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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 959 



tion to various problems of human interest is 

 too well known to call for argument. How- 

 ever, it may not be amiss to cite a few inci- 

 dental phases of such interest, and among 

 them the following are especially important. 

 Maudsley long ago ("Pathology of Mind")> 

 emphasized its importance in relation to 

 questions of insanity. 



When we are told that a man has become de- 

 ranged from anxiety or grief, we have learned 

 very little if we rest content with that. How does 

 it happen that another man, subject to exactly 

 similar causes of grief, does not go mad? It is 

 certain that the entire causes can not be the same 

 where the effects are so different; and what we 

 want to have laid bare is the conspiracy of condi- 

 tions, internal and external, by which a mental 

 shock, inoperative in one case, has had such serious 

 consequences in another. A complete biographical 

 account of the individual, not neglecting the con- 

 sideration of his hereditary antecedents, would 

 alone suiEce to set forth distinctly the causation 

 of his insanity. 



It is hardly necessary to say that what is 

 stated in this case has become greatly more 

 certain in the light of manifold facts of cur- 

 rent knowledge. 



But important as is such knowledge in its 

 bearing upon insanity as a malady to be cared 

 for or treated, it is even more important in 

 its possible relations to social and economic 

 problems. It is no part of the purpose of this 

 brief paper to deal with these phases of the 

 subject. The problem which has concerned 

 the writer is that of eugenics in relation to 

 educational betterment. With many who have 

 been concerned in the present status and 

 tendencies in educational progress he has had 

 a growing conviction that conditions are de- 

 plorably bad in many respects, and in some 

 matters the situation is grave to a degree not 

 generally realized. It is not the ranting 

 criticism of hasty reformers and radicals of 

 quixotic type which is the occasion of con- 

 cern. But those who know best the situation, 

 those who are upon the inside, the friends of 

 the best in educational tradition and inherit- 

 ance, have been among the critics, and have 

 not hesitated to cry aloud and spare not. 

 Then, too, we have had opportunity to " see 



ourselves as others see us." Our system of 

 education has been designated as a " Prolif- 

 erating Mediocrity." It is thrown into our 

 teeth that the present generation has added 

 little or naught to literary, or philosophic, or 

 scientific greatness; that we take none of the 

 Nobel prizes for scholarly achievement; that 

 American schools are glorified chiefly as a 

 theoretical system. To such arraignment we 

 may, or may not plead guilty, according to 

 our points of view. This is not the place to 

 discuss the pros or cons. Conditions have 

 provoked the challenge and criticism. It is 

 serious enough to give us pause, and to 

 awaken inquiry and analysis. Assuming 

 there are possible grounds for criticism, that 

 our so-called system is not perfect, that a tend- 

 ency to mediocre results exists, what can be 

 done in the matter? And further, what has 

 all this to do with vital statistics? 



Considering first the last feature, let it be 

 noted that had there been gathered during the 

 century past a body of school statistics of a 

 critical and informing character we should 

 be in possession of just the data which would 

 enable us to answer some of these questions 

 in a more thorough and convincing manner 

 than is possible without them. It is very well 

 to glorify the values of education by pointing 

 to distinguished jurists, statesmen, educators 

 and others, as products of Harvard or Yale or 

 Oxford, etc., but it may still be open to query 

 whether all this is so! The cynic will retort 

 " They were great in spite of this, that or the 

 other college ! " And who has convincing evi- 

 dence for or against? 



But this is not the only, or chief, call for 

 statistics. There has long been current, as a 

 sort of creedal tenet, applicable to all sorts of 

 social or civil or religious or educational con- 

 ditions, the adage all men are created free and 

 equal! But deductions of science and sociol- 

 ogy have later been declaring the very oppo- 

 site, that men are created under bondage and 

 to inequality through laws of heredity and 

 variable environment. So far as education is 

 concerned it may be assumed as beyond rea- 

 sonable debate that the armies of idiocy, im- 

 becility, feeble-mindedness, to mention no 



