Theories of Development 225 



an adult human being. It is self-evident that such 

 an assumption of an internal perfecting tendency, 

 independent of external influences, must profoundly 

 influence both the theory and practice of teaching. 

 The assumption that the child is born with certain 

 potential possibilities, seeking merely opportunity to 

 unfold themselves, is very similar to the old notion of 

 innate ideas. This theory of Weismann and Wallace 

 is not only contrary to the opinion of Darwin himself, 

 but is admittedly purely theoretical and without posi- 

 tive proof. 



If such a theory could be proven true, it would, of 

 course, mean that the race cannot be permanently 

 improved directly by education. The effect of external 

 influences during the life of the individual could not, 

 however, even then be denied. Yet Locke's tabula rasa 

 would be proven a fiction, since the mind is present 

 already in germ, needing only to expand under proper 

 conditions. 



Such a theory of organic development would logic- 

 ally lead to a hot-house pedagogy, such as we find, 

 in fact, in some modern kindergartens. On the 

 assumption of the truth of such an evolutionary theory, 

 consistency would require that our schools be con- 

 verted into secluded monasteries, where the inborn 

 virtues of the child could unfold themselves untouched 

 and uncorrupted by the realities of life. The theory 

 is, in fact, supported largely by that class of biologists 

 who have been trained in the humanities instead of 

 physical science. Being a priori the theory is humanism 

 in the garb of science. 



The theory of evolution, when conceived in this 

 technical and restricted sense, leaves little room for 

 education. It assumes the individual to be a micro- 

 cosm cut off from external relations, and capable of 

 developing to a predestined goal without those external 

 influences which common tfiound to 



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