460 ANTHROPOLOGY 



academic problem this is well-nigh lost in the dust of ill-aimed dis- 

 cussion (relating to the hereditability of acquired characters and 

 a dozen other points) which it were indiscreet to stir; yet half an 

 eye can see that, whatsoever pedagogues proclaim, the pupils are 

 building bone and muscle, increasing strength and stature, and 

 manifestly promoting brain-power and prolonging life by judicious 

 regimen. As a practical problem this might be passed over, since 

 the world's leading millions are so well advanced in doing that think- 

 ing may be trusted to follow duly (perchance soon enough to let the 

 masters learn the lessons their pupils live), were it not for -the ever- 

 rising ancillary questions as to rate and trend of the progress. Thus, 

 mean length of life, or viability, is increasing, especially among more 

 advanced peoples, who live longer in proportion to their advance- 

 ment; yet, although Mansfield Merriman computed a few years ago 

 that the median age of Americans has gone up five years since 1850, 

 while the Twelfth Census reports that our mean age of death ad- 

 vanced from 31.1 years to 35.2 years in a decade, it cannot be said 

 that the rate of increase is known; and still less are the factors of 

 increase (saving of infants, improved sanitation, bettered hygiene, 

 shortened hours and intensified stress of labor, enhanced enjoyment 

 of life, and all the rest) susceptible of statement in terms of definite 

 quantity. The various questions of viability (than which no inquiries 

 mean more to living men) are not to be answered through actu- 

 aries' tables based on selected ^classes, valuable and suggestive as 

 these tables are; they must be answered through health offices and 

 census bureaus and their pressing importance forms one of the 

 strongest arguments in support of permanent census bureaus in 

 this and other countries. Thus, again, human strength is increasing, 

 as suggested by the superior vigor and endurance -found among 

 advanced peoples and rising generations, and shown definitely by 

 the constant breaking of athletic records; yet, while it is most 

 significant that record-breaking progresses at an increasingly rapid 

 rate (i. e., more records are broken during each decade than during 

 the last), the rate of increase remains problematic. Similarly, that 

 measure of faculty expressed in coordination of mind and body is 

 increasing, as shown by the ever-growing and never-failing ability 

 of engineers, mechanicians, builders, electricians, and other special- 

 ists to master and command the strength-trying devices of modern 

 times locomotive and marine engine, dynamo and steam hammer, 

 range-finder and machine-gun, and all the rest; yet both the rate 

 and the factors of increase in human faculty remain in the realm 

 of the unmeasured. These are but sample questions ancillary to the 

 practical problem as to the reaction of function on structure; they 

 merely suggest ways in which mind born of body in humanity's 

 prime is rising into dominion over fleshly organ and constitution as 



