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Health and Temperance

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 9, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 10.

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Health and Temperance.

By F. N. Scott

CONVERSATION BETWEEN A SAVAGE AND A WHITE MAN.

White Man. I am very glad to make your acquaintance, sir, although you are in your present unregenerate condition. I understand that you mean to eschew your savage customs, and take up with the ways of civilization.
Savage. That is my resolve.
W. M. And a very commendable resolution on your part, I am sure. I trust that you fully appreciate the superiority of our modern civilization, to the wretched mode of life which you have pursued hitherto.
S. I must confess that at present I have but a vague notion of what civilization means. I will be greatly obliged to you, if you will make more clear to me the difference between it and my present condition.
W. M. I shall be delighted to. Savagery, you must know, means ignorance, falsehood, selfishness, degradation, and superstition; civilization means knowledge, truth, generosity, refinement, and reason. Savagery is the triumph of the body over the mind; civilization is the triumph of the mind over the body. As a savage, you eat, and drink, and dress, without knowing why you do these things in one way rather than in another. After you have become civilized, you will do everything because it is the right thing to do.
S. I think I understand.
W. M. Very likely you do not, though. You savages never can understand anything without some visible sign. Let me illustrate my meaning. I have here some head-dresses of your relatives,—the Musquito Indians of Central America.
S. Very beautiful head-dresses they seem to me.
W. M. That is because you are still a degraded savage, with your aesthetic tastes in a rudimentary stage of evolution. When you have become civilized, those head-dresses will appear to you hideously ugly.
S. Why?
W. M. For two reasons: first, because they lack the elements of beauty; second, because they are not adapted for their purpose. Such massive towers of feathers, and grass, and wood, and strings, accumulate filth, heat the head unnecessarily, and give rise to scalp diseases. Besides this—excuse my mentioning it—do they not breed a peculiarly prolific and troublesome—ahem—you understand?
S. I am sorry to confess—
W. M. Let us say no more about it. To a civilized mind, I assure you, the subject is quite revolting.
S. Then am I to understand that no civilized person would wear anything of this sort?
W. M. It would be quite impossible.
S. Will you be kind enough to explain to me a passage which the interpreter read to me from one of your books, while we were waiting for you? As nearly as I can remember, it ran as follows:—
"The fashionable Englishwoman of one hundred years ago erected upon her head a massive tower composed of hair, tow, beads, feathers, ribbons, artificial flowers, and glass ornaments, which frequently rose to the height of three feet; so that she could not use a coach as it was constructed, but was obliged to have the roof of it raised. The interior of this monstrous pile was explored only at certain intervals, when the accumulated filth made a sight not to be described, nor yet too vividly imagined." Excuse my mentioning anything so revolting, but is not the reference here to this same peculiarly prolific and troublesome—ahem—you understand?
W. M. But, my dear sir, you forget that this was a hundred years ago.
S. Then I am to understand that your ancestors of a hundred years ago were savages?
W. M. Heaven forbid! I fear these distinctions cannot be made clear to your untutored mind, but I will try another illustration. Perhaps you may know of certain relatives of yours who make a practice of binding a board upon the heads of their children, so that as they grow up, their skulls will be squeezed into an absurd semblance of the peaked roof of a house, and their mental capacity reduced to that of an idiot.
S. I have heard of this practice. If you will notice the shape of my forehead,—
W. M. Pardon my rudeness. Nothing personal was intended, I assure you. You must see, however, even with your undeveloped reasoning powers, that such a hindrance to the natural development of the body cannot but work harm.
S. Am I to understand that civilized people do nothing of this sort?
W. M. It would be looked upon as a crime.
S. Indeed! but I have been told that among civilized people it is quite common to bind around the waists of young female children a stout bandage made of cloth and bone, by which the ribs are gradually pressed out of shape, the liver almost cut in two, and the lungs compressed to one-half their natural size. And further, that this bandage is worn, not only during childhood, but even until old age. Is not this true?
W. M. You must talk to my wife about that.
S. Ah! I see. It is only the men who become civilized; the women remain savages.
W. M. No, no; you are wholly on the wrong track. It is principles that make civilization. I do not deny that these things are wrong, but, do you not see, we know they are wrong. That is the important thing.
S. Oh, now I understand the difference. The civilized man does wrong, and knows that it is wrong. The savage does wrong, and does not know it. Is that it?
W. M. (To interpreter.) Take this man away. If I talk with him much longer, I shall make myself out more of a savage than he is.—F. N. Scott, in Good Health.