A PROBLEM IN EDUCATIONAL EUGENICS 357 



democracy," "the j)iil)lic school tlio liopc of our country/' etc. These 

 catch-words may liave important values, e. g., they may serve the cam- 

 ])aign orator some fine phrases, but let us look a bit deeper than even 

 these. 



Perhaps as a reflex of that other half truth, "All men are created 

 free and equal," has come the general conception that education is the 

 common privilege of all without distinction; that it becomes a magic 

 w^and able to dispel the seeds of incapacity, imbecility, criminality or 

 even immorality. In a word, we have been taught to regard education 

 as creator, rather than helper, guide or cultivator. No one expects his 

 gardener, however skillful, to supply a superior product from barren soil 

 or defective seed. Now let it be given all possible emphasis that back 

 of culture must be a capable brain ; and that this element of capacity is 

 rooted in the physical basis of life itself — ^the germ plasm. These are at 

 once the soil and seed for our mental gardener to work upon. 



Long ago have we learned the fundamental lesson here predicted as 

 it relates to the school of husbandry. The breeder is first of all a dis- 

 criminafor. He knows what he wants, and he knows that in only one 

 way may he have it, viz., by patient and persistent selection; and only 

 those factors which measure up to his standard shall have any place in 

 his school. Otliers may serve as bearers of burdens — as dray horse, or 

 plodding ox ; but they have no place in the stud or in that school des- 

 tined for a higher product. Our husbandman has learned his lesson 

 from that severe mistress of all progress, mother nature, whose rule is 

 that of fitness. Of the product she has said " venj good." The price 

 may be high, above the rubies or mere marks, but its cost is well worth 

 while. 



Education and Selection. — Fundamental in Darwinism is natural 

 selection, the counterpart of the artificial selection of the breeder. In 

 nature it is a process of sifting, an elimination of the unfit through the 

 rigors of the struggle for existence. Of its reality and efiiciency in a 

 state of nature there can be no doubt ; though this does not imply that 

 it has been the only method in operation. 



As in social matters, so in educational methods, we have largely dis- 

 regarded nature's method of selecting the fittest. On the contrary, our 

 standards, whether of school or college, have been adapted to mediocrity. 

 There has been a leveling down whenever the poorer pupil seemed unable 

 to keep up. To be sure, in some instances the poorest have been re- 

 turned to a lower grade, but rarely the average poor. In technical 

 schools there has been less of this compromise, but it has not been 

 wholly lacking even there. The effect has been to place a premium on 

 mediocrity, just as has been the operation of a similar method in 

 trade-unionism, and its sequence has been to a similar end — discourage- 

 ment of initiative, independence, highest efficiency, and hence highest 

 achievement. 



