Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1863-09-25
Rarharism and Civilization.


are never weary of proclaiming the
enormous gain it has brought to man.
ners. to morals, and TO intellect 0ui
there is a widespread impression that the
benefit is purchased by corresponding
physical decay This alarm has had it.
best statement from Emerson. Society
never advances. Ii recedes as fast or
one side as it gains on the other #
What a contrast between the well-clad
reading, writing, thinking American, with
a watch, pencil, and bill OF exchange
in his pocket, and the naked New ZsS
lander, whose property is club, spear,
mat, and tie undivided twentieth part
of a she'd to sleep under But compare
the health of the two men, and you shall
see that bis aboriginal strength the
white man has lost. II ,he traveller tells
US truly, strike the the savage With q
broad-axe, and in a day or two the flesh
shall unite aud heal as if you struck the
blow into soft pitch and Tue same blow
shall send the white man TO bis grave.
Were this true, the fact would be ia
tai. Man is a progressive being, only
on condition that he begin at the begin-
ming. He can afford to wait centuries
for a brain, but be cannot subsist a sec.
end without a body. If civilization sac
rifee the physical thus hopelessly to the
mental, and barbarism merely sacrifice
the mental 10 the physical, then barbar-
ism is unquest,onabIy the better thing, so
far as it goes. because it provides the
essential preliminary conditions. Bar
barism is one-story log hat, poor
thing, but better than nothing; while
such a civilization would be simply a
second story, with first story too weak
to sustain il, a magnificent sky.parlor,
with all heaven ia view from the upper
windows, but with the whole family com
ing down in a crash presently, through
fatal neglect Of the basement In
such a view, an American Indian or
Kaiiir warrior may be a wholesome OBJ
iect, good for something already, and for
much more when he gets brain built
on. But when one seeks a bO0kworm
in his library, an anxious merchant prince
in his countiug-room, lettering tecbly
about, bis thin uulerpinuing scarcely able
to support wha, b, has already crammai
into that heavy brain Of his, aud be sull
piing in more,-one feels disposed to cry
out. Unsafe passing Stand from under
Sydney Smith, in his MORAL Pbilos-
ophy.' has also put strongly Ills case
OF physiological despair. Nothing can
be palmer than that a lie of society is
unfsvorable to all the animal powers Of
men. A Choctaw could run from
here to Oxford without stopping. 60
in the mail-coach and the time the saw
age has employed in learning to run SO
fast | have employed in learning some
thing useful. 1t would not only be USE
less for me to run like a Choctaw, but
foolish and dizgracelul" Bot one may
well suppose, that, it the joyal divine
had kept himself in training for this dis
graceful lost art Of running, his diary
might not have recorded the habit Of Iy-
ing two hours in bed in the morning,
"dawdling and doubling, as he says, or
the fact Of bis having "passtd the whole
day in an unpleasant state Of body, pro-
duccd by lazness : and he might not
have been compelled to invent for him
self that amazing rheumatic armor,--a
pair Of tin boots, tin collar, tin he'll
met, and a tin shoulder otmutton over
each OF bis natural shoulders, all duly
filled with boiling water, and worn in
patience by the sedenlary Sydney.
1t IS also to be remembered that this
statement was made IN 1900, when Eng
land and Germany were both waking up
to revival OF physical training,-if we
may trust Sir John Sinclair in the one
case, and SaIzmaun in the other,-such
as America Is experiencing now. Many
years afterwards, Sydney Smith wrote to
his brother that "a working senator
should lead the life OF an athlete" But
supposing the Tact stu true, that an aver
age white man cannot,-who does not
see that II is the debility, and not the
performance, W hich is dscredttable
Setting aside the substantial advantages
Of strength and activity, there is mel>
anchoiy loss Of seli-respect in buying
cultivation for the brain by resigning the
proper vieor Of the body, Let men say
what they please, they all demand life
which shall be whole and sound through
out, and there is drawback upon ali
gifts that are paid for in infrmaties.
There is no thorough satisfaction in art
or intellect, II we yet feel ashamed be-