Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887: Volume 1, Number 7
Religion
Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887: Volume 1, Number 7
Medicine -- Periodicals; Phrenology -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
To all this, Anthropology will put an end, for it will give to each a
definite conception of the full normal development of humanity, and of
the organization or brain development by what it is sustained. To
those who fall far short of that development, it gives the means of a
definite measurement of the defect, and shows by cranioscopy and
psychometry what is to be done in self-culture, as clearly as we learn
in the gymnasium what muscles need greater development.
The desire for such improvement is often absent when it is most
needed. A vast multitude of inferior people are perfectly content with
themselves in a selfish life, wholly absorbed in providing for their
own wants, or, if possessed of wealth, using it only in selfishness
and ostentation,--content in believing themselves as good as their
neighbors, doing nothing to benefit society, unless under the coercion
of public opinion, leading such lives that the world is certainly no
better, and perhaps a little worse, for their advent.
A very different class, who are more apt to profit by anthropology is
composed of those in whom there is a decided predominance of good. In
some cases they are deficient in selfish and combative energy, do not
know how to assert their rights, are credulous and confiding. Children
of that character if reared by timid and over-fond parents, are
deprived of the rough contact with society that is necessary to their
development. There are many whom the lack of self-confidence, the lack
of ambition, and lack of business energy condemn to an obscure life,
when their intellectual capacities would fit them for an influential
position. A kind but mistaken system of training confirms the defect,
and dooms them to an inefficient life, or a stern system of repression
deprives them of all self-confidence and energy. Millions of good
women are victimized in this manner. This amiable class are amenable
to instruction, but are often by their easy credulity, induced to
yield to unworthy teachers, or to the guidance of unsound but
pretentious or delusive literature. They lack in the energy of
criticism which might protect them from error.
Throughout the whole course of education, from infancy to manhood,
Anthropology may be an ever-present monitor, warning against excesses,
against failures, against errors of opinion, while urging the
cultivation of our feebler faculties as the gymnastic teacher urges
the cultivation of the feebler muscles.
Unaware of their errors, many would resent all such criticism, but the
science which cannot help them, because they will have none of it,
will enable us to understand them correctly and know how to deal with
them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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