building the sides of their summer houses and for sleeping upon. They had a method of tanning and dressing buckskin and using it for the purposes of clothing. They were by no means naked savages; they were clothed, and tolerably well clothed; they could make pottery, and the pottery was decorated sometimes with interesting designs, of which we have specimens in our cabinets. Therefore, we find among the old Delaware Indians who formerly lived on the site of Philadelphia a fair specimen of a nation in a barbarous stage, decidedly superior to the Australian natives of to-day or the Indians of the Terra del Fuego or the northern part of British America, who are in the state of complete savagery.

Above that is the period of semi-civilization, a stage marked by the discovery of the method of building stone walls. No Algonkian or Iroquois Indian ever built a stone wall in his life; there is no record of any and no signs of any throughout the United States east of the Mississippi; there was never a stone wall built by a native tribe that really amounted to anything more than a stone pile; but we do find that in the southwest, among the cliff dwellers, and in various parts of Central America and South America, the stone wall was not only known, but it was constructed with a great deal of durability and skill. Also, some knowledge of metals was found among most of the semi-civilized people. The Mexicans and the Peruvians were in a state of semi-civilization when they were discovered by the whites the first time. They, built many extensive temples and houses, erected frequently upon pyramids, the pyramids themselves being supported by stone walls. They knew the dressing of stone; they were distinctly agricultural and depended more on that than anything else for their food supply. They had developed a system of mnemonic records which, in the Yucatan culture, might be called picture writing, but was not phonetic writing in our true sense of the term. The also knew something about weighing and measuring. They had definite laws, laws which were carried out by properly appointed individuals. Their towns and cities would often number thousands of inhabitants; they had roads connecting them, which roads were kept in good condition; they had a regular army made up of men selected and trained for that purpose. In all these respects we see nations who were semi-civilized, but they were not yet civilized. We could call a nation civilized that had a distinct system of phonetic writing and used it; but not all nations having this are civilized. It is only when it is used freely and for purposes of business that we can call them civilized.

The wild Tuaregs of the Sahara have a system of phonetic writing used by a few of them—the women being the literati of those tribes (the men not knowing how to read or write); but civilization means more than this; it means the use of iron weapons and tools; it means also the adoption of a definite currency which is established on a fixed basis and recognized throughout the community; it means the establishment of commercial lines—a progress distinct above that which is the mere barter of the lower conditions of savagery and barbarism. In all these respects we see that civilization means a type about such as we enjoy at present. It is such as has existed in Europe since the Renaissance; because during the middle ages we could only say that Europe was in a semi-civilized condition. They knew something about writing; but at a time when Dean, the writer of the early history of England, said that throughout the whole of England there were not half a dozen men who could read what he had written, you can see that writing was a very unimportant part of the culture of that nation; so it can only be when writing becomes a common possession of the majority that we can call it an element of civilization.

It is not to be supposed that we ourselves have reached the type of the highest culture. We leave something for our descendants to do. We do not wish to relieve them of the privilege of being better than ourselves; and we shall leave them, probably, plenty of room; because it is supposed that the stage of enlightenment which is the highest stage of culture—which we foresee, but do not see—that that rather applies to the future than to ourselves. That period will come when mankind has freed itself very much more than now from the bonds of nature and the environment of society. It will come when the ideas of our equality are much more perfect than they are now; when that equality extends to the equality of women with men before the law and in all rights; when it comes to the equality of all men of all castes before the law and the equal opportunity of all men to obtain that which is best in the life of all. We are very far from that yet. It will come also when the idea of international legislation is such that it will not be necessary, in order to cure great evils, that we should have recourse to weapons of any material whatsoever; that time is not yet come; and so we have much that is left for our descendants to work out in this direction.

It would, however, appear that all these various criteria which I have named are somewhat unsatisfactory. They do not, it appears to me, quite touch the question at issue. They are in a measure external measures altogether—even that somewhat psychological one which I quoted from the German authorities. Were I to propose a criterion, or a series of criteria, of culture which could be applied to all nations, it would be that which might as well and easily be applied to each individual; and when we come to apply it in that manner it is much more easy to understand its bearing. Herbert Spencer, in defining what he means by culture, says: "It means the knowledge of one thing thoroughly and a knowledge of the groundwork of all other branches of human knowledge." He claimed that we can only understand one thing thoroughly; but that we could and ought to understand the general outline of all other things which are studied by mankind. This is somewhat defective, it appears, because it bases culture entirely from an intellectual point of view; and if man were merely a walking intellectual machine, it would be well enough; but he is not; for the intellectual man is but a small portion of his life. We are engaged, most of our time, in something which is very far from purely intellectual action. We are governed distinctly by our emotions and our feelings—our sentiments; and culture must touch them, or it is vague and empty. Therefore it is that I would say that we should think with Goethe—to whom we must often recur for an insight into the profoundest trends of human nature—must recur to him; and we find that he lays down the principle of culture in the individual to be "A general sympathy with all the highest ideas which have governed and are governing the human mind." He said: "We should keep ourselves first (each man and woman should keep himself and herself) in touch with the highest elements of his and her own nature." He said, "It is not so difficult, if we give but a little time to it—provided we give that time regularly. We must remember," he says, "to cultivate our intellect by some study, every day and our sense of the beautiful by looking at something which is beautiful; and there is much around us which costs us nothing to look at were we to observe it—the cloud, the sunlight, the tree, the flower, a butterfly—anything of that kind studied for a few minutes each day would continue to develop in man's mind the sense of the beautiful. We should also appreciate carefully our actions and govern them and measure them, as to whether they are just to others—a matter which a very few minutes a day will probably enable us to do;" and so also he would go further and seek to find, in the idea of truth itself, as to what we ought and ought not to believe—trying to discover some one test of truth which we can apply.

Indeed, we may therefore formulate and apply to nations at large what Goethe has there suggested; and we shall find it can be arranged in