EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



Then, again, the evolutionary idea finally dis- 

 poses of one of the most pernicious theories that 

 have ever held sway in education the notion 

 that the child is "a little man." This belief has 

 caused incalculable sorrow to childhood, has vi- 

 tiated the education of thousands, has caused 

 endless misunderstandings between parents and 

 children. Examined in the light of evolution, its 

 absurdity is manifest. When we recall the re- 

 capitulation theory, which teaches that, in gen- 

 eral, each individual, in the course of its develop- 

 ment, "climbs the ancestral tree," we see that 

 the child is not a little man, but something lower 

 than man, human only potentially. We cease 

 to blame the child for greed, we do not look for 

 the exhibition of characters only lately evolved in 

 the race, and we are prepared to inquire into the 

 manner in which ideas and experiences strike a 

 child, since we know that the child's mind is not 

 a man's mind in petto, but has a character of 

 its own a character which is really subhuman. 

 These considerations make for charity, sympathy, 

 and success in teaching the emotional and in- 

 tellectual components of a child's mind. Only as 

 an aspect of the study of evolution and in the 

 light of that idea is "child-study" intelligible and 

 worthy of all the thought that can be bestowed 

 upon it. 



The preceding considerations might as well 

 have taken their place in the section devoted to 

 244 



