474 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



initial forces that make education possible, and also, it may 

 be admitted, set a limit to what is possible in individual 

 cases, yet our educational processes are still so defective that 

 every normal individual has more capacities than as yet 

 we know how to discover and develop by adequate educa- 

 tional methods. Moreover since only experimentation can 

 discover just where the limits are located, it is fatal to define 

 hmitations rigidly in advance. Too many children have been 

 judged dull and stupid merely because the right methods and 

 materials were not presented and have later been aroused 

 when rightly approached, to enable us safely to act upon the 

 basis of antecedent judgments of inferiority. 



INFLUENCE OF BIOLOGY ON EDUCATION 



Increased biological knowledge has conferred on education 

 the priceless boon of necessity of knowledge of original 

 capital stock and of individual differences; it has also led to 

 a specific study of definite original tendencies, impulses and 

 "instincts." The significance of instincts for education is 

 still, however, a controverted question. The theory that 

 intelhgence may be regarded as an organization of instincts 

 cannot be maintained in the face of facts. The helplessness 

 of human infancy is itself a sign that in human beings the 

 definite organization of instinctive powers in lower animals 

 has broken down, and it must also be recognized that even 

 in them instincts are not as fixed and rigid as they were 

 formerly supposed to be. Biologically, intelligence is con- 

 ditioned by failure of instincts to meet the needs of human 

 life; it represents the method of supplementation of their 

 inadequacy for the work of life. To educate simply or mainly 

 on the basis of original instinctive tendencies means at best 

 and most only to secure specialized practical skills, not a 

 development of intelligence itself. In reality, therefore, the 

 study of instincts is not a study of fixed educational founda- 

 tions but is a way of making knowledge of individual poten- 

 tialities more definite and accurate. Instincts do not set the 

 ends of education, but indicate in a more accurate manner 

 materials to be dealt with. The educative problem is what 

 may and should be done with them; what may and should 

 be made out of them; and to find an answer to these ques- 



