238 Heredity and Environment 



possibilities become the more complex must be the environment 

 which calls them forth and the more varied become the results of 

 development under altered conditions of life. 



Capacity for Training and Education. — Functional activity also 

 plays a larger part in man's development than in that of any other 

 animal, owing to the longer period of his development and to the 

 more extensive and varied training which he is capable of under- 

 going. It is a notable fact that the period of immaturity in man 

 is longer than in any other animal, and it is during this formative 

 period that environment and education have their greatest influ- 

 ence. Other animals develop much more rapidly than man but 

 that development sooner comes to an end. The children of lower 

 races of mankind develop more rapidly than those of higher races 

 but in such cases they also cease to develop at an earlier age. 

 The prolongation of the period of infancy and of immaturity in 

 the human race greatly increases the importance of environment 

 and training as factors of development. 



The possible training of human faculties is also more varied 

 and extensive than in other animals, not only because those facul- 

 ties are more numerous but also because they are more plastic 

 and are capable of higher development, that is, are more edu- 

 cable. Human faculties are functions and methods of reaction, 

 which are dependent in part upon the bodily mechanism and in 

 part upon environment and training. Habits are the usual meth- 

 ods of responding to stimuli, and they may be classified as in- 

 herent or acquired. The latter are in a sense forced upon organ- 

 isms by environmental conditions. All education is habit for- 

 mation, and good education like good environment is such exper- 

 ience as leads to the formation of good bodily, intellectual, social 

 and moral habits ; it consists in placing the individual in such an 

 environment and bringing such stimuli to bear upon him as to call 

 forth desirable responses and to suppress undesirable ones. 



Good and Bad Environment. — Only that environment and 

 training are good which lead to the development of good habits 

 and traits and to the suppression of bad ones. What we com- 



