| 278 THE COMING OF THE EUROPEANS
These qualities are innate and permanent: At
least they are beyond the reach of any means of
change that can be brought into operation in the
course of any moderate number of generations.
The whole history of the Indian tribes and of the
almost fruitless attempts which have been made to
civilize them, and induce them to live like white
men, proves this quite conclusively. Missions
were established among the Indians of New Eng-
land for the purpose of instructing them in the
arts of European life and in the truths of Christian-
ity, and though for a time very remarkable re-
sults were produced, no radical or lasting change
was usually effected. As soon as the external sup-
port to this new state of things, and in a certain
sense unnatural, was withdrawn, everything slowly
but irresistibly sank back into its former condition,
and the hereditary instincts and propensities of
the race returned in all their pristine vigor.
In the same manner the experiment has several
times been made of educating Indian young men
in the New England colleges, but the pupils thus
taught have, almost without exception, when their
prescribed course was finished, and they were left
at liberty, as they arrived at manhood, to follow
the impulses and instincts of their own hearts, very
soon turned away from the arts and refinemen
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