EDUCATION AND THE FUTURE OF THE RACE 295 



that have yet been our teachers. May we not hope 

 to deepen and extend that conception through the 

 medium of still better nervous systems than any 

 which have yet been produced? 



If it be true that mind is a function of the refined 

 type of matter which we call nerve tissue, the central 

 problem for man is the care and development and 

 intelligent control of that precious and infinitely 

 complex substance. In the language of physiology 

 the legitimate aim of the race is the education of the 

 highest nervous centers of the organism that sub- 

 serve consciousness. All other aims are secondary 

 and base. Nature has been lavish in its supply of raw 

 material, but man has been wasteful and careless in 

 his use of the big opportunities offered by her. Only 

 sporadically have there appeared centers of syste- 

 matic effort to utilize the possibilities of mental and 

 moral growth, such as the churches and the univer- 

 sities. Fortunately every family and every aggre- 

 gation of men is, in a sense, a school, and the world 

 knows that genius has repeatedly appeared in the 

 midst of disorganization and poverty, and well 

 knows that this will continue to the end of time, 

 since genius is in the biological meaning of the word 

 a " sport" unpredictable in the conditions of its 

 emergence. Yet the organization of the school and 

 university is an enormous stimulus to talent, and 

 even genius cannot wholly dispense with this aid, 

 without at least some loss in energy. 



It appears superficially as if nature were even 



