Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1892-06-09
FROM ICELAND TO MISSOURI
A Chapter of History Just Being Com
p.eted.

pietcd.
AS "the child is father to the man"
the barbarian is the father Of civiliza-
tlonj and rs we know a man best and
can only understand him fully when we
have known him from his childhood, we
can only understand fully the civilian
ton of people by acquainting our
selves with it from its beginnings in bar
barism. The history of Missouri and
Illinois, of Tennessee and Texas, as
States, hardly extends beyond the
memory of living men, but if this his
tory is to be Ineligible, the history of
the people who made the States, whose
lives and customs impressed themselves
on their generation in constitutions,
laws and institutions, must be known
from their race infancy. 1t Is fortunate
that the people Of Illinois and Missouri,
OF Tenn essee and Texas, began writing
history in their childhood as soon as
they learned to read. They have be-
hind them nearly thousand years of
history made and written by them
selves.
When we are at loss to account for
anything in American history, we gem
orally go back TO the history of the
British Islands to seek an explanation,
and we seldom fail to find it there.
This will be true for many centuries, no
matter how many millions of immi-
grants We receive from Continental
Europe. For the history of the British
Islands is the history of all the great
divisions of the Caucasian race which
now compose the population of the
United States. There met, as here,
Celt, Latin and Teuton; each modify
Ing and educating the other, as in the
United States
As the original British Celt yielded
to the Latin, as the Latin dynasty fell
before the Gothic of Hengist and Horsa,
as the Gothic gave place to William the
Conqueror, Latinized Goth followed
by a horde Of Latinized Celts and
Cloths, the history of England came to
have in it synopsis of the history of
three great divisions of the Causasian
race Gothic or Teutonic, Celtic and
Latin.
1t will not often happen, therefore,
that we will look in vain to the his
tory of the British Isles to find explana-
ton of anything that is not clear in the
history OF any part of the Uni ed States.
II any custom OF ours cannot be eX-
planned from Gothic precedents, it may
ne from Celtic OF from Latin, and We
find all these together in this history of
the British Islands.
But at the most important period of
English history as it concerns us, there
is "a hiatus Ualde detiendus" most
iamentable gap, due to the fact that for
several centuries after they had oppor-
tunities to learn to write the people of
North England were too busy fighting
to do so. Nearly everything we know
about England in that period is about
South England, and great deal in
American history to-day would be unin-
telligible but for the fact that there
was great Gothic literary center fur
Their north, almost under the pole, in the
bleak island of Iceland. The settlers
OF North England and of Iceland were
almost identical in the language and
customs In the tenth century the peo-
pie of Northumberland, of the Scotch
borders and of Iceland could have I'M
derstood each other with little difficulty
without an interpreter. In the lee
landic version of the parable of the
houses builded on rock, it is said that
ne who heareth the word and doeth it
is "takJa thelm aoit''tm ma1aa1i sem
0yggeths up sat- has ytr stein" is
like the witty (wise) man who biggeth
(Scotch for buildeth) his house over
(yyer) stone Every word is still En-
gllsh, with only changes in pronunciaA
ton from speaking In the front or back
OF the mouth.
To understand our trial by jury, our
circuit and quarterly courts, our systems
OF fines and punishments, even cur
feuds IN the mountain districts, we must
go back to Iceland where we can see our.
selves, If not in race childhood, yet in
the period when the childhood of bar
barism is just verging into the manhood
OF civilization. Though we may thus
go back a thousand years in point of
time, we may not be going back at all
in point of fact. A Nevada mining camp
will repeat before our eyes almost every
phenomenon of the order and disorder
of Iceland ten centuries ago-e even to
the Berserker fury" which was moth