14 NATURE AND NURTURE 



past, if it had been preceded by the recognition that it 

 was and must be a tentative policy ; a policy which was 

 on its trial until we had demonstrated that nurture 

 plays the dominant part in human progress. 



A protest must, however, be raised when we lind 

 improvement of environment treated by social reformer, 

 philanthropist, and radical politician as the exclusive 

 source of national progress. It is a dogma replacing 

 knowledge, it is an illustration of what I referred to just 

 now when I suggested that we could not tell the working 

 classes what modern science, what modern theories of 

 evolution, meant for human life, until we had established 

 a new and exact sociology. 



If, for a few minutes, we postpone the consideration of 

 more exact methods of dealing with the problem of nature 

 and nurture, we may ask one or two questions bearing on 

 the betterment of environment as an empirical policy. 

 In the first place I would point out that we have had 

 twenty to thirty years now of technical instruction, 

 university and polytechnic engineering schools, we have 

 had a population immensely larger than in 1800 to draw 

 from. It is not the grindstone nor the oilstone which have 

 been wanting recently. Yet has that system produced 

 for us any four names which will stand out in the future 

 like those of Arkwright, Watt, and the Stephensons ? 

 These men would have profited immensely by modern 

 technical training. But will nurture alone produce such 

 men ? If so, why is it that no Englishman of our period 

 of technical education has been the discoverer of motor- 

 car, submarine, or aeroplane ? Can we indeed assert that, 

 relatively to the size of our population, the period of 

 bettered environment has led to greater provision of capable 

 men in craftsmanship, in the arts, in science, in literature, 



