3 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



was observed : apparently several sparrows had the desire and the 

 intention to go into the trap, and these were obviously the young, 

 inexperienced birds which had been hatched since the trap was 

 last set " ; but the older birds sounded the cry of warning, and kept 

 the venturesome young sparrows away. 



Let us next view the prolongation of human infancy in the 

 light of the law of habit. This law declares that every reaction 

 of an organism to a condition in its environment renders the repe- 

 tition of that reaction quicker, easier, more certain, more uniform ; 

 and the existence of habits implies an environment sufficiently 

 constant to repeatedly present to the organism the same or closely 

 similar conditions. Mere existence in a world so full of regulari- 

 ties, of rhythm and law, of recurrences of the same needs, results 

 in the performance of definite actions in definite ways ; and it 

 equally results that the earliest experiences will produce the 

 strongest impressions and will gradually render more difficult the 

 learning of other modes of reaction, even though these others, 

 owing to a change of conditions, would be more useful. Accept- 

 ing the power of adaptation to an extensive and variable environ- 

 ment as an if not the index of a high intelligence, it follows that 

 prolongation of the period during which acquisition is possible 

 and easy will greatly further intellectual progress. The supreme 

 significance of education thus appears as an outcome of the long 

 preparatory period of human life ; the modifiability of the indi- 

 vidual is what makes possible training, education, alike in ani- 

 mals and men, and modifiability involves immaturity. Man at- 

 tains his high intellectual position by entering the world the most 

 helpless of living kind ; but, because less freighted with the in- 

 grained habits of his ancestors, is he freer to develop habits of his 

 own. " It is babyhood," says Mr. Fiske, " that has made man what 

 he is." 



Pursuing our thought in another direction, we find that organ- 

 isms entering life more nearly mature will be more like one an- 

 other, will present fewer individual differences than animals with 

 extended periods of immaturity ; and in turn one generation will 

 be more like the preceding and the progress of the species be pro- 

 portionately slow. The early independence of the young involves 

 action upon inherited instincts, which naturally are closely the 

 same for all members of the species ; there thus results a funda- 

 mental similarity, leaving a relatively small margin for individual 

 differences. A further result of a prolonged infancy is the group 

 of emotions it arouses and perpetuates on the part of the parents. 

 Motherly devotion and affection, fatherly interest and supervision 

 extend over a larger and longer period as the species is more and 

 more highly developed, until among the highest races of man it 

 continues in a modified form throughout life, and in this modified 



