Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/611

Rh of civilization to do so. Indeed, we tell them that we prefer to have them as deadly enemies than as neighbors, unless they will become civilized. And what precisely do we mean by civilization as applied to them?

Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries have, as we have noticed, in all cases and in all their fields of labor among our Indians, differed radically and widely as to the character, quality, degree, and desirable ends of the sort of civilization which is to be aimed for, which is possible, of which the Indians might be capable, which they might be willing to comply with, and which ought to satisfy the whites. One of the most interesting and (so to speak) successful, and one of the most contented and happy, of the Indian missionaries of our own times, before mentioned, has been the excellent Jesuit Father De Smet, for more than a score of years roaming with and teaching the Flat Heads and other tribes between the Missouri and the Rocky Mountains, Oregon, and the Columbia River. Our Government has employed him as chaplain and peace-maker under General Harney. His reports and sketches present him to us as a man of infantile simplicity and guilelessness of heart, but a hero in zeal and spirit. He is so charmed with the docility and piety of his wild flock in their observance of his religious ceremonies that he gushes fondly over their full discipleship, and actually compares them to the primitive Christians. Yet there is among them no other very evident token of civilized ways. Doubtless he would say that they had all that was desirable for them in civilization; for what is civilization?

The main, the indispensable conditions of civilization are knowledge, art, and law. But these three great qualities and characteristics of an advanced social state are matters of degree, of more or less, of higher or lower. The Indian uses the knowledge that he has, and gets more as soon as he becomes aware of his ignorance. His art is adjusted to his needs, his uses, his materials, and resources. Usages,