THE RED MAN'S CONTINENT

THE RED MAN'S CONTINENT


CHAPTER I. THE APPROACHES TO AMERICA

Across the twilight lawn at Hampton Institute straggles a group of
sturdy young men with copper-hued complexions. Their day has been
devoted to farming, carpentry, blacksmithing, or some other trade. Their
evening will be given to study. Those silent dignified Indians with
straight black hair and broad, strong features are training their hands
and minds in the hope that some day they may stand beside the white man
as equals. Behind them, laughing gayly and chattering as if without a
care in the world, comes a larger group of kinky-haired, thick-lipped
youths with black skins and African features. They, too, have been
working with the hands to train the mind. Those two diverse races, red
and black, sit down together in a classroom, and to them comes another
race. The faces that were expressionless or merely mirthful a minute ago
light up with serious interest as the teacher comes into the room. She
stands there a slender, golden-haired, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon girl
just out of college--a mere child compared with the score of swarthy,
stalwart men as old as herself who sit before her. Her mobile features
seem to mirror a hundred thoughts while their impassive faces are moved
by only one. Her quick speech almost trips in its eagerness not to waste
the short, precious hour. Only a strong effort holds her back while she
waits for the slow answers of the young men whom she drills over and
over again in simple problems of arithmetic. The class and the teacher
are an epitome of American history. They are more than that. They are an
epitome of all history.

History in its broadest aspect is a record of man's migrations from
one environment to another. America is the last great goal of these
migrations. He who would understand its history must know its mountains
and plains, its climate, its products, and its relation to the sea and
to other parts of the world. He must know more than this, however,
for he must appreciate how various environments alter man's energy and
capacity and give his character a slant in one direction or another.
He must also know the paths by which the inhabitants have reached their
present homes, for the influence of former environments upon them may be
more important than their immediate surroundings. In fact, the history
of North America has been perhaps more profoundly influenced by man's
inheritance from his past homes than by the physical features of his
present home. It is indeed of vast importance that trade can move freely
through such natural channels as New York Harbor, the Mohawk Valley, and
the Great Lakes. It is equally important that the eastern highlands of
the United States are full of the world's finest coal, while the central
plains raise some of the world's most lavish crops. Yet it is probably
even more important that because of his inheritance from a remote
ancestral environment man is energetic, inventive, and long-lived in
certain parts of the American continent, while elsewhere he has not the
strength and mental vigor to maintain even the degree of civilization to
which he seems to have risen.