January 10, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



53 



Napoleons, Washingtons who might have 

 been ; the Newtons, Darwins, Pasteurs who 

 were ready formed by nature, but who 

 never discovered themselves. One shud- 

 ders to think how narrowly Newton es- 

 caped being an unknown farmer, or Fara- 

 day an obscure bookbinder, or Pasteur a 

 provincial tanner. In the history of the 

 world there must have been many men of 

 equal native endowments who missed the 

 slender chance which came to these. We 

 form the habit of thinking of great men as 

 having appeared only at long intervals, 

 and yet we know that great crises always 

 discover great men. What does this mean 

 but that the men are ready formed and 

 that it requires only this extra stimulus to 

 call them forth? To most of us heredity 

 has been kind — kinder than we know. The 

 possibilities within us are great but they 

 rarely come to full epiphany. 



What is needed in education more than 

 anything else is some means or system which 

 will train the powers of self discovery and 

 self control. Easy lives and so-called 

 "good environment" will not arouse the 

 dormant powers. It usually takes the 

 stress and strain of hard necessity to make 

 us acquainted with our hidden selves, to 

 rouse the sleeping giant within us. How 

 often is it said that the worthless sons of 

 worthy parents are mysteries ; with the best 

 of heredity and environment they amount 

 to nothing; whereas the sons of poor and 

 ignorant farmers, blacksmiths, tanners and 

 backwoodsmen, with few opportunities and 

 with many hardships and disadvantages 

 become world figures. Probably the in- 

 heritance in these last-named cases was no 

 better than in the former, but the environ- 

 ment was better. "Good environment" 

 usually means easy, pleasant, refined sur- 

 roundings, "all the opportunities that 

 money can buy," but little responsibility 

 and none of that self discipline which re- 



veals 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, irresponsibility 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. College athletics has this much at 

 least in its favor, that it trains men who 

 take part in the contests to do their best, 

 to subordinate pleasure, appetite, the de- 

 sire for a good time, to one controlling pur- 

 pose, 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 pos- 

 sess. Such training makes men acquainted 

 with their powers and teaches courage, con- 

 fidence 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 uncertain day when the inherit- 

 ance of the race will be improved ! What- 

 ever the stimulus required, whether pride 

 or shame, fear or favor, ambition or loy- 

 alty, 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 de- 

 pends upon inheritance, that strong wills 

 and weak wills are such because of hered- 

 ity. It is true that one man may be born 

 with a potentiality for self control which 

 another man lacks, but in all men this j)0- 

 tentiality becomes actuality only through 

 development, one of the principal factors 

 of which is use, or functional activity. An 

 amazing number of persons have but little 

 self control. Is this always due to defective 

 inheritance, or is it not frequently the 

 result of bad habits, of arrested develop- 



