324 THE PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY 



useless or absolutely detrimental as a similar cramming of 

 words. It consists in so treating the facts, and especially 

 tfce broad generalizations of science (i. e. things known to be 

 true), that the pupil is supplied with a maximum of useful 

 information (that is, information which will link up with his 

 subsequent experiences), and of so manipulating this informa- 

 tion that his receptive powers are not diminished beyond 

 their natural and inevitable decay, while his reflective powers 

 are increased to the utmost extent. Then from his subsequent 

 experiences he will derive the greatest value possible. A 

 " classical " education errs by not supplying useful informa- 

 tion. A dogmatic education errs by destroying the power of 

 utilizing experience. A scientific education must avoid both 

 errors. It must not waste the pupil's time by imparting 

 knowledge which will be valueless to him, and which there- 

 fore he will forget; it must not blunt his receptive and 

 thinking faculties by inculcating generalizations in such a 

 way that he shall become incapable of profiting by fresh 

 experience. Not since Pagan times, when data of science 

 were few and easily manipulated, has scientific education at 

 all approaching the most perfect possible been given to any 

 body of men. But, because, amid the competitions of an 

 industrial civilization, the survival of the form of mental 

 training which develops the greatest intelligence is alone 

 possible, the time is rapidly approaching when the best 

 possible will be given to all men. The nation that first 

 applies that method will, for a time at least, be the leading 

 nation. 



509. Savage man differs from lower animals chiefly in 

 that he has invented articulate speech and so acquired the 

 power of learning from his progenitors and fellows and trans- 

 mitting to his descendants an immense mass of traditional 

 knowledge. Civilized man differs from the savage chiefly in 

 that he has invented and more or less perfected certain 

 artificial aids to speech, written symbols by means of which 

 he is able to store in an available form knowledge vastly 

 more abstruse and voluminous than the savage is able to 

 gather and preserve. His books are artificial memories of 

 unlimited capacity and unerring accuracy. Moreover, by 

 means of these symbols he is able, as in the mathematics, to 

 perform feats of thinking utterly beyond the powers of his 

 unaided mind ; just as, by means of machinery and other 

 mechanical contrivances, he is able to perform physical feats 

 utterly beyond the unaided powers of his body. To written 

 symbols, representing words or thoughts, therefore, is due, 



