Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/16

2 growth through very long periods of time before written history begins.

The Races of Mankind.—Distinctions in form, color, and physiognomy- divide the human species into three chief types, or races, known as the Black (Ethiopian, or Negro), the Yellow (Turauian, or Mongolian), and the White (Caucasian). But we must not suppose each of these three types to be sharply marked off from the others; they shade into one another by insensible gradations.

There has been no perceptible change in the great types during historic times. The paintings upon the oldest Egyptian monuments show us that at the dawn of history, about five or six thousand years ago, the principal races were as distinctly marked as now, each bearing its racial badge of color and physiognomy. As early as the times of Jeremiah, the permanency of physical characteristics had passed into the proverb, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?"

Of all the races, the White, or Caucasian, exhibits by far the most perfect type, physically, intellectually, and morally.

The Black Race.—Africa is the home of the peoples of the Black Race, but we find them on all the other continents, whither they have been carried as slaves by the stronger races; for since time immemorial they have been "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for their more favored brethren.

The Yellow, or Turanian Race.—The term Turanian is very loosely applied by the historian to many and widely separated families and peoples. In its broadest application it is made to include the Chinese and other more or less closely allied peoples of Eastern Asia; the Ottoman Turks, the Hungarians, the Finns,