Heredity and Education. 335 



the upper limit of these natural powers. In spite of the ut- 

 most that schools can do, one generation stands but a trifle 

 higher in its natural abilities than the preceding. Nothing is 

 more certain in heredity than the claim that algebra and ge- 

 ometry, for example, are easily mastered because of inherited 

 strength, and there is no conclusive proof of the assertion that 

 these subjects increase this natural strength when mastered 

 by the pupil. This exceedingly slow growth of all species of 

 both plants and animals toward higher levels of efficiency, even 

 though the species may pass through a myriad new experi- 

 ences, is one of the chief arguments advanced against the doc- 

 trine of evolution. By cross-breeding and selection alone, the 

 evolutionist answers, can desirable qualities be established and 

 be made to dominate the herd, field or garden, within a cen- 

 tury; otherwise millions of years would be required in acom- 

 plishing this desirable result through natural selection, develop- 

 ment and heredity. 



No educator of any prominence now believes in formal dis- 

 cipline. His practice may be a half century behind his knowl- 

 edge of the truth, but he will no longer contend that discipline 

 acquired in mastering one subject may be made to function in 

 the mastery of a different subject. It is as though entirely 

 different sets of brain cells are developed in the two lines of 

 study, together with their own association fibers. 



Schools are plainly of value, therefore, in supplementing 

 heredity, in giving skill in the use of the physical and mental 

 powers, and in furnishing the mind with desirable informa- 

 tion acquired and arranged in accordance with the scientific 

 method. Ex-President Charles W. Eliot, in the Atlantic for 

 March, 1917, quotes with approval the statement that the real 

 objects of education — primary, secondary, or higher — are, 

 first, cultivation of the powers of observation through the 

 senses; secondly, training in recording correctly the accurate 

 observations made, both on paper and in the retentive mem- 

 ory; and thirdly, training in reasoning justly from the prem- 

 ises thus secured and from cognate facts held in memory or 

 found in print. To this admirable statement of the work of 

 schools the author of this paper would merely add that the 

 schools must teach children how to find wholesome recreation 

 in play, how to enjoy the best in literature, and how to get real 

 pleasure from the fine arts. The majority of people use their 



