The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1892-06-08
Is Our Race Decaying:
lSan Francisco CALI

Until the discoveries of the bones of
the cave-dwellers and the drift men it
was quite frequently assumed that men
ancient times were taller and stronger
than those of the present day. Poetss
wrote about the giants, the nursery
tales abounded in adventures of races
compared to which our people are pig
mics. AS matter of fact, no skeleton
Of the prehistoric period appears to
have belonged to man whose stature
was equal to that of our tallest men.
Some skeletons found on the Mediter-
ranean coast seemed to haye formed
part of men whose height was six-feet;
but by far the greater number of bones
found in the drift in France, Germany
and Belgium belonging to men who
were about five feet six, and whose
strength, judging from their arm and
leg bones, must have been less than
that of the strong men Of the present
day.
The chances are that the intellectual
force of our ancestors was as inferior to
the intellectual force Of the existing
races as their physical force. In works
c. pure imagination and Of abstract
philosophy mankind has perhaps made
but little progress within the historic
period. It is difficult to detect actual
advance between Tennyson and Victor
Hugo on one side and Job, Ezekiel,
Homer and Horace on the other. Nor
can any particular march of intellect
be observed by comparison between
the leading metaphysicians of to-day
and Aristotle and Plato. But in every
other branch of human thought there
is marked progress, and such rapid pro-
gress that textbooks become anti
quated and obsolete in less than cen
tury. This is not only the case in ex-
act sciences in which the course of dis
covery necessarily efaces past theory,
but also in such branches Of knowledge
as law, ethics, political economy and
social science, in which progress i'm
plies growing development of the hu-
man mind. At the very time when
Shakespeare was giving voice to
thoughts which are as true coT as
when he uttered them, the English
people had no share in their own gov
ernment; doubtless starved to death in
prison, men were immured in Jail for
lifetime without trial, women had no
lawful names, towns had no drains,
| ignorance was no fault, vice scarcely
shame, and nobody complained Of
these things. Their enormity was not
realized even by the clearest headed
men of the day. Surely it is imposing
on public credulity to say that the re-
forms which have taken place in these
vital matters do not imply an advance
in brain-power.
We need not 60 back to Shakespeare
for proof that mankind is growing
wiser and braver and kinder with each
generation. He who reads McMaster's
history is amazed to find how narrow
minded and bigoted and selfish and
hard-hearted and short-sighted Ameri-
cans were only century ago. At the
very time when Washington and his
compeers were laying the foundation
of the best government the world has
ever kno&n the masses of the Ameri-
can people were in many parts of the
country living in savagery which can
not be paralleled to-day outside Of
Russia. Women died for want Of care
at the period of maternity; debtors
poked their heads out of holes called
prisons in Connecticut and begged the
wayfarer for 9 crust of bread; slaves
held their lives and the honor of their
daughters at the mercy of their owners;
newspapers reviled the best men in the
land in the foulest billingsgate; the
cripple and the blind were often left to
starve unless they chanced to meet
good Samaritan. Some of these things
might happen anywhere, even at the
present time, but then they were mat
tiers of common occurrence, ELECTED
little or no outcry, nor attracted much
attention. Does not the disappearance
of these infamies imply a growth ia
moral and mental stature.
Whoever may hold to the contrary,
the world is growing better every year
that rolls over. Error still rears its
head, crimes occur, injustice is prac-
ticed, the weak are still sometimes
crushed to the wall, the base still occa-
sionally rise to the surface of the social
wave, but all these wrongs arouse the
indignant protest from the masses, and
in honest mems breasts longing to
cure them fiercely burns. t will be
time to say that the march Oh progress
hes stopped when we find that things
base and vile and shameful rouse no
indignation.
WHAT IS PLUCK?