1 86 



The Review of Reviews. 



Augutf I, toas. 



CULTIVATING THE HUMAN PLANT. 



Mr. Luther Burbanks Theories. 



Mr. Lv.ther Biirbank, already well known for his 

 wonderful experiments with plants, contributes to 

 the May number of the Caiittry a suggestive article 

 on the Training of the Human Plant, in which he 

 advocates the adaptation of the principles of plant 

 cul''ivation in a more or less modified form to the 

 human being. Though his observations are con- 

 cerned with the American race, his theories may be 

 applied to the human race all the w^orld over. 



In the course of his investigations connected with 

 plants, Mr. Burbank has frequently been struck by 

 the similaritv between the organisation and develop- 

 ment of plants and human beings. In both, the 

 crossing of species is paramount, but, he says, it 

 must be accompanied bv rigid selection of the best, 

 together with wise supervision, mtelligent care, and 

 the utmost patience. 



CROSSING AND SELECTIVE ENVIEOXMENT. 



The American race, he continues, is more crossed 

 than any other, and in it we see all the best and 

 all the worst qualities of each race. After the neces- 

 sary crossing should come elimination and refining, 

 till the finished product has been produced, and it is 

 to selective enxironment and training that he devotes 

 his article. 



First, Mr. Burbank would not allow any child to 

 go to school before he is ten years old : that is to 

 say, the first ten yeats of the child's life should be 

 considered necessarv for the preparation of the work 

 before him. The child must be healthy, and should 

 be brought up in the country-, if possible. The first 

 ten years of his life should be spent in the open in 

 close touch with nature, and surrounded with all the 

 influences of love. 



We must be absolutely hone.-it with the child ; we 

 must teach him self-respect, keep out fear, keep him 

 happy, give him plenty of sunlight and fresh air and 

 nourishing food. In the child, as in the plant, here- 

 dity will make itself felt, but by patient cultivation 

 and persistence you may fix a desirable trait in a 

 human being as you mav breed a desirable attribute 

 into a plant. The work may take years and even 

 centuries, but Mr. Burbank does not doubt but that 

 repeated application of the same modifving forces 

 for se\eral generations will bring about the desired 

 result. 



Thus we should transform abnormal children into 

 normal ones and build up the phvsicallv weak into 

 the best that thev are capable of becoming. The 

 most difficult problem to solve is the treatment of the 

 mentally defective. \\'Tien the tendencies in a plant 

 are vicious, the plant must be destroved, and though 

 it might be a boon to the human race if imbecile 

 children could be eliminated, he thinks that here the 

 analogy between plant cultivation and the cultivation 

 of the human being must cease. The onlv hope is 

 that constant cultivation and selection will ultimatelv 

 do awav with such defectives. 



P.\TIE.\"T CULTIV.A.TIUX. 

 In plants from six to ten generations are sufi&cient 



to fix them in their new w^ays, and it is suggested 

 that ten generations of human life would be atnple 

 to fix anv desired attribute. Yet a plant is said to- 

 be the most stubborn living thing in the world, and 

 the will of a human being weak in comparison, so- 

 that with the sensitive, pliable nature of the child 

 thi- problem should be infinitely easier. 



ANThMILITARISIVV PAST AND PRESENT.'f 



Th-j opening paper in the Pusitivni Revinv, by 

 - Professor Beeslv. deals with anti-militarism of the 

 sentimental, bfncvolent, and, it must be confessed, 

 rather ineffectual type— the anti-irJlitarisra (too 

 often) of Peace Societies, of Penn and Tolstoy, as 

 contrasted with " the stern, hard-headed, matter-of- 

 fact anti-militarism that has betn spreading in 

 Europe, and especially in France, during the last few 

 vears." Present-day anti-militarism has its root, not 

 in sentiment, but in observation and reflection. It is 

 rising quite out of the realm of a "fad,'' and at the 

 bottom of it is the proletariat, resolving to make it- 

 self heard, its interests preponderate: — 



The conTiction is spreading among tlie most thouglitful 

 of them th.1t between the workmen of different countries 

 there is no opi)osition of interests, no reason for quarrel 

 or rivalrv. Thev have taken up the notion— substantially 

 a true one — that wars are waged, and the ruinous prepara- 

 tions tor war endured, for tlie advantage of those who 

 make a profit out of other people's labour. They are 

 ashamed of the old national antipatliies. and indignant 

 that these should be still fostered by a pseudo-patriotic 

 Press, which they do not fail to observe, is also invariably 

 leagued with employers against workmen. They want from 

 tlie State several benefits which their fatliers never thought 

 of claiming, such as education, old age pensions, limitation 

 of hours of labour, free meals for school children, better 

 hou-sing, access to the land: aud they are told that they 

 cannot have these because armies and uavies are so expen- 

 sive. 



In France the growing reprobation of the military 

 spirit among the working class is quite remarkable, 

 and for this the schoolmasters, poorly paid and hard 

 worked, are largely responsible. Ever\-where they 

 are impressing upon the working classes that if 

 France would abandon all projects of conquest she 

 would be safer from aggression than any fortified 

 frontiers and large standing armies can make her. 

 Pacificists and the like may be doomed to pass 

 awav without viewing any ■ promised land," but they 

 are making the way easier for others coming after 

 them. And Professor Beesly concludes: — 



If I am obliged to make m.\- choice, let me be numbered 

 with them rather than with their revilers and persecutors 



The Serpent's Anaesthetic. — Those who are in- 

 terested in the man-el and the miracle of evolution 

 should on no account miss Mr. Benson's wonderful 

 paper on " Venomous Serjients '' in Cornhill. It is 

 fearsome to watch the superhuman intelligence with 

 which the poison fangs of these deadly snakes were 

 slowly fashioned during the centuries. One thing 

 which the paper suggests is that snake poison wa.- 

 evolved as a species of chloroform which dulls the 

 agonv of the victims of the snake. 



