Some Observations Upon the Civilization of the Western Barbarians, Particularly of the English / made during the residence of some years in those parts.

by John B. Swazey

The High-Caste also stupidly support the old preparatory schools; and will not, if they can help it, suffer any of the Lower-Caste to enter them.

In these, the barbarous customs continue; if one goes into them, he is at once carried backwards into the dark ages (as even the Barbarians call them); ages, when the Priests had all the Learning—wretched as it was—and when the Superstition coloured and directed everything. Here, the dead tongues are the chief studies, with something of the ancient puzzles as to Lines and Points—for the most part useless—with a style of administration fitted to the savage brutality of those times. The only part of the training cared for by the youths, is that which developes the forces of the body. The disgusting Ring Fight, referred to elsewhere, is a common pastime; and the lad is a milksop [kou-ad] who really avoids the rude crowd, and wishes to study. To be respected he must fight his way, and be feared. If, by chance, some lad of the Lower-Caste be entered, by the foolish wish of the father to bring the son into the polished circle of the High-Caste, he will be polished off (as these young Barbarians say), in a manner never dreamed of. The poor lad will be beaten, humiliated, and driven from the School; unless, indeed, he be strong enough to bully and beat his tormentors!

Very comically, in one part of these brutal fights, when one has got his antagonist completely in his power, and can bruise him as he pleases, the position is called being in Chancery! One of the fittest illustrations possible, of the universality of the judgment which places that Court among things the most repulsive!

The younger in these schools are the Slaves, for the time being, to the older and stronger; in fact, the whole effect of the training is really to make these youths selfish, quick of quarrel, hardy of body, and barbarous; to prepare them for the lives of predatory exploit, upon which fortune and all the best honours depend—learning being subordinate, and disregarded, unless it further the main purpose.

Force is still the god of these Barbarians, and Jah is worshipped because he, in this, fits them. The intellect is improved only that Force may be developed and disciplined to its most effective use.

One sees this everywhere. To invent the most destructive engines of war for the wholesale slaughter of the human species, to add to the swiftness of movement, to the durability and weight of action, to the means of assault and of defence, to bend the mind to uses based upon the idea that the normal condition of man is that of a tiger with man's intellect, to make the beast something inexpressibly dreadful!

The greater portion of the people remain sunk in the grossest ignorance—scarcely knowing (the most of them) much even of the Superstition, other than crude notions of Hell and the Devil. In this, probably, they are not much to be pitied; though in losing the precepts of Christ, and seeing around them the conduct of Christ-god worshippers, they are to be commiserated. They look with the contempt of ignorance upon foreigners, and call the people of distant seas Heathen, only fit for the Hell! As I have said, in another place, some attempts are being made to give this degraded populace, at least, the rudiments of learning. The task is hard, and made nearly impracticable by the stolid indifference of the Low-Castes, and their positive hostility to anything which interferes with their habits. They are very English, not different from their betters, and resent any sort of change as an interference with their individual freedom of action. To make these degraded beings slaves, you must not seize the individual—you must act upon them as a class—and they resent the attempt to teach them. Compulsion will be resorted to. The English Barbarians have a proverb [li-tze], "One may lead a horse to the water, but who can make him drink?" These people may be forced to the springs of learning, but who shall make them drink—unless beer? (This is the common drink, very muddling; used to an astonishing quantity.)

The women are not admitted to the Halls of Learning, though they are to be seen everywhere. Men do not wish them to be educated in those things admired by men—it would, as they think, make brutes of them. In this they are right; yet there is no consistency of idea in the general treatment of the sex, as will easily be gathered from these observations.

A learned woman—that is, one who has acquired the sort of education recognised by the Literati—is disliked by her own sex as well as by the men. The men will not marry her, unless she can buy a husband. This she may be able to do if she have money in abundance.