Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/235

Rh restore that self respect and interest in life which the too sudden introduction of civilization has in large measure crushed out among them. Interesting and hopeful results are being achieved by this sociological, rather than purely religious, enterprise. The natives must first learn how to earn a living before they can make any real advance in the development of a moral and social standard to which they can hold as things of their own initiation. At present a mere semblance of civilization has been forced upon them from outside, but a race to survive must be the father of its own ideals.

After leaving the Murray Islands, Mr. Potts and the leader of the expedition went to Port Moresby, Papua, where His Excellency, the Honorable John H. P. Murray, the governor, was so kind as to invite us to be his guests at Government House during the entire period of our visit.

The English deserve the greatest credit for the altruistic government which is being administered to benefit and uplift the native population. "Fair play for the Papuan" is the watch-word of the colony.

Malaria is still the dreaded pestilence of Papua, and for generations yet to come many noble English lives must be extinguished by its ravages, but despite the dull heat, the certainty of ennervating illness, and the vast areas yet unknown to any save the savage in the stone age, this little band of high-minded men has not lost heart but year by year intertribal wars, cannibalism and sorcery are becoming things of the past, and the natives are slowly but willingly acquiring their first lessons in civilization.

Without detracting from the honor due the missionary who leaves home and friends and seeks the degraded places of the earth, let us not forget the equally altruistic civil servant whose hardships and dangers and devotion to duty we are all too apt to belittle or overlook, yet whose service though less conspicuous than that of his religious co-worker is equally significant for the raising of England's standard of freedom before the eyes of the whole earth.