Unfortunately, no good view of the fall could now be obtained,
owing to the quantity of wood and high grass that lined the
margins of the precipices.
There are two falls, the lower being
the most lofty; and it is possible, by long circuit, to descend
into the valley and see them from below. Were the best points of
view searched for and rendered accessible, these falls would
probably be found to be the finest in the Archipelago. The chasm
seems to be of great depth, probably 500 or 600 feet. Unfortunately,
I had no time to explore this valley, as I was anxious to devote
every fine day to increasing my hitherto scanty collections.
Just opposite my abode in Rurukan was the schoolhouse. The
schoolmaster was a native, educated by the Missionary at Tomohón.
School was held every morning for about three hours, and twice a
week in the evening there was catechising and preaching. There
was also a service on Sunday morning. The children were all
taught in Malay, and I often heard them repeating the
multiplication-table, up to twenty times twenty, very glibly. They
always wound up with singing, and it was very pleasing to hear
many of our old psalm-tunes in these remote mountains, sung with
Malay words. Singing is one of the real blessings which
Missionaries introduce among savage nations, whose native chants
are almost always monotonous and melancholy.
On catechising evenings the schoolmaster was a great man,
preaching and teaching for three hours at a stretch much in the
style of an English ranter. This was pretty cold work for his
auditors, however warming to himself; and I am inclined to think
that these native teachers, having acquired facility of speaking
and an endless supply of religious platitudes to talk about, ride
their hobby rather hard, without much consideration for their
flock. The Missionaries, however, have much to be proud of in
this country. They have assisted the Government in changing a
savage into a civilized community in a wonderfully short space of
time. Forty years ago the country was a wilderness, the people
naked savages, garnishing their rude houses with human heads. Now
it is a garden, worthy of its sweet native name of "Minahasa."
Good roads and paths traverse it in every direction; some of the
finest coffee plantations in the world surround the villages,
interspersed with extensive rice-fields more than sufficient for
the support of the population.
The people are now the most industrious, peaceable, and civilized
in the whole Archipelago. They are the best clothed, the best
housed, the best fed, and the best educated; and they have made
some progress towards a higher social state. I believe there is
no example elsewhere of such striking results being produced in
so short a time - results which are entirely due to the system of
government now adopted by the Dutch in their Eastern possessions.
The system is one which may be called a "paternal despotism." Now
we Englishmen do not like despotism - we hate the name and the
thing, and we would rather see people ignorant, lazy, and
vicious, than use any but moral force to make them wise,
industrious, and good. And we are right when we are dealing with
men of our own race, and of similar ideas and equal capacities
with ourselves. Example and precept, the force of public opinion,
and the slow, but sure spread of education, will do every thing
in time, without engendering any of those bitter feelings, or
producing any of that servility, hypocrisy, and dependence, which
are the sure results of despotic government. But what should we
think of a man who should advocate these principles of perfect
freedom in a family or a school? We should say that he was
applying a good, general principle to a case in which the
conditions rendered it inapplicable - the case in which the
governed are in an admitted state of mental inferiority to those
who govern them, and are unable to decide what is best for their
permanent welfare. Children must be subjected to some degree of
authority, and guidance; and if properly managed they will
cheerfully submit to it, because they know their own inferiority,
and believe their elders are acting solely for their good. They
learn many things the use of which they cannot comprehend, and
which they would never learn without some moral and social, if not
physical, pressure. Habits of order, of industry, of cleanliness,
of respect and obedience, are inculcated by similar means.
Children would never grow up into well-behaved and well-educated
men, if the same absolute freedom of action that is allowed to
men were allowed to them. Ruder the best aspect of education,
children are subjected to a mild despotism for the good of
themselves and of society; and their confidence in the wisdom and
goodness of those who ordain and apply this despotism,
neutralizes the bad passions and degrading feelings, which under
less favourable conditions are its general results.
Now, there is not merely an analogy - there is in many respects
an identity of relation between master and pupil or parent and
child on the one hand, and an uncivilized race and its civilized
rulers on the other. We know (or think we know) that the
education and industry, and the common usages of civilized man,
are superior to those of savage life; and, as he becomes
acquainted with them, the savage himself admits this. He admires
the superior acquirements of the civilized man, and it is with
pride that he will adopt such usages as do not interfere too
much with his sloth, his passions, or his prejudices. But as the
willful child or the idle schoolboy, who was never taught
obedience, and never made to do anything which of his own free
will he was not inclined to do, would in most cases obtain
neither education nor manners; so it is much more unlikely that
the savage, with all the confirmed habits of manhood and the
traditional prejudices of race, should ever do more than copy a
few of the least beneficial customs of civilization, without some
stronger stimulus than precept, very imperfectly backed by
example.
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