Page:Thoreau - As remembered by a young friend.djvu/139

 who spoke for the slave could get a hearing, the ridicule of the so-called Transcendentalists, the general practice of what is now called, “pauperizing Mediæval Charity,” the indignant rejection of Evolution theories, the slight taste for Natural History, and the astonishment that a rich family “camping out” would have excited. Now we have long had intelligent system in schools, and vocational instruction too, and electives in the Universities; we blush to remember the rendition of Sims and Burns,1 John Brown has been almost canonized by some people as the John Baptist of Freedom's Triumph; the “Dial” is spoken of with respect, the memory of Theodore Parker is honoured in the churches, the “Light of Asia” read as a religious work, Mediæval alms-giving, we are told by the Associated Charities, is a sin; the so-called “lower animals”