Blakeslee: Corn and Education 



57 



on the biologic evolution. It is suffi- 

 cient if we have shown that , although 

 education has been of service in social 

 evolution, its influence in biologic evolu- 

 tion at the present time is of little 

 service if not of distinct harm to the 

 human race. 



THE LESSON FOR EDUCATORS 



Have the findings of biology no lessons 

 for the educator? Education in the 

 past has tended strongly toward uni- 

 formity. Biology, however, teaches 

 that the human subjects are far from 

 uniform. Disproportionate time and 

 effort have been spent in an attempt 

 to raise the less capable to the average 

 level of the class, while the most capable 

 receive no extra attention and are held 

 back by the ability of those below them. 

 Special teachers are trained and courses 

 organized for backward pupils. In 

 reform schools and institutions for 

 mental defectives, the equipment and 

 facilities for instruction are often super- 

 ior to those in schools for normals. 

 Biology teaches the tremendous value 

 of exceptional capacity whether in 

 plants, domestic animals or in humans. 

 The superiority of our present agri- 

 cultural plants and animals over the 

 average wild forms from which they 

 have come is due to the continued 



selection of such rare superior variations 

 as nature has offered. Breeders have 

 merely recognized the best and given 

 them the best opportunities. There 

 is no good evidence that cultivation or 

 education acting alone has caused the 

 production of these rare variations of 

 merit. They have merely been offered 

 an increased chance of recognition and 

 when once recognized they have been 

 given opportunities for proper develop- 

 ment. 



We do not advocate the neglect of 

 the less capable, but we do advocate 

 a change in our evaluation of different 

 grades of abilities. It is wise to expend 

 the greatest effort on the recognition 

 and advancement of the most capable. 

 Thus can both the social and the 

 biologic evolution of the human race 

 best be favored. 



We hold that in corn or in men the 

 potentialities of the individual are 

 foreordained at birth; that these poten- 

 tialities are alone inherited; that educa- 

 tion can merely reveal the innate char- 

 acteristics already present; that, no 

 men being created equal, we should not 

 seek in education for equal opportunity 

 for all, but should seek earnestly after 

 those with the best gifts, should hold 

 fast, protect a.nd increase that which 

 is good. 



The Original Geneticist 



Credit for being the first professional 

 geneticist apparentlv must go to vSamuel 

 T. Fowler (born 1821), brother of the 

 better-known O. S. Fowler, phrenologist. 

 He described himself as Professor of 

 Genetics and published a 192-page book 

 entitled "Genetics" at Philadelphia in 

 1882. He defines the science as "per- 

 taining to the origin, production, source 

 and genesis of things," and the sub- 

 title of the book calls it "a new system 

 of learning, based on the analogies com- 

 prised in a complete abstract of the re- 

 quirements of genitive law, as they 

 apply to the origin and production, or 

 to the source and genesis, of the star. 

 plant, zo-onic and societary worlds." 

 Fowler apparently would have leaned 

 toward biometry, for he states that the 

 /science" formulated itself in his mind 



wholly in algebraic syml3ols, and that 

 his greatest labor was to find words in 

 which to express these. His effort in 

 this direction was hardly successful, 

 for he covers pages with discussion of 

 such things as "the composite center- 

 standive principle of procedurity," and 

 a large part of the book is utterly sense- 

 less, a fact which has considerably en- 

 hanced its prestige in the eyes of some, 

 so that it is said the work (long out of 

 print) sometimes sells for as high as $50. 

 It is a weird composite of astrology, 

 phrenology and home-made symbolism. 

 Just as geneticists today end their books 

 with a chapter on eugenics, so Fowler 

 concluded his by setting forth a scheme 

 for the fundamental reconstruction of 

 society, in which he showed himself to 

 be an advanced feminist. 



