Education 247 



Parental education is evidently a process securing con- 

 tinuity of that particular intellectual work for which the 

 physical structure of the offspring is simultaneously adapted. 

 Education in its primary form thus appears as an extension 

 of heredity. The normal lineage, presenting the greater 

 life in co-existent generations, constitutes a unit which 

 enjoys the cooperation of maturity and age and youth. It 

 maintains itself by a develpoment which does not lose con- 

 tinuity in the death of the successively aging individuals. 

 The intellectual growth of the parent, the products of his 

 knowledge and experience are, by education grafted upon 

 aptitudes in the son especially able to receive them; and 

 normally they are especially suited to his conditions, although 

 in times of migration and change, these advantages are 

 lessened, both in fact and in value, and mere adaptability 

 may become a better quality than any settled habit. But 

 this is transitory variation. The main stream of knowl- 

 edge, descending through the generations is continuous, and 

 presents to each the experience of the one preceding it, and 

 continues in education the benefit of heritage so long as the 

 older individual retains reasoning power, and the younger 

 remains receptive. Obviously infancy and youth so de- 

 pendent as that of humanity, is but badly equipped if its 

 aptitudes molded in one type are trained in another which is 

 foreign, or are not trained at all. We know that the de- 

 pendence upon training of a human infant, is such that 

 without example and assistance, speech and morality and 

 reason do not develop. It is evident that if the existence 

 of these faculties depends upon education their quality must 

 still more certainly be so dependent. Broadly then it is the 



