Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1911-06-09
HUMAN VARIETIES
Where There Are 1000 Speci-
mems of Mankind
Finds Them in Inda-The System of
Caste as 1t Still Prevails.


Finds Them in India-The System of
Caste as 1t Still Prevails.
Before 1 arrived in India l read Sir
Bamfylde Fuller's book, Studies of In
dian Life and Sentiment" and although
| penclled many interesting and striking
passages, perhaps the most important and
the most essential of all passed before
my eyes without making the smallest
impression. 1t was not until had tray
eled for hundreds of miles in the trains,
penetrated to jungle villages by means of
bone breaking bulock-carts, and loitered
in the heavy-smelling bazars of inferior
towns where the tourist never comes,
that the Importance of this particular
passage, on glancing over the book again,
came home to my mind with an extra
ordinary force.
Sir Bamfylde Fuller is speaking of the
permanent maintenance of human types
in India, and he says that the popula-
ton is Heterogeneous to an extent that 1t
needs actual experience to appreciate. II
is no question" he continues, of rich
and poor, of town and country, of en-
ployer and employed; the differences lie
far deeper. The population of district
or a town is collection of different ma
tionalities-almost different species-of
mankind, that will not eat or drink or
intermarry with one another, and that
are governed in the more important af-
fairs of life by committees of their own
| 1t is hardly too much to say that by the
caste system the inhabitants of India are
! differentiated into over 1000 species of
mankind, which in the physical rela-
lions of life have as little in common as
| the inmates of a geological garden"
l fear from my own case, there is
! truth in the words that sit needs actual
experience to appreciate" this amazing
! variety of human types; and yet until
| this variety is realized in the mind of a
European there can be no intelligent I'M
! derstandng of anything that has to do
with India. The very first thing a man
must do, who would form rational opin-
ions on Indian politics or carry in his
mind a true picture of Indian color and
Indian feeling, is to realize that the S0O-
600 900 of humanity comprising the EN-
pire of India are not one race, or two
| races but are 1000 species of mankind
| as different from each other as snakes
from elephants, tigers from firefiies, and
mosquitoes from buffaloes.
The charm as well as the problems of
India lie in this most extraordinary va
riety. A flying politician, taken in hand
| by a Bengal, sees infinitely less of India
! than a British workman sees of Ger
many conducted through manufacturing
cities by a tariff reformer. 1t is a most
foolish and a most dangerous thing for
n man of little observation, small imagi-
nation, and no reflection to race through
one or two Indian cities and then express
himself on Indian politics with more au-
thority and greater confidence than a
man of science would speak of chemis-
try after a life of incessant investiga-
ton.
You cannot dogmatlze about India
You can no more speak of India as one
complete and single thing than you can
exhaust botany by smelling rose OF
paying siXpence for a bunch of lilies
India is infinite. A man with seeing eyes
begins to perceive this battling ruth on
his very first walk through a street, and
he Is at once on his guard in forming
opinions, and most dimdent in venturine
to utter even the lest uncertain of them
He who speaks of India as a nation OF
Hindus and Mohammedans would speak