Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/93

 SOME DEMANDS OF EDUCATION UPON ANTHROPOLOGY 77

tural maturity. Hence, at any historic period peoples could have been found in any or all of these stages, with infinite grada- tions between. Thus the North American Indians, when dis- covered, represented in different localities the status of savagery, and two distinct subdivisions of the state of barbarism. It must also be remembered that, while there has been a general similar- ity in the modes of life and the development of institutions among the peoples that have passed through the stages in ques- tion, there has by no means been uniformity. Thus the hunt- ing, the pastoral, and the agricultural stages are generally con- sidered as necessarily successive with all peoples that have passed beyond them. But the North American Indians who reached the borderland of civilization passed immediately from the hunting to the agricultural stage, since the American continent contained no animals suited to domestication. In Europe and Asia, on the contrary, where all the animals that have been domesticated were found, the pastoral period was prolonged and continued in connection with the agricultural until civilization was attained. Hence, if a view of the whole process of devel- opment is desired, representative peoples from the different ethnic periods must be selected for purposes of study.

It may be claimed that on this basis no ultimate principles of interpretation can be derived, since it is impossible to deter- mine what is due to the peculiar genius of a people, and what to universal characteristics. Thus the development of the Hebrews throws but little light on that of the Greeks, and that of the American races has undoubtedly as little in common with that of European stocks as have the first mentioned races. The force of this argument is not denied, but the value of accurate data concerning the life activities of each is not thereby les- sened. It must be remembered that no ultimate value is claimed for the synthesis suggested by the authors who furnish the data. The urgency of present needs is sufficient to make the attempt at placing available data in better working form of some value, while something more fundamental is being worked out.

While the purpose in making the chart was that above men- tioned, the mere arrangement of the facts of anthropological