate beyond cavil that he enjoyed advan tages with which the savage could nev er hope to catch up. What he did find was exactly the reverse. He found that the men of the so called Neanderthal race and the Poly nesian or Australian type of blacks, who really represent the lowest type of man. are in reality of the same family. - The brain size in the two is virtually equal. In the earlier period of the paleo lithic age. Professor Sollas deduces that men who then inhabited Europe had developed an average skull capac ity of ? cut.rc inches. At the end of the paleolithic period men had devel oped their brain accommodation to 4z cubic inches, which Is a size that is only a shade below today. This rapidity in cerebral development In that one period leads Professor Sol las to believe that there must havo been a considerable variation! in the size of the prehistoric brain. He esti mates that about 18 cubic inches each way. This would give those early races skulls with a minimum of 50 cubic inches and a maximum of 94 cubic Inches. The least intelligent men of that day were about 50 per cent as well gifted in mental possibilities as the average man of today, while those who had attained the limit of development would have compared favorably in brain capacity with the average man of today. Assuming that the newly discovered pithecanthropes remains nepresent the average type, that race would probably vary between 43 and 73 cubic inches In skull development. The latter figure exceeds the minimum of the Australian natives and closely approaches their average, while the minimum of 43 cubic inches comes very close to the maxi mum or the antnropoia ape stuns. Professor Sollas therefore argues that the pithecanthropes and the Neander thal men must be regarded as succes sive links between tne animal worm and the human race. After thus dealing with primitive man. the scholar continues to trace his investi gations down to the present time, and shows that tlie savage has in many cases advanced in brain capacity. But he has not yet had the proper con ditions to put this raw material to use. He has the brain, but it remains un developed, a fallow field, which must be reached by the powers of education be fore he can ' deserve place with the white man of modern times. In the United States, the Indian, nat urally one of the most primitive ana ferocious of savages, has shown what can be accomplished In the way of put ting fertility Into these fields of gray matter that have been going t waste for centuries. At the Carlisle Indian school and other training establishments, a constantly in creasing number of reasKlns are ix-uij, cUucawd Into the ways of the white man, i In all the new possessions of the Unit ed States, where savage races are to be found, notably the Tagaloes and the Moros. evidences have been furnished to investigators that they are far from being hopeless from a mental standpoint. All that is needed is the power of educa tion. Kngland in its vast scope of Colonial interests, furnishes many cases of the lower races showing possibilities of de velopment that liave astounded thjir teachers. ' Among many of these primitive peo ples are to be found really excellent systems of government, where the power is properly distributed and the products of the land are so divided as to make livelihood easy for all. The mental gifts are not of a kind such as is shown and valued in the new world, but the necro mancers of many savage countries can perform feats of skill which all the brains of the Occident cannot explain. For every act of ferocity that can be charged against the savage there is ever an explanation. The white men against whom it was directed, went into his coun try, with the Idea of stealing from the original owner, and the savage who fought to defend had to use only those horrible moans of resistance which he knew. As civilization carries Itself further and further into the remote homes of aborigi nal man. and education gives opportuni ties to those who never knew them, the truth of the speeches made at the Lon don Congress are destined to be verified. The savage Is a better man, mentally, than he has received credit for. What New CJork Stands for in Theatricals No Other City in the Land Would Tolerate Stage Rankness and Verbal Xastiness. CHARLES to write gustedly. New Tork Correspondent of the Wash ington Star. HARL.E3 EBADH the novelist, used amusedly if somewhat dis- of what he called the 'prurient prudery" of the British. AH the same, "prurient prudery" is a heap better than popular pruriency. That sort of thing, as has often been set forth in this correspondence, grows steadily ia New York. For example, a shop window display must be exceedingly risque these days to engage the attention of New Yorkers. They don't call 'em "window dressers" over here any more, by the way they're "window undressers." A dtetirwjuisiied French editor who re cently visited New York declared that Paris has much to learn from New York In the matter of these extraordinary win dow displays and he added, naively, that Paris doesn't need to learn too much of it. Everybody knows, of course, that New Yorkers will tolerate will, indeed, en thusiastically applaud stage utterances and a degre of stage rankness that no other American city would think of standing for. Most of ttie so-termed musical comedies that leave New York after long runs here, for road tours, have to be severely clipped of their verbal nastiness and the draping of the women considerably amplified to suit the decent censorship of what New York theatrical folk call the "provin cial" audiences. As a matter of fact, not a few of the plays that go out from New York have to be subjected to this sort of pruning. A noted romantic actor, once a stickler for dramatic propriety, is now present ing a play -here, some of the scenes' of which are so close to the line of utter Indecency tiiat they would inevitably be hissed anywhere else than in New York. Here, hbwever, these indecent linen make the hit of the piece. And it would seem, too, as if the time were at hand when no new play may hope for success in New York un less It embraces at least one disrobing scene. Some actresses are now lend ing themselves to this sort of thing who. a very few years ago, would have resented even the thought of engaging in such a prostitution of their art. One recalls how,' not so long ago, these "orange blossom" vulgarities were rig idly confined to the variety shows given at the stag theaters. But they're on Broadway now all right.' and, ap parently, on Broadway to stay. It is just as well to leave it to the sociological or the psychological stu dent to discover the reason why the theater-going women of New York are even fonder of these wholly unneces sary atrocities of pruriency for many such scenes are introduced with scarcely any bearing at all upon the progress of the story than are the men folks. That such Is the plain fact, however, is not to be doubted by any body who notes the great preponder ance of women in attendance at the aters where these exhibitions are given. Probably the underlying reason for the Immunity, not to say the popularity, with which this sort of nastiness is re ceived and greeted In New York is that New York is hardly an American city at all. A Westerner, a man with a well-developed sense of humor, too, sat through a New York musical comedy the other even ing wkhout being able to muster up a solitary, single laugh from careful atten tion to the hopeless drivel of which the piece was made up. All around him the New Yorkers were rocking In their seats with noisy, almost Hvsterieal; mirth. Every cheap, rancid sally of the "Why does the chicken cross the road?" variety wrought these New Yorkers to ecstacies of laughter and ap plause. Jokes that were careworn when Texas Sittings and the Burlington Hawk eye were new and novel publications drove these New Yorkers to a veritable distraction of hilarity. The Westerner be gan to fear that there was something the matter with him, he felt so much like a deaths head at the feast a Barmecide feast, say. "Now I wonder why this is thus?" he Inquired, anxious for. enlightenment, of his New. York entertainer after the show. "What caused them to laugh so? I am not, I hope, destitute of a sense of hu mor. If I - see or hear anything worth laughing at. why. you can hear me two blocks. But there wasn't a spark of fun in that show. The Jokes that were not merely childish plays upon words were older than Noah's first disastrous vin tage. "The dialogue was utterly witless, pointless. Mellowed by a good dinner, and with a receptive spirit, I went into that theater eager to be amused. I am not blase. But I didn't get a laugh for my self. Is there anything the matter with me? And, if not. then what the dickens ailed all those people what made them laugh so hard?" "Simplest thing in life." replied the New Yorker, with sardonic candor. About three-fourths of the people in that theater speak and think in a language that is not English. It wasn't an Ameri can audience at all. Very many of these people had merely an elemental knowl edge of the English language. Therefore any sort of a silly joke, any sort of a piffling play upon words, being entirely new to them, amused them, made them laugh. Nothing could be easier to ex plain. Supposing, for instance, you your self were living in Germany and just picking up the language. You would, of course, be wholly unfamiliar' with the stock of German jokes and puns. Conse quently, the most Idiotic sort of a Ger man alleged funny show unquestionably would cause you to shriek with laughter, as these people did tonight. The twist upon words, the new point of near-humorous view, would be funny to vou in such circumstances." There was a good deal in that analysis of the . laughter of a New York theater audience. And a similar sort of analysis, otherwise applied, would account for the amount of public nastiness that is tol erated in New ork. And the final word of such an analysis would be that New York simply Is no longer an American, city at all. Changes in the Smith Xame. John Smith plain John Smith is not very high-sounding; it does not suggest aristocracy; it is not the name of any hero in die-away novels; and yet It is good, Strong and honest. Transferred to- other languages it seems to climb the ladder of respecta bility. Thus in Latin it is Johannes Smithus; the Italian smoothes It olt into Giovanni Smithi; the Spaniards render it Juan Smithus, the Dutchman adopts it as Hans Schmidt; the French flatten It out into Jean Sineet; and the Russian sneezes and barks Jonloff Smlttowksi. When John Smith gels Into the tea trade in Canton he be comes Jovan Shiinmit; if he clambers about Mount Hecla the Icelanders say he is .lahne Smithson; if he trades among the Tuscaroras he becomes Ton QaSmittia; in Poland he is known a Ivan Schmittiwelskl; should he wander among the Welsh mountains they talk of Jihon Schmidd; when he goes to Mexico he is hooked as Jontli F'Smitti; if of classic turn he lingers among Greek ruins he turns to 'Ion Smikton; and in Turkey he is utterly disguised as Yoe Seef. How Annoying! Chicago New. Just now I find my troubled mind Is running in new channels. I'll have to buy a blip aupply, I see, of Winter flannels. I also note an overcoat - is something that I'm needing. For (hence these tears! upon last yr'S The mothlets have been feeding. My spirit wilts. It seems that quilts And blankets miut be bought now. I've let them go too long. I know. But they demand som thought now. The furnace grate, that cannot wait, Reflection most unpleasing! We can't expire for want of flrf. And now we're almost freezing. And coal! Dear me! I fail to ee At all how I can make it; ( It's hard and yet I've got to get A ton or two, plague take It! My bank account a small amount Won' t meet it altogether. it's sure enough coutouiidcd toush. This sudden change of weather. 1
