Disagreeable No
Doubt, To Nature's Intentions Which Have Strongly Divided Us By So
Many Indelible Characters.
In the days of our sickness, we shall
have recourse to their medical knowledge, which is well calculated
for the simple diseases to which they are subject.
Thus shall we
metamorphose ourselves, from neat, decent, opulent planters,
surrounded with every conveniency which our external labour and
internal industry could give, into a still simpler people divested
of everything beside hope, food, and the raiment of the woods:
abandoning the large framed house, to dwell under the wigwam; and
the featherbed, to lie on the mat, or bear's skin. There shall we
sleep undisturbed by fruitful dreams and apprehensions; rest and
peace of mind will make us the most ample amends for what we shall
leave behind. These blessings cannot be purchased too dear; too long
have we been deprived of them. I would cheerfully go even to the
Mississippi, to find that repose to which we have been so long
strangers. My heart sometimes seems tired with beating, it wants
rest like my eye-lids, which feel oppressed with so many watchings.
These are the component parts of my scheme, the success of each of
which appears feasible; from whence I flatter myself with the
probable success of the whole. Still the danger of Indian education
returns to my mind, and alarms me much; then again I contrast it
with the education of the times; both appear to be equally pregnant
with evils. Reason points out the necessity of choosing the least
dangerous, which I must consider as the only good within my reach; I
persuade myself that industry and labour will be a sovereign
preservative against the dangers of the former; but I consider, at
the same time, that the share of labour and industry which is
intended to procure but a simple subsistence, with hardly any
superfluity, cannot have the same restrictive effects on our minds
as when we tilled the earth on a more extensive scale. The surplus
could be then realised into solid wealth, and at the same time that
this realisation rewarded our past labours, it engrossed and fixed
the attention of the labourer, and cherished in his mind the hope of
future riches. In order to supply this great deficiency of
industrious motives, and to hold out to them a real object to
prevent the fatal consequences of this sort of apathy; I will keep
an exact account of all that shall be gathered, and give each of
them a regular credit for the amount of it to be paid them in real
property at the return of peace. Thus, though seemingly toiling for
bare subsistence on a foreign land, they shall entertain the
pleasing prospect of seeing the sum of their labours one day
realised either in legacies or gifts, equal if not superior to it.
The yearly expense of the clothes which they would have received at
home, and of which they will then be deprived, shall likewise be
added to their credit; thus I flatter myself that they will more
cheerfully wear the blanket, the matchcoat, and the Moccasins.
Whatever success they may meet with in hunting or fishing, shall
only be considered as recreation and pastime; I shall thereby
prevent them from estimating their skill in the chase as an
important and necessary accomplishment. I mean to say to them: "You
shall hunt and fish merely to show your new companions that you are
not inferior to them in point of sagacity and dexterity." Were I to
send them to such schools as the interior parts of our settlements
afford at present, what can they learn there? How could I support
them there? What must become of me; am I to proceed on my voyage,
and leave them? That I never could submit to. Instead of the
perpetual discordant noise of disputes so common among us, instead
of those scolding scenes, frequent in every house, they will observe
nothing but silence at home and abroad: a singular appearance of
peace and concord are the first characteristics which strike you in
the villages of these people. Nothing can be more pleasing, nothing
surprises an European so much as the silence and harmony which
prevails among them, and in each family; except when disturbed by
that accursed spirit given them by the wood rangers in exchange for
their furs. If my children learn nothing of geometrical rules, the
use of the compass, or of the Latin tongue, they will learn and
practise sobriety, for rum can no longer be sent to these people;
they will learn that modesty and diffidence for which the young
Indians are so remarkable; they will consider labour as the most
essential qualification; hunting as the second. They will prepare
themselves in the prosecution of our small rural schemes, carried on
for the benefit of our little community, to extend them further when
each shall receive his inheritance. Their tender minds will cease to
be agitated by perpetual alarms; to be made cowards by continual
terrors: if they acquire in the village of - -, such an awkwardness
of deportment and appearance as would render them ridiculous in our
gay capitals, they will imbibe, I hope, a confirmed taste for that
simplicity, which so well becomes the cultivators of the land. If I
cannot teach them any of those professions which sometimes embellish
and support our society, I will show them how to hew wood, how to
construct their own ploughs; and with a few tools how to supply
themselves with every necessary implement, both in the house and in
the field. If they are hereafter obliged to confess, that they
belong to no one particular church, I shall have the consolation of
teaching them that great, that primary worship which is the
foundation of all others. If they do not fear God according to the
tenets of any one seminary, they shall learn to worship him upon the
broad scale of nature. The Supreme Being does not reside in peculiar
churches or communities; he is equally the great Manitou of the
woods and of the plains; and even in the gloom, the obscurity of
those very woods, his justice may be as well understood and felt as
in the most sumptuous temples.
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