INFLUENCES OF ENVIRONMENT 123 



Cooley are right in their interpretations. The impor- 

 tant thing to remember is that we are dealing with society, 

 a social organization which has had an organic growth 

 dependent upon certain conditions. It is our primary 

 object to classify and enumerate these conditions, not to 

 assign fixed and dogmatic causal relations among them. 

 Physical environment may affect the human individual 

 as an influence causing modification in structure or func- 

 tion, it may accelerate or retard physical and mental 

 growth by the presence or absence of proper nutriment, 

 and it may act as a selective agency determining survival 

 or extermination. Although anthropologists regard the 

 form of the body as the most stable characteristic of any 

 given race or type, indications have been found which 

 show that under more favorable environment the physical 

 development of a race may improve. The investigations 

 of Gould and Baxter during the War of the Rebellion have 

 shown that the representatives of European nationalities 

 born in America have statures higher than the represen- 

 tatives of the same nationalities born in Europe. It 

 was assumed that better nutrition and improved hygienic 

 and economic conditions in general might increase the 

 stature of a people. 3 These conclusions were confirmed 

 by Bowditch's measurements of the school children of 

 Boston and by other investigations of similar nature. 4 

 Corroborative evidence has also been obtained from the 

 study of various social classes. Bowditch found that 

 there was an increase of stature, beginning with the 

 children of unskilled laborers, and increasing among 



3 Gould, B. A. Investigations in the Military and Anthropological 

 Statistics of American Soldiers, New York, 1869; and Baxter, J. H. 

 Statistics, Medical and Anthropological, Wash., 1875. 



4 Bowditch, H. P. The Growth of Children, 8th Annual Report State Bd. 

 of Health of Mass., Boston, 1877; see also Boas, op. cit., ch. ii. 



