7 6o Til E POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



uneven lot, the Laborer would often strike down the man whose mental 

 superiority makes possible the earning of his bread. Trades-unions in 

 attempting to reduce all work and wages to a dead level, in spite of 

 the varying abilities of different workingmen, are striving to accom- 

 plish a reversal of natural law. As for any permanent success in this 

 matter, they will find it about as difficult to change the operation of 

 the law of the survival of the littcst, as the law of attraction of gravi- 

 tation. A state or society might as well decree that the man with the 

 strong lungs should not live any longer than the one with weak lungs, 

 as attempt to restrain the fertile, active mind, and limit its perform- 

 ance by the capacity of the dull brain. At the same time, we should 

 strive to find out the preventable causes of mental as well as of physi- 

 cal inferiority. 



The child from the swarming tenement-house, after a desultory 

 and unpractical schooling, is quickly transferred to shop or factory, 

 where the struggle of life must be begun on a pitiably insufficient 

 physical and mental training. A practical, industrial education does 

 not appear to be within the conception of our public schools. This is 

 just the line of education that would make them useful to the poor. 

 We are hearing much at present of the dignity of manual labor ; but 

 work of the hands, unless in a measure directed by the head, is rather 

 a lame accomplishment. Workingmen often show an inability to get 

 along, because they have not sufficient mental equipoise to direct their 

 affairs properly, as well as their work. They are continually being 

 victimized by political manipulators and social quacks from this cause. 

 Social conditions that keep men and women hopelessly toiling all their 

 lives on one low plane are lamentable, but biological law shows us that 

 heredity and a terribly unfavorable environment have of necessity pre- 

 cluded the physical and mental acuteness necessary to reach a higher 

 level. 



3. Unequal Moral Development. — In character, no less than in 

 body and mind, do we see vast differences among men. From the 

 perfect activity of a well-balanced will to the uncertain energy of a 

 vacillating character, there are innumerable variations. Such grada- 

 tions do not stand in any ratio to intellectual culture. Moral power 

 depends largely upon material environment. It does not flourish with 

 filth or famine. Self-respect, that fundamental necessity for the higher 

 attributes, can not well exist in rags and dirt. Moral rectitude is with 

 difficulty conserved when the contact of individuals is too close. The 

 excessive overcrowding so often seen in the tenements of great cities 

 is as destructive of virtue as of physical health. I have seen sexual 

 diseases engendered, even in childhood, that will not only cripple the 

 development of the individual, but be propagated to future genera- 

 tions. Probably the most prolific cause of vice in densely populated 

 centers is the condition here noted. This is only one aspect of a great 

 subject. It is not necessary to believe that moral nature has been 



