88 HEREDITY 



Seduced by the current notion that education is a 

 matter of imparting knowledge, we are apt completely 

 to forget this aspect of education, its action in re- 

 pressing certain potentialities of the germ so that 

 they never realise themselves. Yet it is at least as 

 important a function of education to " let the ape and 

 tiger die," as it is to educe the higher potentialities. 

 This we shall better understand if we accept the pro- 

 posed definition that education is the provision of 

 an environment. 



For observe that though the environment can 

 never originate — that being left to heredity or 

 ancestry alone — it can totally suppress any germinal 

 character, so that it might never have been. The in- 

 fant Shakespeare, transported to Tierra del Fuego, 

 had never written a " Hamlet." When this considera- 

 tion is well turned over in the mind, we see that the 

 action of the environment — i.e. education — is not to 

 be regarded lightly, merely because we have insisted 

 upon the prime importance of heredity, and the im- 

 potence of the environment to do more than work 

 upon the material offered it. We must remember 

 that the inherited potentialities of the germ are only 

 "potentialities; no more. They are entirely at the 

 mercy of environment. If that be completely un- 

 favourable, the organism, with all its innate char- 

 acters, will die. If the environment be favourable 

 enough to permit of life, it may yet effectively arrest 

 the expression of any potentiality given by ancestry. 

 We have already noted that this power of the en- 

 vironment may be utilised — for the ancestry includes 

 the " ape " if not directly the " tiger " of Tennyson's 

 line. On the other hand, we have to note that this 



