Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899: Volume LV — John Shaqi
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899: Volume LVVarious
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, June 1899: Volume LV
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The Indians, against their will, were transported, by coercive
measures, to allotted lands beyond the Mississippi, but that was
before the modern discovery that the United States should grant
"fraternity and assistance to all people" under other than republican
governments, and that universal suffrage was the infallible expedient
for civilizing semibarbarous peoples. President Harrison, in his
letter of acceptance, writing on another subject, says, "We are
already under a duty to defend our civilization by excluding alien
races whose ultimate assimilation with our people is neither possible
nor desirable."
Remedies, strong and adequate and feasible, may not be found readily,
but there are gentler and quieter agencies which may be used by both
races to mutual advantage. The white people, in accepting the
legitimate consequences of defeat, in vigorous efforts to restore
antebellum prosperity, in establishing schools, in reconstructing
shattered society, have done nobly, but they are not without sin.
Laws, general and wise and impartial, on the statute-book need for
their enforcement a sustaining public opinion, but this has not always
been forthcoming. Lawless and violent proceedings, always unnecessary
and demoralizing, sometimes as brutal as the crimes which excited
horror; harsh and unjust contracts; interferences in elections; false
registration and counting of votes, and other acts which the plea of
self-preservation did not justify, have evinced the harshness and
injustice of dominant power, and have not tended to soften prejudices
or make the situation more tolerable. Each race is fortunately
improving in intercourse and in dealings with the other, and time and
sober judgment are, in a sensible degree, removing causes of
alienation which are not inherent and incurable.
* * * * *
"What a blessing," said President Sir John Lubbock, at the late
meeting of the International Congress of Zoölogists, "it would be
for mankind if we could stop the enormous expenditure on engines
for the destruction of life and property, and spend the tenth,
the hundredth, even the thousandth part on scientific progress!
Few people seem to realize how much science has done for man, and
still fewer how much more it would still do if permitted. More
students would doubtless have devoted themselves to science if it
were not so systematically neglected in our schools; if men and
boys were not given the impression that the field of discovery is
well-nigh exhausted. We, gentlemen, know how far that is from
being the case. Much of the land surface of the globe is still
unexplored; the ocean is almost unknown; our collections contain
thousands of species waiting to be described; the life-histories
of many of our commonest species remain to be investigated, or
have only recently been discovered."
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS AND AMERICAN CAPITAL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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