EDUCATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF NATURE 277 



catching and dogs, that Harriet Martineau was a dull child, and Seward 

 " too stupid to learn," that Isaac Newton at twelve led his class at 

 the foot, that Samuel Johnson was lazy, Robert Fulton a dullard, 

 Oliver Goldsmith insufferably dull in his teacher's opinion, Byron 

 lowest in his studies, Richard Sheridan insignificant as his teacher 

 saw him, John Hunter slow and late to learn, Linnaeus, in view of his 

 stupidity, recommended by his pedagogue to be a cobbler, and that 

 Dean Swift through " dullness and insufficiency," and Goethe likewise 

 from seeming inability, forfeited their degrees. 



It is not to be forgotten that the survival of the fittest is always 

 relative to the conditions demanding adaptation and, while animals 

 have no preference, man may exercise a choice as to the conditions 

 to which he will adapt himself, and this is broadly the distinctively 

 human quality. The cleverest boys in the slums of New York become 

 the most skillful thieves. In the George Junior Republic, as we have 

 seen, the same boys grow into the best citizens. Here environment 

 is created and chosen by society for the boys; where it appoints them 

 to a slum environment it produces thieves and criminals; where it 

 gives them a rational environment out of the same material it produces 

 first-class types. 



Now society may fail to choose for itself the highest goal, which is 

 nothing but failure to select the largest environment to which to adapt 

 itself. It has choice of various inferior lines of growth. Then " prac- 

 tical " education will aim to fit the individual for most perfect adapta- 

 tion to the inferior plane chosen. Man has largely inherited the ani- 

 mal method and only partly adopted the human. Nature has pro- 

 vided education for animals only in a state of stability. For change, 

 improvement, nature has provided animals with nothing that can be 

 called a method, for the means it uses is destruction — destruction for 

 all who do not conform to the needs of the change, and in working 

 cut a new adaptation, the destruction of all who stray extends over 

 an immense period before a new state of stability is established with 

 a new instinct to conserve it. Now this is an incredibly blundering 

 and costly method where the individual is of any account and where 

 the goal is of value, both of which conditions are true of man. It 

 meets the need of animals because survival is the only thing aimed 

 at and the " fittest " are those adapted to the prevailing conditions. 

 The inadequacy of the principle for man and education becomes evident 

 since the conditions demanding adaptation, if ethically low, will call 

 for and bring out men of an inferior type and in a society of this kind 

 the few that might seek to make their adaptation to a more universal 

 environment, though they would be the best from the standpoint of 

 civilization and progress, would be suppressed. But the society choos- 

 ing this principle stagnates and, in the long run, retrogrades. Now 

 the purpose of education should not be merely to fit each generation 



