4(> THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



says " he believes we can change human nature 

 by education and legislation " ; when Lady Warwick 

 and Sir John Gorst demand relief for underfed school 

 children from the Lambeth Board of Guardians ; 

 when certain well-intentioned but misinformed people 

 demand that every elementary State school shall have 

 an army of nurses to clean and bandage children's 

 cut fingers ; when Mrs. Sidney Webb impliedly 

 advocates that the children of workhouse paupers 

 can be made vigorous and strong and converted into 

 self-reliant and independent citizens if only they are 

 nursed by State employed nurses ; when Mrs. 

 Humphry Ward believes that the children of the 

 lower social classes are going to be made happy, well 

 ordered, contented, and healthy citizens if the State 

 will but provide their recreation and their playing 

 grounds ; when an Act of Parliament decrees that 

 public servants paid out of public moneys shall 

 cleanse verminous persons ; when certain medical 

 men assert that the stunted weaklings whose parents 

 live in one-roomed tenements are more stunted than 

 those whose parents live in two-roomed tenements, 

 and these more so than those of three -roomed tene- 

 ments, and in consequence they conclude that 

 our nation is undergoing physical degeneration along 

 this road, and then further by implication recommend 

 that the State {i.e., the fitter citizens) shall provide 

 four-roomed tenements ; when one of the leader- 

 writers of The Times asserts that " individuals, like 

 races, are the product of the environment," implying 

 a direct and moulding action of the environment ; 



