These
remains show the hand of several successive races. Who they were, what
their traits, whence they came, what their relations with the now
civilized Chinese and Japanese--whom, physically, their descendants so
nearly resemble--are legitimate queries for the historian. Geologically,
America is older than Europe, and was fitted for the home of the red man
before the latter ceased to be the home of the whale. The investigation
of its past, if impossible to be conducted in the light of its own
records or even traditions, is capable of aiding in the verification of
conclusions drawn from those of the Old World. If History, however,
contemptuously relegates the Moundbuilders to the mattock of the
antiquarian, she is still "Philosophy teaching by example." As thus
allied with Philosophy, she finds something to look into at the
Centennial, even though she look obliquely, after the fashion of the
observant Hollanders, who have stuck the reflecting glasses of the Dutch
street-windows into the sides of their compartment in the Main Building,
and squint, without a change of position, upon the United States, Spain,
South America, Egypt, Great Britain and several other countries.
Religion and philanthropy find the field inviting, and their
representatives, individual and associated, are busy in preparing to
till it. The enthusiasm of the leading religious societies took the
concrete shape of statuary. Hence the Catholic Fountain, heretofore
noticed; the Hebrew statue to Religious Liberty, as established in a
land that never had a Ghetto or a Judenstrasse; the Presbyterian figure
of Witherspoon; an Episcopalian of Bishop White; and others under way or
proposed.
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