PROCEEDINGS OF SECTIOX F. u81 



parent and teacher. Havelook EJlis, whom we ought to be proud 

 to claim as an Australian, has done much to facilitate the labours 

 of those who are engaged in the work of reform and education. 



The most important conclusion that emerges from the study of 

 these and similar books is that the interests of the race will be 

 best conserved and furthered by the education of men and women, 

 and especially of our young women, in all that relates to human 

 welfare. There is no fence now round the ti^ee of knowledge; and 

 we should see that no man with a gun or a club is set to guard the 

 tree of life. 



About a quarter of a century ago, Geddes and Thomson, 

 pioneers in this subject, set forth the thesis that the geiieral p;ro- 

 gress, both of tlie plant and the animal world, and notably the 

 great uplifts, must be viewed, not simply as individual, but very 

 largely in terms of sex and parenthood, of family and association, 

 and hence of gregarious flocks and herds, of co-operative packs, 

 of evolving tribes, and this ultimately of civilized societies — above 

 all, therefore, of the city. 



Recent investigations have very greatly changed the ordinary 

 viev/s of the modes in which races develop, even during civilized 

 times. Evolution, paleonfcologically and embryologically, and 

 generally, does not show the regular, orderly, and gradual succes- 

 sion of upward progress it was once thought to do. Much of the 

 history of early civilizations also has to be re-written. The race 

 has not become what it is, always slowly and by mere brute force ; 

 brain, even in " Neanderthal times," had evidently much the same 

 size, the same characters, and presumably the same functions, as 

 now. Even paleolothic woman would seem to have had her 

 fashions, not unlike those of the period before the palmy days of 

 'Oreece, as seen in the records of the excavations of Crete, and 

 resembling those of last season's Paris fashion plates. 



Elsewhere, in the pamphlet I have mentioned, I have endea- 

 voured to show how the rising generation in Aust,ralia is, or is 

 likely to be, influenced by the school and the school curriculum, 

 by housing and general sanitation, by the control of communicable 

 diseases, by the way in which State children are looked after, by 

 the legislative control of the weak-minded, by our attitude towards 

 -enthetic diseases, by alcoholism, by our care of the poor, and by 

 the way in which we regard marriage. On this last subject, J 

 •wish to add something. 



The ideal of evolution, it is said, is not a gladiator's show, 

 as used to be thought, but an Eden. In civilized countries men 

 have ceased to engage in hand-to-hand combat for wives as prizes. 

 But the conditions of Eden do not hold universally in the matter 

 t)f mating. Homes too often are cages, not nests. Marriage in 

 '-the majority of cases in the most civilized countries are determined 



