CORN AND MEN 



The Interacting Influence of Heredity and Environment — Movements for Better- 

 ment of Men, or Corn, or Any Other Living Thing, One-sided 

 Unless They Take Both Factors into Account. 



Albert F. Blakeslee 

 Department of Genetics, Connecticut Agricultural College, Storrs, Conn. 



EUGENICS deals with racial im- 

 provement by means of hered- 

 ity in contrast to the subject re- 

 cently termed Euthenics which 

 deals with improvement by means of 

 the environment. These two influences 

 — heredity and environment — together 

 are responsible for the great diversity 

 found in all living beings. It is this 

 diversity in mankind that gives us our 

 educated and our uneducated classes, 

 our geniuses and our imbeciles, our law- 

 makers and our law-breakers. Success- 

 ful and unsuccessful men, as well as 

 successful and unsuccessful corn plants, 

 are such because of the resultant influ- 

 ence of these two factors. 



Both heredity and environment are 

 always in play. Their distinction and 

 their relative influence must be care- 

 fully estimated in any rational cam- 

 paign for permanent social improvement. 

 Our ideals and practice in social and 

 religious justice, rewards and punish- 

 ment, charity and education, are fun- 

 damentally dependent upon our esti- 

 mate of the relative value of these two 

 factors — environment and heredity. If 

 one is born with inherent criminalistic 

 and anti-social traits, the environment 

 may be in no way responsible and can 

 thus be neglected. Shall we, however, 

 merely punish the individual or shall 

 we attack the real cause of the crime — 

 his heredity? On the other hand, if the 

 criminal is made such by his environ- 

 ment, shall we confine our attention 

 to the criminal and neglect the en- 

 vironment which has made him crim- 

 inalistic ? 



A specific instance may make the 

 questions clearer. In our past crusades 

 against the social evil, we have too often 



sought legislation before investigation 

 We have had recounted to us the piti- 

 able struggle of the poorly paid wage 

 earner, the influence of the saloon and 

 of the dance hall. The downfall of 

 fallen women has been attributed to 

 these environmental conditions. If this 

 is so, a cure for the evil would be simple, 

 though difficult — namely, the removal 

 of the bad environment. On the other 

 hand, the family histories of these way- 

 ward girls have received little attention. 

 Evidence, however, has been recently 

 presented to indicate that moral way- 

 wardness is inherited in much the same 

 manner as other mental defects — that 

 moral deficiency runs in families. If 

 heredity is the sole cause of the social 

 evil, the remedy — the removal of the 

 bad heredity — is obvious, but has not 

 yet been seriously attempted. In en- 

 deavoring to heal this moral disease, 

 need we attack more than one factor, 

 or are these two — environment and 

 heredity — of such influence that both 

 require combatting? Such questions 

 may bring home the need of knowledge 

 of how these two fundamental factors 

 act, before hasty attempts are made at 

 social reform. A safe watchword is — 

 Information before Legislation. 



INTEREST IN GENETICS. 



The comparatively recent discovery 

 that knowledge of the laws of biology 

 may be used in the improvement of 

 cultivated plants and domesticated ani- 

 mals furnished the necessary human 

 interest to bring the subject of Genetics 

 into popular appreciation. The realiza- 

 tion, further, that man himself is sub- 

 ject to the same laws of life as other 

 animals has merely heightened the in- 



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