CONCLUSION
IN the foregoing chapters I have attempted to present in helpful form
ideas that have slowly sifted into my own mind as my contact with the
Indian has become less formal and restrained. In my case “familiarity”
has not “bred contempt.” I have learned many, and to me most important,
lessons. In the hurry and whirl of our money-mad age and our
machine-driven civilization, we have scarce time to sit down calmly
and contemplate anything, hence my earnest plea for a return to the
simple things, to the outdoors, to the quiet contentment of the Indian.
Doubtless I have often said things both crudely and harshly, but I can
truthfully affirm that I have never intended to be harsh, though I am
less careful that my utterances be polished and refined than that they
should find lodgment in earnest hearts.
To those who are honest and sincere in their desire to get the good out
of what I have said, the flaws in my work will be generously passed
by, and kindly disregarded. I have felt too intensely in the writing
of some of these chapters to be able to judge what I have written by
the cool, critical standard of the rhetorician. I have learned from the
Indian that the real thing to be desired in oratory is to get one’s
thought into the other man’s mind and heart so that it will influence
his action. This has been my aim in writing these pages; so, in
conclusion,
I thank thee, dusky brother of the plains, the mountains, the forests,
and the canyons, for this lesson and all the other lessons you have
taught me. I am grateful for the lessons of the higher civilization.
I prize and treasure them, but equally am I under obligation to thee,
thou red-skin, for recalling to me some primitive principles which
civilization ignores at its peril.
[Transcriber’s Note:
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]