320 



The Journal of Heredity 



adolescence, she has become a brunette, 

 with high color when well. She is five 

 feet and one inch in height and weighs 

 about one hundred. I am plump and robust, 

 medium complexion, five feet three inches 

 tall and weigh 130. We both have brown 

 eyes, hers very dark, mine inclined to hazel. 

 Her hair is massive, heavy and a bit 

 coarse, while mine is shorter, lighter and 

 extremely fine. We both have small hands 

 and feet, mine unusually so, enough to 

 rouse comment wherever I go. 



We have never agreed on any subject, 

 yet never quarreled. We used to use our 

 fists and tear each other's hair when chil- 

 dren. We were always inseparable chums 

 until our school days were over. She has 

 no aversions that I know of, while I lose 

 all control of myself if a bee buzzes around, 

 due to a fright in childhood, I think. We 

 have always done well in school. I was 

 always the pest and my sister the pet of 

 our classes. She studied hard and I didn't, 

 but all our marks were good and alike 

 except for deportment. My sister's marks 

 were especially fine in history, geography, 

 etc.. while I shone in botany, physiology, 

 algebra, music and English. She used to 

 have nightmare over geometry until her 

 doctor had her drop it. Nothing ever 

 worried me. 



We lived together until 1917. We were 

 born in Pasadena in 1894, being now twenty- 

 seven years of age. Our father was a 

 captain in the army. Our mother died 

 when we were four and we were brought 

 up by five great-aunts. At the age of ten 

 we were taken to Massachusetts to be edu- 

 cated, and then came further changes for 

 us both. An aversion was taken to me by 

 our aunts on account of my father, whom 

 I exactly resembled in appearance and dis- 

 position. A violent, unreasoning temper 

 was aroused in me by this attitude, and my 

 life while there was a stormy one. I have 

 learned to control my temper since then. I 

 am glad to say. My sister's deportment 

 at home was as excellent as in school, but 

 a tendency to selfishness and obstinacy be- 

 came manifest. 



After leaving high school on account of 

 my twin's health, it was decided that we 

 go to the Sargent School for Physical Edu- 

 cation. It was a wonderful school and we 

 both loved it. Her health became fine and 

 mine remained so. While there I found 

 that while I had the endurance for long 

 hikes, fencing and rowing, she won out 

 when it came to tennis, swimming, jumping 

 and muscular strength for shot putting and 

 the like. She could go over a wall like 

 lightning, while her plumper twin took 

 minutes. 



We haven't even a family resemblance. 

 My sister resembles my mother's side wholly 

 and I my father's side wholly. No one will 



believe that we are twins. We grow more 

 unlike as we grow older and marriage will, 

 of course, bring greater changes. 



Personally. I do not think that 

 such "instances," unsupported by ex- 

 act measurements, settle for us the 

 heredity-environment problem, al- 

 though they do illuminate it. In this 

 connection, I feel that all biologists 

 and psychologists owe a debt to Prof. 

 Edward L. Thorndike, of Columbia, 

 for having stated this infinite complex 

 with a clarity and definition that prob- 

 ablv has been nowhere eoualled. If 

 this statement were kept hung up in 

 the laboratories of all students of the 

 problem it would probably act as a 

 demurrer to stating that any particular 

 trait or character or performance is 

 due, so many per cent to heredity 

 and so many per cent to environment. 

 Although the large rough outlines of 

 the two forces can, I think, be de- 

 limited by modern methods of study. 

 On page 2 of his "Original Nature of 

 Man," Prof. Thorndike writes (the 

 italics are mine) : 



But in another sense the most funda- 

 mental question for human education asks 

 precisely that we assign separate shares 

 in the causation of human behavior to 

 man's original nature on the one hand and 

 his environment or nurture on the other. 



Ill this issue we negelect to take for 

 granted the co-operating action of one of 

 the two divisions in order to think more 

 successfully and conveniently of the action 

 of the other. Thus, we say that man is 

 by his original nature able to see, but 

 ivhat he sees depends upon the environment 

 he meets ; or that original nature makes 

 him respond to certain objects by fears 

 which environmental training weakens ; or 

 that a child instinctively conveys food to 

 his mouth with the naked hand but by 

 habit comes to use a spoon as well ; or that 

 native curiosity develops by proper training 

 into interests in the arts and sciences. 



The custom of abstracting out the orig- 

 inal nature of man in independence of any 

 and all influences upon it is so general and 

 so useful it is best to follow it throughout, 

 remembering, Jwivevcr, that from the first 

 moments after the fertilization of the ovum 

 a human individual is always an acquired 

 nature — that in the most original behavior 

 discoverable, such as breathing or suck- 

 ling, some outside conditions are involved 

 and that in the most exclusively acquired 



