12 



The Journal of Heredity 



We have thus a new starting point in 

 our interpretation of American history. 

 That this study has for us far more 

 than a merely academic interest is made 

 clear by the following considerations. 

 Whatever the present crisis may com- 

 pass in bringing latent possibilities into 

 fullest play through the stress of unto- 

 ward conditions, and however it may 

 make for national revitalization, we 

 may not look to it to change directly the 

 basic fabric of our society. Such 

 change can come only through the 

 heightening of social consciousness and 

 the influence of this heightening on the 

 social policies of the future. 



THE DIRECTION OF THE SOCIAL PROCESS 



The socio-psychic process which we 

 know as education and, in its boarder 

 sense, as culture, implies in the first 

 instance efficient leadership, and efifi- 

 cient leadership implies balance between 

 means and method, and susceptibility to 

 response on the part of those who are 

 led. In our determination of social 

 policies it is fortunately not necessary 

 to choose between refinement of means 

 and methods for the development of 

 human possibilities on the one hand, 

 and, on the other, the increased sus- 

 ceptibility to response which shall give 

 their fullest effect to these educational 

 means. It is, however, of the highest 

 importance that the refinements of 

 means and method do not carry with 

 them as sequelae a decreased suscepti- 

 bility to response through deterioration 

 in the native capacity of the individual. 



It is here that we reach the heart of 

 our problem. For deeper than the 

 problem of educational method lies the 

 problem of physical and mental fitness. 

 This can be met only by care for the 

 innate character and aptitudes of the 

 stocks from which chiefly the elements 

 of our population come. The phe- 

 nomenal history of America is the his- 

 tory not only of the regnant families 

 who formed her ideals, giving them ex- 

 pression in her traditions and institu- 

 tions. To a far greater degree it is the 

 history of her lesser families, drawn 

 from some of the soundest stocks of 

 many nationalities, hence attracted by 



all that America has come to stand for, 

 and following successfully where the 

 greater individualities led. Aristogen- 

 esis concerns itself with the origin of 

 superior endowment, whether in indi- 

 viduals of superlative worth or in the 

 mass of our citizenry who maintain 

 successfully the standards set by per- 

 sons of superlative worcn. ilie present 

 paper aims at a fruitful line of inquiry 

 into the relation between aristogenesis 

 and the social process. 



SOCIAL SELECTION IN COLONIAL TIMES 



It requires no careful reading of the 

 annals of the early settlers to discount 

 assumptions as to their universal saint- 

 liness. Came convict hordes and ship- 

 loads of adventurers ; yet it cannot be 

 denied that the majority were from the 

 sturdy gentry and moved mainly by a 

 desire to improve their worldly condi- 

 tion by honest means, with a strong 

 leavening, particularly in New Eng- 

 land, of those devoted to spiritual ideals. 

 This population was subjected to a 

 physical and social selection the nature 

 of which can be but briefly indicated. 

 Added to the elimination of the weak, 

 which the shocking conditions of ocean 

 travel entailed at that day, came the 

 rigors of the New England winter and 

 farther south the ravages of the mala- 

 rial mosquito. In addition to this, the 

 colonists were in constant danger of 

 attack by the Indians. Hear the his- 

 torian of Long Island : "Although the 

 land was honorably purchased from the 

 aboriginal owners, yet the settlers never 

 saw a moment's rest, for fear of their 

 dreaded neighbors. In the field a guard 

 was kept; at night none knew at what 

 hour the alarm would sound ; to meet- 

 ing on the Lord's Day they went as 

 men prepared for instant war; every 

 male from sixteen to sixty was a sol- 

 dier enrolled in the ranks ; and in pro- 

 portion to its population the town could 

 boast a larger standing army than any 

 nation on the face of the globe." So 

 much for the array of tests which 

 weeded out the unfit — tests so rigid that 

 the easy adventurer preferred to fare 

 otherwise, and many a faint-hearted 

 jail-bird prayed to be sent to the gal- 



