116 BIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 



the special office of our educational institu- 

 tions to preserve it and hand it on. From the 

 child at the knee to the university student, 

 all are learning from the same general source. 

 Thus the process of acquisition goes on, and 

 as a result we expect an individual not only 

 with a well-stored mind, but capable of using 

 his mental equipment in the performance of 

 serviceable acts, the broadening of sympathies, 

 and the discovery of new truths. 



Such a result is the exclusive outcome of 

 neither one nor the other of the two methods 

 of inheritance that we have described. If we 

 designate that through the germ cell as organic 

 and that by direct transfer as social inherit- 

 ance, we can say that our intellectual outfit 

 comes to us more in the nature of a social 

 contribution than of an organic one. The 

 content of the mind is not congenital ; it is a 

 vast mass of subsequent acquisition. It is in 

 every sense a veritable body of acquired char- 

 acters. It is, therefore, not to be expected that 

 it will ever become hereditary. The rudiments 

 of learning must be acquired by all ; even the 

 genius must begin with the alphabet; and 

 there is no reason to suppose that the time 

 will ever come when a pedigreed birth certif- 



