causes a revolution in the
societal organization, either in the family form, the productive
industry, or the political discipline. The Hawaiians were a people of a
very cheerful and playful disposition. The missionaries trained the
children in the schools to serious manners and decorum. Such was the
method in fashion in our own schools at the time. The missionary society
refused the petition of the Hawaiians for teachers who would teach them
the mechanic arts.[155] This is like the refusal of the English
missionary society to support Livingstone's policy in South Africa
because it was not religious. Until very recent times no white men have
understood the difference between the mother family and the father
family. Missionaries have all grown up in the latter. Miss Kingsley
describes the antagonism which arises in the mind of a West African
negro, brought up in the mother family, against the teaching of the
missionary. The negro husband and wife have separate property. Neither
likes the white man's doctrine of the community of goods. The woman
knows that that would mean that she would have none. The man would not
take her goods if he must take her children too. "White culture expects
a man to think more of his wife and children than he does of his mother
and sisters, which to the uncultured African is absurd."[156] Evidently
it is these collisions and antagonisms of the mores which constitute the
problems of missions. We can quote but a single bit of evidence that an
aboriginal people has gained benefit from contact with the civilized. Of
the Bantu negroes it is said that such contact has increased their vigor
and vitality.[157] The "missionary-made man" is not a good type,
according to the military, travelers, and ethnographers.[158] Of the
Basutos it is said that the converted ones are the worst. They are
dishonest and dirty.[159] In Central America it is said that the
judgment is often expressed that "an Indian who can read and write is a
good-for-nothing." The teachers in the schools teach the Indian children
to despise the ways of their race. Then they lose the virtues of
trustworthiness and honesty, for which the Indians were noteworthy.[160]
There is no such thing as "benevolent assimilation." To one who knows
the facts such a phrase sounds like flippant ignorance or a cruel jest.
Even if one group is reduced to a small remnant in the midst of a great
nation, assimilation of the residue does not follow. Black and wh