Word: humanities
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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Most of the natives of Alaska are industrious and religious. They are degraded by a superstition which attributes all misfortune to evil spirits. There is a class of "medicine men" who devote their lives to propitiating these evil spirits, and who think to increase their power by eating human corpses Slavery in its worst forms is prevalent all over the country. The masters have entire control over their slaves and often kill a dozen or more as a mere display of wealth. The condition of the women is so wretched that babies are often killed rather than allowed to grow...
...study of man's physical nature, as it formerly was, nor to that of his moral and mental activities. These are merely phases of modern anthropological study, for Anthropology embraces all the relations of man to nature. It may seem strange that a study of such vital importance to humanity should be of such recent origin. But, as the child does not wonder much about itself until it has in some degree satisfied its curiosity about the things around it, so the human race has but lately begun to study itself, after having, through centuries of labor gathered a little...
Anthropology may be looked on as being the link which connects all other branches of science, and we may thus through it, obtain a just idea not only of the relative position occupied by each science, but of its importance to the human race. It has the same refining effect as travel, since it brings one in contact with the rest of the world, and so we can make comparisons and from these comparisons form correct estimates of the bearing of one thing upon another...
...Erechtheum had projecting porticoes on the north and south sides, and a portico at only one end, the eastern one. On the southern side is the Porch of the Maidens, one of the best known specimens of Greek architecture. The skill displayed here in the use of human figures in the architicture is unsurpassed. The northern portico was most elaborate structure. The architecture of the whole temple is of the Ionic order, which in this portico is seen in its most adorned type...
...since organic life would have been impossible before the formation of this crust, we find the time that animal life has been upon the globe. Man may have existed between one and two millions years ago. To enable the audience to appreciate the length of time that human beings have lived, the lecturer said that it bore the same relation to what is commonly known as the historic period as the whole life of a man of seventy bears to his last three months But whatever may be man's age, his origin is still an open question...