Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1890-01-11
PROFESSORS OF HUMBUG-
OLOGY.

VI dHt'ullu'ldH DuI wei preserved SpeCl-
mems Of the human race met in the lee
| ture hall Of the Brooklyn Institute to
| witness the Inauguration of so-called
Department Of Political and Economic
Science. The object Of this department,
in SO far as we were able to comprehend
/ it from the speeches Of the prehistoric
d. Dis and l.. l.. D's who stood upon
the platform in modern attire, is to
| teach the present generation how to
walk backward, and return by intellect
ual crab steps to that happy stage Of
pre-Darwlnian evolution when man, not
yet monkey, resembled somewhat a
donkey. TO be sure, it is not proposed
| that the whole race should resume its
primitive form, but that a select few
! should continue to evolve in the erect
posture, while the working class, in
tended by the Almighty as beasts OF
burden, should fall back into that
horizontal attitude which alone BELTS
its humble destiny
Though better acquainted with the
! phenomena Of d far away past than with
the tendencies of the present, these
ancient ID. d. s and LII D. S are possessed
Of an amount Of practical knowledge by
no means to be despised; for they were
observant in their day, and there are
things that are as true now as they were
ten thousand years ago. From their
observation of facts in the remote anti
guilty to which they belong they learned
for instance, that the evolution of the
quadruped and donkey-like animal into
biped and monkey-Iike man was ac-
companied by corresponding develop
ment of that particular bump which is
the seat of animal aversion to muzzles
yOkes, harnesses and suchlike contri-
yances. 1t was only, therefore, by
steady compression of the bump of indie
pendence, aided by careful starvation
of the brain from infancy--the whole
process resulting in an abnormal en-
largement of the bump of veneration-
J that a portiop ofthe~ human raoytwas
kept in a state of respectful submission
to the other and smaller portion. But
for this timely application of mans ear
liest reasoning powers to the annihila
ton of his reason, we might have no
chair of Egyptology in our colleges, for
there would have been no Pyramids;
and we might have no occasion for
Department of Humbugology at the
Brooklyn Institute, for there would be
no use for sophists
TO be sure, when such things as pyra-
mds. were built, the Institutes of Bam-
boozosophy were not intended for the
common people; whereas the Depart
ment of IIumbugology recently added
to the Brooklyn Institute is 50 intended.
Here, again, we have a striking illustra-
ton of the mighty changes wrought out,
slowly but surely, by the irresistible
force of evolution throughout the uni
verse.
No artificial compression of the human
brain was ever strong enough to coun-
teract the expanding tendency of the
bump of independence in the biped man
That this is due, in some mysterious
way, to the influence of the thoroughly
erect posture upon the bump in ques-
ton cannot be doubted in view of the
fact that no such phenomena as the
Mosaic Exodus, the rebelIions of slaves,
the abolition of castles, the French Revo-
lutions, or the American Wars of indie
pendence, were ever noticed among
quadrupeds or quadrumanes, On the
other hand, the fact that a series of
such phenomena in progressive inten-
sity, multiplicity and frequency is