cter and ways. Since the abolition of slavery the mores of the two
sections have become similar and the sectional dislike has disappeared.
The contrast between the mores of English America and Spanish America is
very great. It would long outlast any political combination of parts of
the two, if such should be brought about.

+115. Missions and mores.+ The contrasts and antagonisms of the mores of
different groups are the stumbling-blocks in the way of all missionary
enterprise, and they explain many of the phenomena which missions
present. We think that our "ways" are the best, and that their
superiority is so obvious that all heathen, Mohammedans, Buddhists,
etc., will, as soon as they learn what our ways are, eagerly embrace
them. Nothing could be further from the truth. "It is difficult to an
untraveled Englishman, who has not had an opportunity of throwing
himself into the spirit of the East, to credit the disgust and
detestation that numerous everyday acts, which appear perfectly harmless
to his countrymen, excite in many Orientals."[154] If our women are
shocked at polygamy and the harem, Mohammedan women are equally shocked
at the ball and dinner dresses of our ladies, at our dances, and at the
manners of social intercourse between the sexes. Negroes in East Africa
are as much disgusted to see white men eat fowl or eggs as we are at any
of their messes. Missions always offer something from above downwards.
They contain an assumption of superiority and beneficence.
Half-civilized people never admit the assumption. They meet it just as
we would meet a mission of Mohammedans or Buddhists to us. Savages and
barbarians dismiss "white man's ways" with indifference. The virtues and
arts of civilization are almost as disastrous to the uncivilized as its
vices. It is really the great tragedy of civilization that the contact
of lower and higher is disastrous to the former, no matter what may be
the point of contact, or how little the civilized may desire to do
harm.

+116. Missions and antagonistic mores.+ Missionaries always have to try
to act on the mores. The ritual and creed of a religion, and reading and
writing, would not fulfill the purpose. The attempt is to teach the
social ritual of civilized people. Missionaries almost always first
insist on the use of clothing and monogamy. The first of these has, in a
great number of cases, produced disease and hastened the extinction of
the aborigines. The second very often