Arthur Dudley Vinton

Looking Further Backward Arthur Dudley Vinton

I come before you as a stranger. I am born of a race that the race you are born of has for centuries been trained to think of as an inferior race. I have no doubt that there may be some persons among you who look upon me not only as a man of alien race, but as an instructor placed over you by the force of arms, a director of your thought, a guide to your historical studies, forced upon you by the physical supremacy of an alien nation. I recognize that such thoughts may be entertained by you. I would not even blame you for entertaining them. I approach my task with diffidence as great as your reluctance to be instructed by me can be. The tongue I speak to you in is not my own tongue. I must invite your attention to events which you must necessarily feel a sense of humiliation in considering, since they evidence the foolishness of your ancestors, and the strange infatuation for impracticable ideas that dominated your immediate progenitors. I must narrate to you a history that you can take little pride in. Mine is the unpleasant task to dwell with you upon the causes that led to what many of you consider your degradation. Having thus besought your favor, I begin the first of those lectures which, as Professor of History in Shawmut College, it is my duty to deliver and your duty to attend.