BIOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 42 I 



ance of the old type of knowledge. On the whole, education to-day is un- 

 doubtedly better than the education available in the past. But we do not 

 know in any precise way what a modern education really does or the dif- 

 ferent effect it has on different types of people. Psychologists in great 

 number are working on new measures for determining individual capaci- 

 ties along different lines. Other psychologists are trying to determine the 

 effect of different educational environments on people of different capaci- 

 ties. We may be sure that there is no single environment that would be the 

 optimum environment for every one. Each individual will make his maxi- 

 mum development in the environment that will most stimulate the partic- 

 ular responses of which he is capable. The environment that would be 

 optimum for a dull person would be insufficient for the full development 

 of a superior person. In the studies on orphanage and pre-school children 

 being made by Stoddard of the University of Iowa, the brightest children 

 showed the least growth in the deprived environment of the orphanage. 

 The Pennsylvania Inquiry on school and college education by the Carnegie 

 Foundation indicates wide individual differences in ability to respond to 

 a college education. A considerable proportion of those going to college 

 go backwards rather than forward intellectually during their last four years 

 of schoohng. It is not too much to hope that work of this sort will de- 

 velop a science of education such that ultimately we shall be able to measure 

 the specific potentialities of each individual and provide an educational 

 environment which would be the optimum for each of his particular abili- 

 ties. Such a change in our educational system if universally applied would 

 probably raise the average I.Q. almost 20 points. Few people would remain 

 without some specific capacity which, properly developed, would make 

 them more valuable members of society in their own recognized specialty. 



VII 



To date, the most effective applications of a science of man have been 

 in medicine, nutrition and public health. The expectation of life at birth 

 is now double that prevailing a century and a half ago, and has been in- 

 creased from 49.2 years in 1900-1902 to 60.3 in 1929-193 1. Medicine has a 

 long start on psychology. It is not unreasonable to suppose that in another 

 fifty years we may have a science of man which can prescribe the optimum 

 environment not only for the maximum physical but also for the maximum 

 intellectual and personality development of each individual. The applica- 

 tion will not be easy. But when the knowledge is available, some way will 

 be found to apply it. 



The science of human genetics will ultimately supply psychologists with 

 additional knowledge necessary for an understanding of different human 

 types. But the major applications of the science of human genetics will be 

 in the field of direct improvement of the genetic qualities of human stocks. 

 That is far in the future. What a few men did in twenty years, working 



