ess, brought the natives of the
country that they had invaded to ruin and practically obliteration.
This experiment in applied sociology so successfully accomplished must
be placed to the credit of the Spaniards also, and it stands out with
all the more interest by contrast with English neglect of duty.

While seeing so clearly all that was accomplished in Mexico under the
influence of the Church for education and social progress and
scientific teaching and training in the arts and crafts and trades,
Professor Bourne cannot quite bring himself to condemn entirely the
almost complete failure that characterized all the relations of the
English-speaking peoples to the natives here in America and he even
seems to find some justification for their harsh treatment of the
Indians. I think that our point of view generally has changed a great
deal in this matter even in the last ten or fifteen years since we
have come to recognize our social obligations more clearly and, above
all, have come to appreciate better what is meant by "the white man's
burden" in his relations to the dark-skinned peoples who are lower in
the scale of civilization than we are. The Civil War did much to
correct American notions on this point, but our attention to problems
in the Philippines has done even more. I shall leave Professor
Bourne's paragraph to speak for itself and each reader to say for
himself whether the English method of dealing with the Indian is
justified by comparison with the ruthless processes of nature as
Professor Bourne would hint.

"Far different was the advancing frontier in English America with
its clean sweep, its clash of elemental human forces. Our own method
prepared a home for a more advanced civilization and a less variously
mixed population and its present fruits seem to justify it as the
ruthless processes of nature are justified; but a comparison of the
two systems does not warrant self-righteousness on the part of the
English in America."

Indeed we might well say far from it, for the almost literal
obliteration of the Indian in North America as of the natives in
Australia and New Zealand, only so much more complete there,
represents ever to be regretted blots on the history of civilization
for which there can be no possible justification.

Professor Bourne does not hesitate to continue the comparison of
Spanish and English America down even to our own time and in doing so
points out that our advance