PROBLEM OF NURTURE AND NATURE 53 



correcting for health of mother alone, we may well ask what would 

 be left of the mean value -154, if full corrections for both health and 

 habits had been made. The present movement to educate parents is 

 right in so far as it recognises that the essential factor in the environ- 

 ment of the young child is the direct parental rather than the direct 

 physical environment. The parental health and the parental habits 

 are everything. But again the educationalists like the environ- 

 mentalists have overlooked the necessity for a preliminary inquiry 

 in order to determine; (a) How far is health of parent an hereditary 

 character? (b) How far are habits the outcome of health? and 

 (c] How far are habits themselves orderliness and inertness of mind 

 the result of inheritance ? Just as the environmentalists have neglected 

 the dominance of nature over nurture in child welfare, so there is 

 danger that the far more reasonable movement of the educationalists 

 will fail if they do not give due weight to the hereditary factor in 

 dealing with both the health and habits of parents. 



We have next to consider the interenvironmental correlations. 

 Our chief illustration will be from Rochdale, the data for which are 

 not only more complete but have up to the present been more fully 

 worked out. We shall consider in order : (a) the correlations between 

 factors of physical environment, (b) the correlations between factors 

 of indirect parental environment and (c) the correlation between the 

 physical and indirect parental environments 1 . 



TABLE VI. 

 Inter correlations of Physical Environmental Factors. Rochdale. 



Number of rooms and dampness ... ... '4 2 



lighting -54 



,, ,, possibility of ventilation ... ... -88 



,, ,, type of house ... ... ... ... '65 



Type of house and overcrowding ... -54 



Mean correlation... ... ... ... ... *606 



It will be seen at once that the intercorrelations of the Physical 

 Environmental factors are of a totally different order to the corre- 

 lations of those factors with infant welfare. 



1 The exact measurement of the characters, the methods by which the correlations 

 were determined, the size of the populations dealt with, and other features of the work 

 will all be published at length later with the tables of data. They cannot be 

 reproduced in a mere lecture. Thus "sanitation" covers cesspool, pan, and water 

 closet; type of house, "back to back" and "through" houses; father's occupation 

 skilled and unskilled, &c., &c. 



