le from whom the brutal instincts of the ancient savage
life which we all inherit have been so completely eradicated.

It is perhaps too much to attribute the advance of the agricultural
classes of our civilized peoples, in all that serves to remove them from
the brutality of their savage ancestors, altogether to the nature of
their work--to the very large element of kindly care for which it calls,
and which is the price of success in the occupation. Yet when we note
the immediate way in which the people bred in cities, under
circumstances of excitement are wont to behave like savages of the lower
kind, showing in their conduct a lack of all sympathetic education, and
contrast their behavior with that of their kinsmen from the fields--we
see essential differences in character which cannot well be explained
save by the diverse natures of the training which the men have received.
Thus in the French Revolution, the baser, more inhuman deeds were not
committed by the peasants, who had been the principal sufferers under
the regime which was overthrown, but by the people of the great towns
who had been less oppressed by the iniquities of the old system of
government.

If it be true--as my personal experiences and observations lead me
firmly to believe is the case--that man's contact with the domesticated
animals has been and is ever to be one of the most effective means
whereby his sympathetic, his civilized motives may be broadened and
affirmed, there is clearly reason for giving to this side of life a
larger share of attention than it has received. So far the presence of
these lower creatures in our society has generally been accepted as a
matter of course. Sentimentalists, after the fashion of Laurence Sterne,
have dwelt upon the imaginary woes of the creatures. Associations of
well-meaning people have endeavored to diminish the cruelty which people
of the towns, rarely those bred on the soil, often inflict upon them. It
seems, however, desirable that we should place this consideration upon a
plane more fitting the knowledge of our time. It should be made plain,
not only that the success of our civilization depends now as in the past
on the cooperation which mankind has had from the domesticated animals,
but also that the development of this relation is one of the most
interesting features in all history. On through the ages of the geologic
past comes this great procession of life, in the endless succession of
species who