Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-12-04
MANS ENVIRONMENTS.
The Effect They Produce on Human Pr
Rress and InteIligence.

The Effect They Produce on Human Pro.
| Rress and Intelligence.
Our review of the photographic con-
ditions which environ our race on this
continent makes it tolerably plain that
North America is we'll suited for the de-
velopment of Northern Europeans We
may dismiss the fear that our race is to
| dcteriorate in this country We may
further put aside the notion that We are
to be a massive, UNMARRIED people, desti-
| tute of those differences which by their
reaction bring about the advance of
man. 1t is true that the continent is
not divided into the separate areas
which have constituted the cradle-lands
( Of the Old World, but it is evident that
| the wide diversities in occupation will
| institute and maintain variations in the
| character of the people probably in
time to be as great as those which in
! the more natural state of man depended
on purely geographic conditions At
! present while the open structure of our
social and economic life permits rapid
| change in the occupations of men, the
effect Of industries dependent on phys
| iographic condition is not much felt;
| but with the increase and consolidation
| of our population we may be sure that
vacations will become more hereditary.
Men will follow the occupations of the
| pillow, the mine or the mill from genera
ton to generation, and so the communi-
| ties will receive the individualized
stamp, which comes only through an
cestral habit In the beginning man
| kind was dependent for culture and diff
! fusion mainly upon geographic condi-
| tions. Each tribe was environed by
rigid customs which Tended off its nigh
| bors. The movements were necessarily
! massive, for they were to result in dis
| placement of pre-existing peoples
Therefore the first stages of mans de-
velopment resemble, as regards the con-
! ditions of increase and diffusion, those
| of his lower kindred in the ranks of life
| The progress of intellectual capacity
has given certain races a larger meas
ure of control over their circumstances
| Still even in our own centuries, the
| implantation of our race in new lands
| already possessed by men has proved
task of exceeding difficulty The would
| be colonists of the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries, on the eastern coast
| of America, found something of the diff
! ficulty in gaining their foothold which
| stray plants or animals from one flora
or fauna find when they are cast within
a foreign field. Even in the present
state of their development the most ad-
| Yanced races of men are limited by the
climate, and can only dwell where the
larger nature permits. For all that we
| can foresee of the future this depend
ence of man upon the cond lions of his
environment is of an insuperable nat
ure The good he wins he secures by
obedience to the commands of his
| mother-earth. Looking back over the
| history of life upon the earth's surface,
the PHOTOGRAPHER is forced to the con-
clusion that-its highest estate embodied
in the moral and intellectual qualities
of man has been, in the main, secured
| by the geographic variations which have
slowly developed through the geolOg-
| icai ages Thus our continents and seas
can not be considered as physical acct
dents in which, and on which, organic
| beings have found an ever-perilous rest
| ing-place, but as great engines operat-
! ing in a determined way to secure the
advance of life.-Prof. n. s Shaler, in
Scribner's Magazine.