CompHmcntafy Banquet to Luther Burbank 



sequence! It is the great factor, and often makes environ- 

 ment almost powerless. When certain hereditary tendencies 

 are almost indelibly ingrained, environment will have a hard 

 battle to effect a change in the child, but that a change can 

 be wrought by the surroundings we all know. The particu- 

 lar subject may at first be stubborn against these influences, 

 but repeated application to the same modifying forces in suc- 

 ceeding generations will at last accomplish the desired object. 



"All animal life is sensitive to environment. You can 

 change the oyster by gradually changing its environment, and 

 you know the oyster is a very low type of life. Take an 

 ox, a horse, a dog, a m.an, and that which often counts most 

 in the development of each is environment ; but of all living 

 things the child is the most sensitive. Surroundings act upon 

 it as the outside world acts upon the plate of the camera : 

 every possible influence acting exteriorily will leave its im- 

 press upon the child, and the traits which it inherited will 

 be overcome to a certain extent, in many cases being even 

 more apparent than heredity'. The child is like a cut dia- 

 mond, its many facets receiving sharp, clear impressions not 

 possible to a pebble, with this difference, however, that the 

 changes wrought in the child from the influences without, 

 become constitutional and ingrained. A child absorbs en- 

 vironment. It is the most susceptible thing in the world to 

 influence, and if that force be applied rightly and constantly 

 when the child is in its greatest receptive condition the ef- 

 fect will be pronounced, immediate and permanent. 



"There is no doubt that if a child w^ith a vicious temper 

 be placed in an environment of peace and quiet the temper 

 will change. Put a boy born of gentle white parents among 

 Indians and he will grow up like an Indian. Let the child 

 born of criminal parents have a setting of morality and de- 



. . It . . 



