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been brought to light by favorable environmental influences, 

 of which there are two distinct kinds. One kind may be 

 called education, or training, and includes those influences 

 of home and school which are particularly potent during 

 childhood and youth. The other kind includes all the re- 

 maining elements of environment, especially the ideals and 

 customs of the group in the midst of which one lives. Pos- 

 session of even the best advantages at home and in school 

 has made possible the development of great authors only 

 when supplemented by this second factor of environment. 

 . In short, men of letters have appeared chiefly when the 

 society of their time has appreciated and demanded litera- 

 ture. Without such incentive to write, persons with natural 

 literary ability and adequate training have tended to turn 

 their efforts in other directions. 



This thesis can be put in the form of a simile, nature 

 being likened to seed and nurture to ground. A combina- 

 tion of either good ground and poor seed or poor ground 

 and good seed will produce a better crop than when poor 

 seed is sown on poor ground. No good crop is ever pro- 

 duced, however, without the use of both good seed and good 

 ground. In like manner gifted children who lack oppor- 

 tunity, and dull children who possess every opportunity, 

 achieve far more than dull children who lack favorable con- 

 ditions of environment. Genius, however, is usually pro- 

 duced only by a favorable combination of innate ability and 

 the two factors of environment mentioned in the preceding 

 paragraph. 



This thesis is of course only one form of the statement 

 that both nature and nurture are of importance in the de- 

 velopment of genius. It is in harmony with the opinions of 

 those sociologists of whom Professor Cooley was quoted 

 as representative in Chapter I. 



Now that the thesis has been stated and the method of 



