318 Heredity and Environment 



and none of that self discipline which reveals the hidden powers 

 and which alone should be counted good environment. Many 

 schools and colleges are making the same mistake as the fond 

 parents ; luxury, soft living, irresponsiblity are not only allowed, 

 but are encouraged and endowed — and by such means it is hoped 

 to bring out that in men which can only be born in travail. 



The chief educational value of athletics is found in this that 

 it teaches self control. But in great athletic contests the self 

 control of the spectators is usually inversely proportional to that 

 of the players, and while excess of stimuli may lead to wholesome 

 and beneficial reactions in the players it frequently leads to excess 

 of stimulants and to other injurious reactions in the spectators. 

 But college athletics has this much at least in its favor, it trains 

 men who take part in the contests to do their best, to subordinate 

 pleasure, appetite, the desire for a good time, to one controlling 

 purpose; it trains them to attempt what may often seem to them 

 impossible, to crash into the line though it may seem a stone wall, 

 to get out of their bodies every ounce of strength and endurance 

 which they possess. Such training makes men acquainted with 

 their powers and teaches courage, confidence and responsibility. 

 If only we could make young persons acquainted in some similar 

 way with their hidden mental and moral powers what a race of 

 men and women might we not have without waiting for that un- 

 certain day when the inheritance of the race will be improved! 

 Whatever the stimulus required, whether pride or shame, fear 

 or favor, ambition or loyalty, responsibility or necessity, education 

 should utilize each and all of these to teach men self knowledge 

 and self control. 



But it will be said that self control depends upon inheritance, 

 that strong wills and weak wills are such because of heredity. 

 It is true that one man may be born with a potentiality for self 

 control which another man lacks, but in all men this potentiality 

 becomes actuality only through development, one of the principal 

 factors of which is use or functional activity. An amazing num- 

 ber of persons have but little self ccntrol. Is this always due to 



