A General History for Colleges and High Schools | Page 5

different Aryan peoples, we discover the curious fact
that, under various disguises, they are the same. Thus our nursery tales
are found to be identical with those with which the Hindu children are
amused. But the discovery should not surprise us. We and the Hindus
are kinsmen, children of the same home; so now, when after a long
separation we meet, the tales we tell are the same, for they are the
stories that were told around the common hearth-fire of our Aryan
forefathers.
And when we compare certain words in different Aryan languages, we
often find them alike in form and meaning. Thus, take the word father.
This word occurs with but little change of form in several of the Aryan
tongues. [Footnote: Sanscrit, _pitri_; Persian, _padar_; Greek, _pater_;
Latin, _pater_; German, vater.] From this we infer that the remote
ancestors of the now widely separated Aryan peoples once lived
together and had a common speech.
Our knowledge of the prehistoric culture of the Aryans, gained through
the sciences of comparative philology and mythology, may be summed
up as follows: They personified and worshipped the various forces and
parts of the physical universe, such as the Sun, the Dawn, Fire, the
Winds, the Clouds. The all-embracing sky they worshipped as the
Heaven-Father (_Dyaus-Pitar_, whence Jupiter). They were herdsmen
and at least occasional farmers. They introduced the sheep, as well as
the horse, into Europe: the Turanian people whom they displaced had
neither of these domestic animals. In social life they had advanced to
that stage where the family is the unit of society. The father was the
priest and absolute lord of his house. The families were united to form
village-communities ruled by a chief, or patriarch, who was assisted by
a council of elders.

IMPORTANCE OF ARYAN STUDIES.--This picture of life in the
early Aryan home, the elements of which are gathered in so novel a
way, is of the very greatest historical value and interest. In these
customs and beliefs of the early Aryans, we discover the germs of
many of the institutions of the classical Greeks and Romans, and of the
nations of modern Europe. Thus, in the council of elders around the
village patriarch, political historians trace the beginnings of the senates
of Greece and Rome and the national parliaments of later times.
Just as the teachings of the parental roof mould the life and character of
the children that go out from under its discipline, so have the influences
of that early Aryan home shaped the habits, institutions, and character
of those peoples and families that, as its children, went out to establish
new homes in their "appointed habitations."
RACES OF MANKIND, WITH CHIEF FAMILIES AND PEOPLES.
BLACK RACE (Ethiopian, or Negro). Tribes of Central and Southern
Africa, the Papuans and the Australians. (This group includes two great
divisions, the Negroid and Australoid.)
YELLOW RACE (Turanian, or Mongolian). (1) The Chinese, Burmese,
Japanese, and other kindred peoples of Eastern Asia; (2) the Malays of
Southeastern Asia, and the inhabitants of many of the Pacific islands;
(3) the nomads (Tartars, Mongols, etc.) of Northern and Central Asia
and of Eastern Russia; (4) the Turks, the Magyars, or Hungarians, the
Finns and Lapps, and the Basques, in Europe; (5) the Esquimaux and
the American Indians. Languages of these peoples are monosyllabic or
agglutinative. (Note that the Malays and American Indians were
formerly classified as distinct races.)
WHITE RACE (Caucasian). Hamitic Family Egyptians, Libyans,
Cushites. Semitic Family Chaldæans (partly Turanian) Assyrians,
Babylonians, Canaanites (chiefly Semitic), Phoenicians, Hebrews,
Arabs. Aryan, or Indo-European Family Indo-Iranic Branch Hindus,
Medes, Persians. Græco-Italic Branch Greeks, Romans. Celtic Branch
Gauls, Britons, Scots (Irish), Picts. Teutonic Branch High Germans,
Low Germans, Scandinavians. Slavonic Branch Russians, Poles, etc.
The peoples of modern Germany are the descendants of various
Germanic tribes. The Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes represent the
Scandinavian branch of the Teutonic family. The Irish, the Welsh, the
Scotch Highlanders, and the Bretons of Brittany (anciently Armorica),

in France, are the present representatives of the ancient Celts. The
French, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians have sprung, in the main,
from a blending of the Celts, the ancient Romans, and the Germanic
tribes that thrust themselves within the limits of the Roman Empire in
the West. The English are the descendants of the Angles, Saxons, and
Jutes (Teutonic tribes), slightly modified by interminglings with the
Danes and Normans (also of Teutonic origin). (See _Mediæval and
Modern History_, pp. 169- 178.)

PART I.
_ANCIENT HISTORY._
SECTION I.--THE EASTERN NATIONS.

CHAPTER I.
INDIA AND CHINA.
1. INDIA.
THE ARYAN INVASION.--At the time of the great Aryan migration
(see p. 4), some Aryan bands, journeying from the northwest, settled
first the plains of the Indus and then occupied the valley of the Ganges.
They reached the banks of the latter