WHEN CHARACTER IS FORMED. 655 



animal. Bowditch* has shown in his studies upon the growth 

 of children that native-born Americans are larger and better 

 developed than those of foreign parentage, and ascribes the rea- 

 son to the better conditions which surround the American chil- 

 dren. So children from the non-laboring classes are larger than 

 those from laboring homes, f 



While these data show only the dependence of physical devel- 

 opment upon nutrition, still we are not without similar evidence 

 showing that mental development depends also upon the charac- 

 ter and amount of a people's food. The causes for the intellectual 

 and temperamental differences between the races of different coun- 

 tries may be ascribed, at least in part, to the character of their 

 dietaries. Contrast the Chinese and English, for instance: the 

 former are mentally and emotionally very different from and in- 

 ferior to the latter, as might be expected from the quality of their 

 food. The difference between these two races is typical of the 

 difference between types of children to be seen frequently in 

 home and school. The one is slow and obtuse intellectually, 

 and possessed of an indifferent or negative emotional and moral 

 nature; while the other is keen and vigorous in thought, and 

 positive in emotions and morals ; and one who strives by con- 

 crete observation to account for these differences can not fail to 

 see plainly ofttimes that they are due to the quality and quantity 

 of food which the children eat. 



It is important to note that cerebral nerve cells demand par- 

 ticular materials for their proper nutrition. Food which will 

 make bone will not be best suited to the nourishment of an active 

 brain, and vice versa. So fat- producing foods, while of course of 

 value in one's diet, yet do not furnish in large measure nutrients 

 for the repletion of nerve cells. Prof. Ladd says that the chem- 

 istry of the nerve cells is in the main protoplasmic, and therefore 

 rich in albuminous bodies. I And again, " Of the solids compos- 

 ing the nervous substance, more than one half in the gray and 

 one fourth in the white consist of proteid or albuminous bodies." * 

 The foods that are best calculated to nourish the brain, then, are 

 those containing a large amount of protein or albumin, rather 

 than fats, carbohydrates, or minerals, the three other important 

 constituents of foods. But in many homes, as well in those of the 

 rich as of the poor, the children's dietaries contain comparatively 

 little albuminous food, as may be seen from the following analysis 

 of the nutritive values of the various common articles of a child's 

 diet: Beef contains 297 per cent of protein; chicken, 19*3 per 



* Eighth Annual Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, p. 295. 

 f Cf. Herbert Spencer, Education, New York, 1884, pp. 226, 227. 

 \ Outlines of Psychology, p. 15. * Ibid., p. 12. 



