"PROFESSOR RIDGEWAY AND RACIAL ORIGINS" 143 



which these northern folk took to alcohol and flesh when 

 they got the chance shows that my argument in favour of 

 a climatic law is sound. 



I pointed out that, although the world has been ringing 

 with the doctrine of Natural Selection and the survival of the 

 fittest for nearly half a century, no statesman ever dreams of 

 taking these great principles into consideration when devising 

 any scheme of education or social reform. On the contrary it 

 is a fundamental assumption in all our educational and social 

 reforms that all men are born with equal capacities ; and 

 that there is no difference in this respect between the average 

 child of the labourer sprung from many generations of 

 labourers and one born of many generations of middle- or 

 upper-class progenitors ; and it is held that all that is neces- 

 sary to make the children of the working classes equal, if not 

 superior, to the children of the bourgeois is the same food, 

 the same clothing, and the same educational advantages. I 

 urged that whilst work has been a main factor in the evolu- 

 tion of the middle and upper classes, especially in later times, 

 though undoubtedly other qualities, such as superior physique 

 and superior courage, have been very important elements in 

 their earlier stages, the special quality which led to their rise 

 was a superior self-restraint, that enabled them to resist 

 the vices too often attendant on prosperity. This superior 

 morale influences the offspring both by heredity and by 

 setting up a better standard of life in the home. 



I thus concluded that the middle classes are not the outcome 

 of chance, but of a long process of Natural Selection and the 

 survival of the fittest in the struggle for life — the two main 

 factors in this evolution being Heredity and Training. The 

 middle and upper classes are in the main sprung from ancestors 

 with better physique, brains, courage and morale, and who 

 have generation after generation been brought up in a better 

 moral atmosphere than the children of the masses. Their 

 ranks are also being continually reinforced by the best of the 

 working classes. But the number of the good " sports " are 

 very limited, for hardly more than five per cent, of the children 

 of the working classes have at the age of sixteen the same 

 amount of brain-power as the average children of the middle 

 classes at the same age. 



Mr. Houghton asserts that my fundamental error is ascribing 



