182 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



that a wise training may increase the power of 

 taking responsibility ; and that a boy with strong 

 enjoyment of bodily pleasures, whose desires if 

 unwisely indulged may turn to devils within him, 

 but who if temperately trained may keep the love 

 of beautiful and pleasant things as a deep rich under- 

 tone to all his life, making that life delightful to 

 himself and to all around him." All these conceptions 

 and possibilities we may recognise, but they have 

 nothing to do with my article. Whether the boy 

 with strong bodily pleasures will be a good or bad 

 citizen, depends not on his nurture but his nature. 

 If with these strong pleasures he is yet capable of 

 responding to good influences, he will do so. But if 

 his inherent characters render him indifferent to 

 such influences, he will be swept along the path 

 which leads to the gratification of those strong 

 pleasures. All through her criticism my opponent 

 has been dealing with the good, capable, and 

 responsive citizens ; while in mine I dealt with 

 the bad, incapable, and irresponsive ones. I have 

 never said that a good citizen will not be a good one, 

 nor a responsive one irresponsive. But what I did 

 urge was the folly of believing that inherently and 

 congenitally bad and irresponsive citizens could be 

 turned by education into good and responsive ones. 

 Miss Wodehouse has not endeavoured to controvert 

 that plea, but has taken a line of argument entirely 

 foreign to the purpose of my article, and has implied 

 that I disbelieve or oppose precisely those things 

 which I do as a matter of fact accept as obvious 



