68 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [8 :2— Feb., 1912 



needs fuel elaborated in the form of carbohydrates ; it needs 

 a method whereby the fuel may reach its place of need ; it needs 

 oxygen for burning; it needs a method of handling waste tis- 

 sue. Thus arose the circulatory, the respiratory, and the excre- 

 tory systems. Ascending from the low plane of animal life to the 

 high, the worm-like animal, the fish, the arboreal animal, gave 

 successively to man the old fundamental muscles of the trunk, 

 the shoulder, and the thigh, the new accessory muscles of the 

 arm, the leg, and the fingers. The pull of the trunk muscles 

 developed the spinal cord of the nervous system. Exercise of 

 the appendages developed the cerebellum ; the cortex and associa- 

 tion areas arose from the activity of the appendages and the 

 special senses. 



The fundamental muscles are those of the trunk, the shoul- 

 der, and the thigh; the fundamental parts of the nervous sys- 

 tem are the spinal cord, the medulla, the mid brain, and the 

 cerebellum. All of these are old and their growth is a matter 

 of the caterpillar stage. One would question the desirability 

 of building a house on sand, yet in our steamroller way we 

 try to build a perfect man on an undeveloped boy. The cater- 

 pillar stage of a boy is spread over some twelve years of his 

 life, and should be a stage devoted to growth and to develop- 

 ment of the fundamental muscles and the fundamental parts of 

 the nervous system, for he repeats in his development the history 

 of his race. 



Just as the individual has a racial body so has he a racial 

 mind. He recapitulates the civic and moral history of his peo- 

 ple. Successively he is savage barbarian, semi-civilized, and 

 civilized. At each period of his recapitulation, the racial urg- 

 ing of that period expresses itself. We must not try to elim- 

 inate these periods of growth. We must not try to make the 

 boy omit his period of savagery any more than to try to elim- 

 inate or shorten the caterpillar stage of the moth. We must not 

 interfere with nature as she fashions a man out of a boy. Rather 

 let us make his environment such as will direct naturally his 

 growth and his racial impulses. 



We are told that, due to the interference of parents and the 

 school, children at twelve years of age are 10 per cent below 

 normal vital capacity. The parents tell John to sit still, the 

 school makes him sit still. He sits still, and from the adult point 

 of view a good boy is made, but really a good man has been 

 spoiled. H the school cannot make him sit still, if the de- 

 mands for growth are too strong, the boy is a misfit and 



