CORN AND EDUCATION 



Potentialities of the Individual Are Foreordained at Birth — Education Can Only 



Reveal the Innate Traits Already Present — Equal Opportunity for 



All Is Not Desirable in Education 



Albert F. Blakeslee 

 Station for Experimental Evolution {Carnegie Institution of Washington), Cold Spring 



Harbor, Long Island, N. Y. 



TO THE biologist the proper study 

 of mankind is plants and the 

 lower animals. That man is an 

 animal is indeed taught in child- 

 hood. We have learned the phrase, but 

 actually we think rather of man as dis- 

 tinct from animals. We have felt a 

 great gulf separating us from other 

 living beings. Only in relatively recent 

 years have we come to realize that the 

 greatness of this gulf has been exag- 

 gerated. Man as a living organism is 

 subject to the general laws of life, but 

 his very complexity of mental develop- 

 ment, as well as other reasons, makes him 

 a poor subject for discovering these 

 laws in himself. Biologists accordingly 

 make comparatively little experimental 

 use of man himself in investigating 

 fundamental principles of life. 



With corn one may illustrate certain 

 conceptions which will doubtless appear 

 trite to trained biologists, but which 

 experience shows are not appreciated 

 by most intelligent men, even though 

 they may be specialists in education. 

 Such lessons drawn from corn have been 

 found of value in the writer's classes 

 in the discussion of human inheritance. 

 The words education and educator 

 have acquired such popular respect 

 that they are often used as mere ad- 

 vertising names to attract buyers. Thus 

 we have "educator" shoes and "edu- 

 cator" crackers. Education is indeed 

 a word to conjure with. It is truly a 

 master key which unlocks the known 

 treasures of the past and opens the door 

 to unknown treasures of the futiu"e. It 

 is a prime factor in the progress of civili- 

 zation and has been offered as a panacea 

 for social ills. Educate the masses, it 



is thought, and all will be well. Educa- 

 tion is esteemed as a stimulus towards 

 the mental, moral and physical better- 

 ment of the hiunan race. It is con- 

 ceived of as a cimiulative and creative 

 force acting from generation to genera- 

 tion towards the upbuilding of a better 

 race of individual men. 



Education can accomplish much, but 

 can it accomplish all that has been 

 claimed? What are its possibilities 

 and what its limitations in affecting the 

 stream of human evolution? 



TWO TYPES OF EVOLUTION 



Before seeking an answer to these 

 questions, it will be desirable to dis- 

 tinguish two types of evolution, social 

 and biologic. Social evolution deals 

 with changes in man's surroundings. 

 It involves not merely the increase in 

 accumulated knowledge and material 

 things that have been handed down 

 from one age to another, but as well the 

 changes in thought, customs and stand- 

 ards that have thus been acquired. 

 Biologic evolution, on the other hand, 

 deals with changes in the inherent 

 nature of man himself. It takes ac- 

 count only of such alterations in phys- 

 ical and mental make-up as can be 

 transmitted to later generations. 



In social evolution it goes without 

 saying that education has been a con- 

 stant factor. Knowledge has brought 

 about a closer adaptation to the world 

 in which we live. Our standards of 

 life and thought in consequence have 

 improved. Civilization has advanced 

 and man is situated in better surround- 

 ings than ever before. But has educa- 

 tion made man intrinsically a better 



51 



