inferiority, and believe their elders are acting solely for their good.
They learn many things the use of which they cannot comprehend, and
which they would never learn without some moral and social, if not
physical, pressure. Habits of order, of industry, of cleanliness, of
respect and obedience, are inculcated by similar means. Children would
never grow up into well-behaved and well-educated men, if the same
absolute freedom of action that is allowed to men were allowed to them.
Under the best aspect of education, children are subjected to a
mild despotism for the good of themselves and of society; and their
confidence in the wisdom and goodness of those who ordain and apply this
despotism, neutralizes the bad passions and degrading feelings, which
under less favourable conditions are its general results.
Now, there is not merely an analogy--there is in many respects an
identity of relation between master and pupil or parent and child on the
one hand, and an uncivilized race and its civilized rulers on the other.
We know (or think we know) that the education and industry, and the
common usages of civilized man, are superior to those of savage life;
and, as he becomes acquainted with them, the savage himself admits this.
He admires the superior acquirements of the civilized man, and it is
with pride that he will adopt such usages as do not interfere too much
with his sloth, his passions, or his prejudices. But as the willful
child or the idle schoolboy, who was never taught obedience, and never
made to do anything which of his own free will he was not inclined to
do, would in most cases obtain neither education nor manners; so it is
much more unlikely that the savage, with all the confirmed habits of
manhood and the traditional prejudices of race, should ever do more than
copy a few of the least beneficial customs of civilization, without some
stronger stimulus than precept, very imperfectly backed by example.
If we are satisfied that we are right in assuming the government over a
savage race, and occupying their country, and if we further consider it
our duty to do what we can to improve our rude subjects and raise them
up towards our own level, we must not be too much afraid of the cry
of "despotism" and "slavery," but must use the authority we possess to
induce them to do work which they may not altogether like, but which
we know to be an indispensable step in their moral and physical
advancement. The Dutch have shown much good policy in the means by which
they have done this. They have in most cases upheld and strengthened the
authority of the native chiefs, to whom the people have been accustomed
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