2 The Recapitulation Theory and Human Infancy 



a scientific basis for a practical educational program. This 

 could come only with the aid of an exact and faithful inter- 

 pretation of childhood as it exists in modern societies. Ed- 

 ucational schemes based upon historical inferences were there- 

 fore necessarily precarious and could easily be found unsound 

 when fairly tested. More especially has the older genetic 

 method of study suffered from the discredit into which some 

 of its guiding principles have fallen. One of these principles 

 was embodied in the theory of recapitulation, the idea that the 

 child in its development rehearses the history of its ancestry, 

 and that in consequence its nature may be inferred from the 

 probable course of human evolution. Taken bodily from em- 

 bryology, this idea was projected upon the field of mental gen- 

 esis, where it became a commonplace. More recently dis- 

 quieting rumors from the source of its origin have been heard 

 to the effect that the principle was formulated without suffi- 

 cient warrant, and that it cannot be depended upon even as a 

 helpful hypothesis. Its prestige has in consequence been ser- 

 iously damaged and there is plainly evident great uncertainty 

 as to the degree of truth it may contain. 



This uncertainty with regard to a principle with important 

 implications for the theory of infancy and psychogenesis, is 

 hardly excusable or necessary. For recourse to the science 

 from which the principle was derived is open, and no obvious 

 reason exists why its real standing there should not be known. 

 If education is to be spared the humiliation which comes in- 

 evitably from building on the sand, it must earnestly endeavor 

 solidly to ground its doctrine. Especially is this true when 

 this doctrine is drawn from the pure sciences, for a thorough 

 knowledge of these on the part of outsiders is not easy of attain- 

 ment and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Moreover, 

 the position of education is peculiarly difficult, for as an art 

 its practice is not only dependent upon science as such; more 

 than one science is implicated. Education is none the less 

 in duty bound either to acquaint itself with the true value of 

 these borrowed principles or to leave them alone. 



This paper represents an effort to discover something of the 

 status of recapitulation in biology and to note its implications 

 for the period of infancy. It makes no pretensions to scholarly 

 exhaustiveness. Its justification is the lack of any accessible 



