Social Inheritance 23 



What are the principal acquirements that the 

 parent has already learned from his surround- 

 ings and can thus teach to his offspring! These 

 have been well summarized by Professor Conn. 

 The first and most fundamental acquirement is 

 language. This is evidently a social inheri- 

 tance as the infant of the most cultured parents 

 is just as unable to speak as the offspring of 

 mentally deficient people. While a few of the 

 lower animals emit sounds that doubtless pos- 

 sess rudimentary efforts toward the exercise of 

 language, the human animal has reached full 

 development in civilization and knowledge 

 through this constantly exercised social in- 

 heritance that is at first gained by simple im- 

 itation and not by organic inheritance. A new- 

 born baby of the present age is just as helpless 

 as if born in the stone age, and probably essen- 

 tially the same in organic nature. 



Not only the use of spoken words but the 

 ability to write them down is another example 

 of social inheritance that lays the foundation 

 for all knowledge. The possibilities of learn- 

 ing thus come largely through social relation- 

 ships. The great accumulation of facts and 



