100 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



When oxygen is inhaled by a " stayer," that is, by a 

 horse inherently capable of storing it up, the staying 

 powers are increased.* In other words, if we 

 desire to express it as a social analogy, an environ- 

 mental influence may improve the powers of an 

 organism which naturally possesses an inherent 

 mechanism for responding to it and is capable of 

 utilising its stimuli. In the light of such a considera- 

 tion, perhaps it would be well to consider the 

 advisability of no longer wasting millions of money 

 annually upon the elementary education of social 

 classes incapable from inherent defects of benefitting 

 by it, but of spending instead a few hundred thousands 

 upon the organisation and equipment of the higher 

 education of our more cultured and successful classes, 

 from among whom the leaders of the nation ought 

 naturally to be chosen. In other words, train and 

 oxygenate the " stayers," and leave the " sprinters " 

 to do such sprinting as they can. The one can 

 benefit by training ; the other not only does not 

 benefit, but is harmfully affected by it. " What is 

 one man's food is another man's poison," is as true, 

 of social classes as it is of individuals. What is a 

 stimulus bringing brightness and gladness to one, 

 is an inhibition bringing anguish and hopelessness to 

 another. In that fact lies, in large measure, the 

 explanation of human happiness and misery and 

 the futility of the sentimentalist's hopes. 



Another point of sociological interest in Mr. 

 Robertson's paper lies in the consideration which he 



* See p. 76. 



