82 MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



inologist, has said, "The social environment is 

 the culture medium of criminality." But society 

 not only fashions its criminals by its social condi- 

 tions; it also produces by social conditions high- 

 class citizens. The same law works for preserva- 

 tion in one direction, that in the opposite works 

 for corruption. Its workings in the preservative 

 line we see more clearly, however, in that form of 

 society which we call the family, because the 

 family has its opportunity at that period when 

 character is most impressible and formative.* 

 Dr. Lydston gives the following very striking il- 

 lustration of the lines of destiny formed by en- 

 vironment: "Two boys were truants and went to 

 a farmer's orchard to steal apples. One of the 

 boys was caught: the other escaped. The one 

 who was caught was turned over to the constable 

 and placed in jail, where he was thrown among 

 criminals long enough to fall under the influence 

 of evil associations. When released he was much 

 worse than when arrested, and got deeper and 

 deeper into crime. The other boy, with whom 

 he had gone to steal apples, remained in school, 



* The first form of our Indian corn is a grass about two feet high, " bearing at its 

 summit a handsome panicle of male flowers, and on the culm below one or two fertile 

 spikes three inches long and half an inch in diameter, having the seeds arranged around 

 the elongated rachis. . . . This represented all that nature (heredity) could do. 

 The vast cornfields of the West, the stalks fifteen feet in height, loaded with three or 

 four ears, each nearly a foot in length and two or three inches in diameter, represent what 

 nurture (environment) has done." (Ward: "Applied Sociology," 126.) 



The above is an example of improvement through the power of environment. The 

 same author gives an illustration also of the degeneration that may be produced by 

 environment. He tells of a grass which he found growing near Washington, D. C., 

 pauperized but still very green, and to his astonishment, it was nothing else than de- 

 generated wheat. It had arrived at its present condition by having lost the care which 

 man gives to it. 



