470 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



only as they are renewed;, the customs of a group and 

 civilization must be integrated into the habits of at least 

 enough of the young to ensure their continuing reproduction. 

 Not only does this general force operate, but that of direct 

 utihty; indeed, the latter is often more intense. The demand 

 for aid and cooperation in carrying on the occupation of the 

 group, whether tribe or family, is urgent. Children and 

 youth are taught so they may be of assistance; their help 

 is needed in savage tribes, for example, in the hunt and war, 

 in making baskets, utensils, clothing, etc. The immature 

 can be of use only as they learn the skills their elders possess. 

 In multitudes of ways, the affection, the social interest 

 and loyalty and the desire for direct aid interact with the 

 dependence and the native tendencies of children to educate 

 the latter. All the words that express the operation tell 

 the same story, to rear, raise, form, nurture, cultivate. 



If, then, one wished to sum up briefly the influence 

 of education one can only say that it is a process of civihz- 

 ing; of transforming a biological heritage into beliefs, abili- 

 ties and aspirations consonant with sharing in social life, and 

 this through the medium of what has already been achieved in 

 the group and culture into which the young are born. Or, from 

 the standpoint of mankind instead of that of the individ- 

 ual, the eff'ect of education is to secure the perpetuation of 

 culture in all the various phases in which the anthropologist 

 uses that word, material, intellectual, moral and institutional. 

 It is education that makes the diff'erence between the mere 

 original animal, in which respect the human being is inferior 

 to most other vertebrates, and the human being with 

 whatever of culture and civilization he possesses. If this 

 claim for education is doubted, it is because education is 

 taken too narrowly, being identified with schooling. Of 

 education in the sense of schooling, the statement is of 

 course not true. But the education of the schools represents a 

 specialized mode; education itself is synonymous with all 

 the ways in which native biological tendencies are shaped 

 into formed abilities, attitudes and dispositions. 



Before we consider the specialized mode (a consideration 

 that is the main concern of this contribution) it is advisable 

 to mention some questions, more or less controversial, that 



