DEVELOPING CHARACTERS 201 



turtiums with their leaves can climb like the 

 monkeys, while other plants can not be forced 

 to climb because there is no climbing heredity 

 within them. 



You may try to make corn climb a hop pole, 

 or to make hops grow straight in the air without 

 a pole or string. But in a lifetime you cannot 

 succeed. 



It is heredity, heredity, heredity. Environ- 

 ment, unless oft-repeated, only serves to bring 

 heredity out. 



The climbing monkeys and the disappointed 

 dog show us an important truth in our work. 



If we want to take advantage of a climb- 

 ing tendency in a plant let us by all means 

 find a plant in whose heredity that climbing 

 tendency is a part. Let us not try to teach 

 monkeys to bark, or dogs to swing from th 

 limbs of trees by their tails; let us not try 

 to make corn climb the hop pole, or hops be- 

 come shade trees. 



Maybe these things could be done. In fact, 

 with unhmited time, there is no question that they 

 could. But with plenty of plants about us with 

 ready-made heredities of which we can avail our- 

 selves in a single season, it would be folly to try 

 to accomplish the same result in a harder way, 

 well knowing that only the thousandth or mil- 



