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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 996 



be the object of our schools. This is not 

 only trite, but also true. Every psychol- 

 ogist knows that perceptions are not there 

 to be perceived, but as a condition of reac- 

 tions ; that we learn by doing ; that conduct 

 is the only thing that counts. But it is 

 also true that by its etymology the word 

 "educate" might mean to lead out the in- 

 dividual for the work for which he is fit, 

 to select the "dukes," the leaders, for a 

 democracy. This is the greatest service of 

 education. We learn to do things not by 

 preparing to do them, but by doing them; 

 we get a wider outlook not by so-called cul- 

 tural studies, but by association with those 

 who have broad and unselfish interests ; we 

 must learn what others know, but it is 

 more important to do what we have not 

 been taught and what others have not done. 

 The chief object of the school is to open 

 for each child the gateway to the career for 

 which he is fit. Democracy does not mean 

 equal mediocrity of all, but performance 

 by each in accordance with his ability. 



"What a man can do is prescribed at 

 birth; what he does depends on opportu- 

 nity. The famous clause "all men are cre- 

 ated equal" was probably intended by Jef- 

 ferson to mean equal in respect to life, 

 liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How- 

 ever that may be, the doctrine of evolution 

 by natural selection has taught every one 

 that the individuals of a species are unlike 

 at birth. The amount of congenital un- 

 likeness in men and the extent to which it 

 is inherited in successive generations, on 

 the one hand, and the degree to which 

 men can be fitted by education and expe- 

 rience for different performances, on the 

 other hand, are scientific problems on the 

 solution of which depends the future of 

 social and political institutions. If supe- 

 rior ability occurs only or chiefly in certain 

 family lines, if classes, races and the sexes 

 are not only different but subordinated one 



to the other by the barriers of an impas- 

 sable heredity, then an aristocratic society 

 and an oligarchic government are imposed 

 by nature. If each finds of necessity his 

 level and his place by native endowment, 

 then universal education and equality of 

 opportunity are of small significance. If, 

 on the contrary, among five children taken 

 at random from the public schools, one is 

 likely to surpass in ability and character 

 the privileged boy at Groton or St. Paul's; 

 if nine boys out of ten and ten girls out of 

 ten have no chance to show what they are 

 fit to do, then our need is more democracy 

 and better opportunity for the fit. 



I have found that of our thousand lead- 

 ing men of science, 134 were born in Mas- 

 sachusetts, 3 in Georgia. For each million 

 of their population, Massachusetts and 

 Connecticut have produced a hundred sci- 

 entific men of high standing; the states of 

 the southern seaboard but two. Does this 

 disparity measure difference of natural 

 ability or difference of opportunity? The 

 frailties of human nature are responsible 

 for two experiments which, if not executed 

 with scientific precision, have been con- 

 ducted on a large scale. In this country and 

 in Great Britain, four per cent, of children 

 are illegitimate; in continental cities the 

 percentage is as large as twenty and even 

 forty. It is probable that these children 

 have a physical heredity equal to that of 

 the average child, but their social heritage 

 is inferior, and their performance corre- 

 sponds with their opportunity. If hered- 

 ity were predominant there should be 

 among our thousand leading men of sci- 

 ence some forty of illegitimate parentage, 

 whereas there are few or none. The mul- 

 attoes are by their physical heredity mid- 

 way between the whites and the negroes, 

 with parentage probably superior to the 

 average in both races. But their social po- 

 sition is that of the negroes, and their per- 



