104 "tHE COMING OF MAN 



meet life's opportunities and emergencies, to fit as many as 

 possible to survive? Does it also tend toward over-speciali- 

 zation and narrow, one-sided development? Is it broad and 

 human, or almost entirely professional or vocational in its 

 aims and results? Is it producing strong and wise leaders 

 and training us to be their loyal followers? We will leave all 

 these questions to those who have specialized in education. 



Our artificial social environment is of almost compeUing 

 importance. We cannot escape it; how can we best use its 

 advantages and opportunities and avoid its evils? Let us hold 

 fast to the fact that our environment consists not altogether 

 in surrounding objects and conditions, but also, and even more, 

 in our relation to these. The same object at different times 

 varies greatly in importance to me, according to my moods and 

 its nearness or remoteness. Yet that which is near at hand 

 is usually not appreciated, and the obvious, the axiomatic, in 

 life, is always forgotten or neglected. 



Let us glance at one or two illustrations. Two men find 

 themselves in a company of average men and women. One 

 of them is sympathetic, hearty, overflowing with health and 

 humor; the other more intellectual, critical, somewhat in- 

 clined to dyspepsia. The first finds the company of his fel- 

 lows intelligent, kindly, agreeable; the second finds them just 

 the opposite. Each reports honestly and truthfully his ex- 

 perience and observation. Each has seen and drawn out a 

 different side of the same people, and has contributed of his 

 own. From the same company each has framed his own so- 

 cial environment. Each has selected, expected, found at- 

 tracted and encouraged that which he was fitted to call out. 

 The material was the same, the use different. 



One new relation may change a man's whole life and thought. 

 I was walking the street one dark, chilly, winter day. A young 

 fellow called out to me cheerily: " Good morning. A fine 

 day!'' I wondered what ailed him. A moment later a friend 

 explained the mystery, telling me that the young man had 

 just brought a trying pursuit and courtship to a happy end- 

 ing. Nothing had changed in or about the boy or girl. They 



