BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



that interfere with normal personality development. 

 Lack of normal social contacts, especially if this is com- 

 bined with a sense of inferiority, leads to extreme intro- 

 version. Too much mothering of the boy or too much 

 fathering of the girl warps the child in the direction of 

 homosexuality. Attitudes of honesty, fair-mindedness, 

 and tolerance in home and school definitely affect the scores 

 which children make on tests of these traits. Such influences 

 have long been suspected; they are now being quantita- 

 tively measured. In the case of honesty and trustworthi- 

 ness, for example, it has been experimentally demonstrated 

 that the child is much less influenced by what he is taught 

 verbally than he is by the general atmosphere of honesty 

 and truthfulness in the classroom or home. 



The measurement of interests is especially promising as 

 an aid to vocational guidance. It has been shown that the 

 child himself cannot be depended upon to give a correct 

 account of his interests. He easily misjudges his interest 

 in a given school subject because of his attitude toward 

 the teacher; he misjudges his interest in a given occupation 

 because of his admiration for some one in that occupation. 

 In fact the child has no possible means of knowing whether 

 his interests and attitudes most resemble those of lawyers, 

 doctors, engineers, artists, teachers, business managers, 

 or some other occupational group; but interest tests have 

 been devised to answer just this question. They cannot 

 serve as the sole basis of vocational guidance, but they 

 promise to become indispensable aids. 



The above are only examples of many illustrations that 

 could be given to show how the study of individual 

 differences is influencing education. In the mass education 

 so necessary in a democracy, individuality has always 

 been sacrificed in greater or less degree in favor of a uni- 

 form product. But a democracy, to survive and progress, 

 demands not only a high level of general attainment in its 



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