170 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



that people who have decent homes and a chance 

 to see beautiful things are usually influenced by 

 these things. Her example has already been fol- 

 lowed, to some extent, in Europe and America, 

 and it is likely that by following and extending 

 it in the future most will be done toward solving 

 our problem. 



These are hints to the Christian worker, and 

 most suggestive phenomena to the Christian stu- 

 dent. Similar and more familiar phenomena are 

 to be found in the work of the Children's Aid 

 Society of New York, and in the model tenements 

 which have been erected in some of our cities. 

 They all illustrate the principle to which atten- 

 tion is here directed, — that environment affects 

 character. Our only hope that the problem of 

 pauperism will ever be solved is in the fact that 

 new and higher conditions always do much for the 

 improvement of human nature, however degraded 

 it may have become. 



At the same time the inscrutable element of 

 personality must never be overlooked, even in 

 the lowest. Individual responsibility is an ulti- 

 mate reality. We begin life where others put us, 

 but after that we choose for ourselves. Heredity 

 furnishes each man his capital, but compels none 

 in its use. However much is done for the eleva- 



