incident with the great relative self-dependence they have been
since habituated to? And is not this change proximately ascribable to
this habitual self-dependence? Whoever doubts it is asked to assign a
more probable cause. Whoever admits it must admit that the enervation
of a people by perpetual state aids is not a trifling consideration,
but the most weighty consideration. A general arrest of national
growth he will see to be an evil greater than any special benefits can
compensate for. And, indeed, when, after contemplating this great
fact, the overspreading of the earth by the Anglo-Saxons, he remarks
the absence of any parallel phenomenon exhibited by a continental
race--when he reflects how this difference must depend chiefly on
difference of character, and how such difference of character has been
mainly produced by difference of discipline; he will perceive that the
policy pursued in this matter may have a large share in determining a
nation's ultimate fate.

[Footnote 47: Samuel Laing traveled in Norway and Sweden in 1834, and
published two books recounting his observations.]

III

THE ORNAMENTAL AND THE USEFUL IN EDUCATION[48]

It has been truly remarked that, in order of time, decoration precedes
dress. Among people who submit to great physical suffering that they
may have themselves handsomely tattooed, extremes of temperature are
borne with but little attempt at mitigation. Humboldt tells us that an
Orinoco Indian, tho quite regardless of bodily comfort, will yet labor
for a fortnight to purchase pigment wherewith to make himself admired;
and that the same woman who would not hesitate to leave her hut
without a fragment of clothing on, would not dare to commit such a
breach of decorum as to go out unpainted. Voyagers uniformly find that
colored beads and trinkets are much more prized by wild tribes than
are calicoes or broadcloths. And the anecdotes we have of the ways in
which, when shirts and coats are given, they turn them to some
ludicrous display, show how completely the idea of ornament
predominates over that of use. Nay, there are still more extreme
illustrations: witness the fact narrated by Captain Speke[49] of his
African attendants, who strutted about in their goatskin mantles when
the weather was fine, but when it was wet, took them off, folded them
up, and went about naked, shivering in the rain! Indeed, the facts of
aboriginal life seem to indicate that dress is developed out of