330 Kansas Academy of Science. 



The most wonderful thing in the development of the embryo 

 from a single fertilized egg cell to a great organism possessing 

 many millions of cells so arranged that they can do many kinds 

 of work — that which separates living beings from lifeless 

 minerals controlled by the physical forces — is the power pos- 

 sessed by life to vary its response to the condition imposed by 

 thousands of environments so as to enable myriads of indi- 

 viduals to succeed in their struggles for existence. Life has 

 succeeded or failed in its response by acting, not as chemical or 

 a physical force, but by managing these forces as the engineer 

 manages his engine, or as life controls its body of many parts 

 through energy. From birth to school age the child rapidly 

 perfects those powers it needs in its adjustment to its environ- 

 ment. It learns to use its organs of special sense, and the 

 neurones of its brain, spinal cord, and other ganglia push out 

 their axones and their complexes of dendrites as needed. 



This is the time also when the boy and the girl imitate their 

 elders in speech and conduct. They find this exercise of their 

 growing powers so interesting that they quickly learn all forms 

 of play known to their parents and neighbor children, and soon 

 become expert in these forms of exercise. 



When school age arrives and schools are not accessible, the 

 children readily acquire the powers and information of parents 

 and neighbors and become their worthy successors in all indi- 

 vidual and social enterprises. Such men as Lincoln, for ex- 

 ample, became great with practically no schooling. This 

 properly raises the question as to the value of elementary 

 schools to boys and girls. One case does not establish a prin- 

 ciple, but it is suggestive of the direction in which the truth 

 may lie. In pioneer days in Kansas the people of a certain 

 district in Lyon county were unable to agree on the site for a 

 schoolhouse, A group of about twenty children, after two 

 years in school, were kept out of school for six years while 

 their parents strove to agree on a site for the schoolhouse. At 

 last an agreement was reached and the building erected. This 

 group of boys and girls had not become school weary, but on 

 the contrary, longed intensely for a chance to get an education. 

 As a result of this longing, and in spite of the loss of six years 

 of elementary school training, from this group of twenty came 

 several district school teachers, one professor of English in a 

 university, one professor of science in a normal school, one 



