Most people of the white race may learn from the Indian in the matter of affectation. Few of us are simple and natural in our social manners. My own family often joke me, when, in answering the telephone, I respond in what they call my “dressy tone.” The other day a lady, whose husband is a college professor, mistook me for a distinguished eastern psychologist whose surname happens to be the same as mine. Until she discovered her mistake she “minced and mouthed” in a most ludicrous fashion (how I wish she could have seen herself as I saw her!) merely because she thought I was a prominent man in the field wherein her husband was a more humble member. The criticism on my own “dressy tone” is a perfectly just one. I find myself, often, “putting on style” because I want to appear “my best.” After due consideration I have decided to confess that--like most people--I have a variety of “celluloid smiles” which unconsciously I put on or off as occasion requires. We are not simple, not natural in our relationships one with another. We feel that we must “make an impression,” that we must “appear well.” The result is we are unnatural, affected, often deceptive, and many a time disagreeable. Affectation in speech and manner is always a sign of mental meanness,--of what is commonly called vulgarity, and is never to be commended but is always to be condemned. [Illustration: APACHE INDIAN WHO REFUSED TO “PUT ON STYLE” TO PLEASE THE WHITE MAN.] On the other hand, if the President of the United States were to visit a tribe of uncontaminated Indians, as, for instance, the Navahos, they would treat him in exactly the same manner as they would the humblest citizen; except, of course, that if the president asked for a pow-wow they would give him one, and treat his words with respectful deference. But there would be no affectation in their dealings with him, no putting on of airs or style. With frank, open directness, with the respect they show, as a rule, to each other, and no more, they would listen to all he had to say and give hearty and manly response of approval or disapproval. They have no “company manners,” no changes of voice which are used according to the social status of the listener. There are no snobs among them. “A man’s a man for a’ that,” no matter whether he wears an old army overcoat and a top hat or merely a tight skin and his gee-string.