We cannot draw a fixed line and say, "On this side are the cultured people and on that the wild," because there are many tribes and nations who are about that line, in some respects on one side of it, in others on the other; but in a broad, general way this distinction (which is now universally adopted by the German writers) is one we should keep in our minds as being based upon careful studies and real distinctions.

Usually the writers in the English tongue prefer a different basis than any of these which I have mentioned; they prefer the basis as to whence is derived the food supply of a nation, or a tribe; and on the source of that food supply they divide nations and tribes into the more or less cultured. In earliest times (and among the rudest tribes to-day) the food supply is furnished entirely by natural means; there is little or no agriculture known to speak of; there is nothing in the way of preserving domestic animals for food; hunting the wild beasts of the forests and fishing in the streams are the two sources. Therefore, we call that last condition the hunting and fishing stage of human development. You will observe that when that prevails there can be no congregation of men into large bodies. Such a thing as a city would be unknown. The food supply is eminently precarious. It depends upon the season and upon a thousand matters not under the control of man in any way. Moreover, inasmuch as the supply at the best is uncertain, it allows but a very limited population in a district; nor does it permit any permanent or stable inhabitations.

The towns, such as they are, must be movable; they must go to one part of the country in the summer and another in the winter; they must follow the game and the fruits; and in that condition, therefore, of unstable life it is not possible for a nation or a tribe to gain any great advance. You observe, therefore, that when the food supply is drawn from this source it does entail a general depravity of culture everywhere.

Above that would come the food supply which is obtained from other sources. There is one which is not universal but still widely extended, and that is the pastoral life. There are many tribes (as, for instance, in southern Africa and in India and throughout the steppes of Tartary and elsewhere) who live on their herds and drive their herds from one pasture to another in order to obtain the best forage. This nomadic and pastoral life extended very widely over the old world in ancient times, but existed nowhere in the new world, for the simple reason that they had no domesticated animals. Our own remote ancestors - both the Aryans and the Semites - all the early ancestors of the white race so far as known, were pastoral or nomadic; and the Aryans of central Europe remained so until after the fall of Rome, when, for the first time, they became practically sedentary. This nomadic and pastoral life is a very great advance over the mere hunting and fishing stage. It requires considerable care and attention to domesticate the wild animals in any sufficient quantity to form a reliable source of food. Moreover, the attention which it was necessary to give to the rearing and training and the looking after domestic animals was to a certain extent, humanizing.

When a man found that it was necessary to be careful about his animals, he would also be careful about his neighbors. We would say that the same sense which enabled him, or directed him, to look after the welfare of the herd would justify and, in fact, impel him to look after that of man also; so that the nomadic and pastoral life, although not stable nor favorable to the development of cities, nor the great extension of commerce, was nevertheless a decided advance over the ruder hunting and fishing stage. So far as we know, neither Aryan nor Semite ever depended upon a hunting and fishing stage. They doubtless did, but not in the time of any history that we know. The Bedouins, etc., wandering tribes to-day, and, among the Semitic, the Tuaregs of the Sahara, are a purely nomadic or pastoral race; yet are very much above the negroes of the south, who depend upon hunting and fishing.

Above it, however, and a very great improvement upon it, is the agricultural stage, where the main source of the food supply is the harvests. You observe, at once, that that means a sedentary life. When a man sows corn, he must wait thereabout and tend it and till it and finally reap it and store it and thrash it and then preserve the grain and build granaries for it; and it involves, in fact, the remaining in one place all the whole year; and then the regularity of that life led very distinctly to making men regular, generally, in their habits. They wanted to defend their homes - defend these grain fields of theirs, or starvation would result; therefore, they built towers and strong-walled cities; and they took great care in the selection of the best men among them to do the fighting, while others looked after the crop. We find that agriculture began at a very, very early period in both continents. In our own continent we cannot tell when agriculture was first in use - the main crop being the maize, or Indian corn.

It was raised by the more advanced tribes from the extreme north, where its profitable culture invited, to the extreme south, from about the northern line of Wisconsin in North America to the latitude of southern Chile in South - extending, therefore, over some seven to eight thousand miles of linear distance.

In the old world (going back to the time of the lake dwellers) we know they had barley, rye and a species of millet; and later on they were introduced to oats and wheat and a variety of others. Rice was of the very earliest of our cereals, in the extreme east of the old world. Wherever we find a very ancient civilization we also find that it is intimately connected with some important cereal, and it has been said that all you have to do is to study botany - the history of botany - and you will find the history of human culture; and much there is that could be said for that.