MAN 473 



bee colony. These demands of society gradually mould the 

 individuals and their social ideas. Next to the hand and to 

 language, probably the social relations of man have been impor- 

 tant in training his mind and developing his brain. It is 

 easily seen that the higher qualities of man, as sympathy, love, 

 unselfishness, heroism, and self-sacrifice, are the qualities of 

 mind, or "heart" as we sometimes say, that would be given 

 prominence in the home and the other really social institutions. 

 The study of man as he adjusts himself to his social life is known 

 as Sociology. 



472. Education and its Place in Human Development. — 

 Education is, in general, the development of the individual in 

 such a way that he will be able to adjust and to readjust himself 

 rightly, in the light of his whole natiure, to the essential factors 

 of his environment. This means always to make the right re- 

 sponse, whatever the stimuli. This adjustment has come slowly 

 in the race, step by step in the experience of each individual. 

 Education in mankind is an effort to give the child a short cut to 

 the best that has been discovered by the race in its history, so 

 that it will not be necessary for him to get it all by experience. 

 Language is again the vehicle that makes this possible. vSome 

 education is possible through sight and imitation of parental 

 actions, and there is probably a certain amount of such education 

 in many of the lower animals. Confidence in the parents, imita- 

 tion, and curiosity are important individual instincts underlying 

 the education of the child. The long dependence of the child 

 on the parents, the close relations inevitable in the home, the 

 warmth of sympathy in the parental feeling, all enter in furnish- 

 ing the motive and the opportunity for the training. That this 

 education is efficient is shown by the fact that the individual 

 youth in a period of twenty or twenty -five years may be brought 

 to a knowledge of the most important experiences of the human 

 race; to a mastery of the great implements of human progress, 

 as spoken and written language, knowledge of nature's laws, and 

 the relations of numbers; and to an appreciation of the great, 

 partly natural and largely artificial structure which we call 

 human society, as well as of the modes of behavior necessary to 

 meet its demands. 



