366 LUTHER BURBANK 



as we shall see illustrated and interpreted in 

 another connection. 



The direct influence of environment on these 

 highly differentiated and hence unstable charac- 

 teristics of plant or of man is easily demonstrated 

 in any experiment garden or in any social 

 community. But even the most deep-seated and 

 fundamental qualities may be profoundly modi- 

 fied if the environing influences are applied 

 during the childhood of the seedling plant or the 

 human subject. 



"As the twig is bent the tree is inclined" is a 

 I maxim the literal truth of which is apparent to 

 the least-skilled horticulturist. The application 

 of the maxim to the human sapling is equally 

 familiar matter of fact to even the novice in 

 human pedagogy. 



A Shakespeare is not born with a fund of 

 knowledge and a profuse vocabulary stored in 

 his brain; but only with the receptive quality of 

 brain fiber that will enable him — granted proper 

 surroundings — to acquire knowledge of things 

 and of words. Placed in childhood on a South 

 Sea Island, among savages, Shakespeare could 

 have passed his life without knowing a single 

 word of the English tongue, and without having 

 even the vaguest conception of the existence of a 

 written language of any kind. 



