48o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



our educational institutions ! It was a natural consequence of the 

 misleading because partial doctrine that the great purpose of the 

 public school was to teach " the three R's." It can not be too much 

 insisted on that the great purpose of all education is to furnish a 

 favorable environment (using that term in the widest sense) for 

 the development of the highest type of human beings consistent 

 with the innate inherited tendencies. We can not make silk 

 purses out of sows' lugs, but we must take care that we do not 

 convert silk purses into lugs by our bungling and lack of insight, 

 all the more likely if we place undue confidence in our educa- 

 tional systems which we call great because according to the tend- 

 encies of the day they affect vast numbers. 



A study of heredity tends to prevent and mitigate discourage- 

 ment, and it also shows us how great is the power of the organism 

 to vary with changes of environment. In other words, education, 

 in the true sense, can do much to modify. The world has passed 

 from stages of almost bestial degradation to the present state of 

 civilization through this tendency to vary under environment by 

 some processes which we can appreciate and possibly by others 

 that we do not fully understand. We have every reason to hope 

 for the future ; but this hope should be a rational one founded on 

 the adaptation of means to an end, and in this the organisms must 

 first of all be considered. 



Regarding the human race in this light, it becomes clear to me 

 that, after the parents themselves, the teacher may become the 

 most potent factor in the development of the human being. He 

 can not radically alter hereditary tendencies, but it is his great 

 privilege to guide and modify them. In some cases he may re- 

 quire to steer so as to avoid Scylla and not fall into Charybdis ; 

 in others to develop energy in weak natures that only tend to 

 drift along in life. But one thing is certain, that to attain these 

 truly great results the teacher must himself be very much of a 

 man ; and the public would do well if it could but stop long 

 enough in the race for wealth, power, or distinction to consider 

 whether it is taking the right means to find and retain such peo- 

 ple. Mankind must study and observe the laws of the heredities 

 if the race is to make the greatest possible progress ; and next to 

 that the race must seek out and cherish in every way those that, 

 after the parents themselves, have the greatest influence in mold- 

 ing and developing the teachers of youth. 



All other questions are subordinate. My colleagues in this 

 noble work, let us in our day and generation realize our great 

 opportunity and seize it. 



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