252 Heredity and Environment 



best environment is one which avoids extremes, one which is 

 neither too easy nor too hard, one which calls for sustained effort 

 and produces maximum efficiency of body and of mind. 



In education also we are strangely blind as to proper aims and 

 methods. Any education is bad which leads to the formation of 

 habits of idleness, carelessness and failure, instead of habits of 

 industry, thoroughness and success. Any religious or social in- 

 stitution is bad which leads to habits of pious make-believe, insin- 

 cerity, slavish regard for authority and disregard for evidence, 

 instead of habits of sincerity, open-mindedness and independence. 



Frequently the training of the human being, like the training of 

 a star-fish, consists in limiting his activities to particular lines. 

 Some physical defect which prevented a child from engaging in 

 the usual activities of children has often turned his attention to 

 scholarship. Galton says that great divines have usually had very 

 poor health. Genius is frequently associated with physical de- 

 fects. Great specialization is associated with corresponding limi- 

 tations in other directions. Society needs the. genius and the 

 specialist, but for the general good of mankind the generalized 

 type is needed even more than the specialized. 



No given environment or training can be good for every in- 

 dividual, nor for the same individual at every stage of develop- 

 ment. Every individual is unique and if the best results are to 

 be had he must have unique environment and training, which 

 must be supplied by omniscient intelligence. Such an ideal may 

 not be practicable but the impossibility of securing the absolutely 

 best conditions of development need not prevent society from 

 securing better conditions than those which now prevail. 



Relative Importance of Heredity, Environment, Education. It 

 is plain that environment and education play a greater part in the 

 development of man than in that of other animals, whereas hered- 

 ity plays a similar part ; but it is difficult if not impossible to de- 

 termine the relative importance of these three factors. In the 

 field of intellect and morals most persons are inclined to place 



