Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/428

424 that the soldiers who kept guard over the body of Christ on the cross cast lots for his raiment. This was the custom at the execution of malefactors.

It is curious that the free Greeks were in the habit of rising early, for, owing to the abundance of slaves, most of them had little compulsory work to perform except when on military expeditions. A law of Solon prohibited teachers from opening school before sunrise or holding it after sunset. To the casual reader this may sound ridiculous. But to many of our older college graduates, it will occur that they were required to attend prayers so early in the morning that they had to be conducted by lamp or candle. An acquaintance of mine who lived near a certain college used to relate that he well remembered hearing young men pass his house in the dark of the morning who, while completing the process of dressing, interspersed the performance with occasional expressions not suitable for ears polite. The mood in which such persons reached their destination was evidently not well suited to the spirit of devotion which those early exercises were supposed to foster.

Many people believe, because they have read in books, that the sight of the Indians was extraordinarily keen, and that they were able to descry objects at a greater distance than was possible for white men. This is an error, if the assertion is to be taken without qualification. All savages have eyes trained to see those things that are necessary to their preservation—game and enemies. Their sight is not by nature more acute than that of the white man, but in some respects it was better trained. The whites who lived among the Indians and were compelled to defend themselves against their enemies saw just as far as their enemies. It may be affirmed as a general principle that there is nothing a civilized man can not do better than a savage. The latter uses his reason to aid his instinct; the former makes his instinct subservient to his reason. It is well known that sailors are able to discern objects at sea at a greater distance than landsmen, but we have to do here with a faculty that any one can acquire. The Indians did just what the whites who lived among them did who subsisted on game and were obliged to be on the constant lookout for enemies. Both had acquired not merely the power to discern objects, but also training in the interpretation of the signification of those objects that came within visible range. It is probable, for reasons given above, that not only the Indians as well as all tribes living on the same social level, but also the backwoodsmen, retained their sight to a more advanced age than is now generally the case; but that the eye of the former was naturally more powerful than that of the present generation or that of men in general is unsupported by trustworthy evidence. There is no doubt that a child born with normal eyes in one of our large cities can see objects just as far off and define them just as accurately with