98 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTION D. 



acquisition of knowledge, without due assimilation and application-. 

 The creative side of education is too often lacking. Again, there 

 has been too much education of the individual, producing selfish- 

 ness, and too little education of the community for the common 

 weal. As H. G. Wells states in his "Salvaging of Civilisation," 

 the "key to all our human disorder is organised education, com- 

 prehensive and universal." He also states that "education exists 

 to subdue the individual for the good of the world and his own 

 ultimate happiness." When people are educated on these lines 

 they should be capable of adjusting the differences between capital 

 and labour by the common-sense principle of "give and take," such 

 as by co-partnership, profit-sharing, and wages boards, without 

 resort to strikes. We hear too much nowadavs of the duty of the 

 State to the individual, but far too little of the duty of the indi- 

 vidual to the State. 



To return to the much-quoted phrase "improvement in the 

 standard of living," it must include improvement in the standarcT 

 of the mental qualities or intellect, not merely in physical well- 

 being. This must be done by the mode of education just men- 

 tioned, and in that education the principles of animal biology, so 

 fascinating to young and old. must be included. Further, we 

 have to deplore the fact that the better elements of modern society 

 are not reproducing at the same rate as the unfit. Some recent 

 authors, such as Dean Inge and Austen Freeman, are very definite 

 on this point. The former in a very recent review of the latter's 

 book on "Social Decay and Regeneration," writes: "The ultimate 

 factor of national decline is racial deterioration ; and in modern 

 societies this is very extensive" and pernicious. Unfavourable varia- 

 tions are not eliminated, and there is a reversed natural selection 

 in favour of the unfit." 



In conclusion I would earnestly plead for the inculcation of 

 the spirit of biology in all education, but it must be the spirit of 

 the subject, not the mere dull facts in the form of dry bones. 

 History also must be studied, so that the mistakes of the past need 

 not be repeated. Karl Pearson, speaking to the British Associa- 

 tion last year, said: "There is a conviction spreading in Germany 

 that the war arose and the war was lost because a nation of pro- 

 fessed thinkers had studied all sciences but had omitted to study 

 aptly the science of man." He also states that "the future lies 

 with the nation that most truly plans for the future, that studies 

 most accurately the factors which will improve the racial qualities 

 of future generations, either physically or mentally." Anthro- 

 pology and sociology must be firmly based on biology. With a 

 widespread knowledge of history, biology, and sociology, man 

 should improve his environment and attain co-operation, peace,. 

 and higher ideals. 



