212 
C. Judson Herrick 
require that the man know how to hit and to hit hard. And so 
with the instincts of self-preservation, of fear, of sex — these all 
have their parts to play in the nobler works of life and are by no 
means to be eradicated. The ascetic ideal of mortification of the 
flesh as a means of grace is fundamentally wrong in principle. 
Our case calls for no blind, indiscriminate attack upon the world 
and the flesh, but rather the subjugation and discipline of these, 
so that we may use them effectively in our attack upon the devil. 
Conflict is inherent in the cosmic process, at least in the biologi- 
cal realm, from beginning to end. There is the struggle for 
physical existence among the animals. And even in the lower 
ranks of life there arises also the struggle within the individual 
betweep stereotyped innate tendencies or instincts and individu- 
ally acquired experience. This is clearly shown by experiments 
on animals as low down as the Protozoa. And out of this inner 
conflict or dilemma intelligence was born. With the gradual 
emergence of self-consciousness in this process, arises the eternal 
struggle with self, that conflict which leads to the bitter cry. 
When I would do good evil is present with me.’^ Conflict, then, 
lies at the basis of all evolution, and the factors of social and even 
of moral evolution can be traced downward throughout the 
cosmic process. 
The social and ethical standards, therefore, have not arisen 
in opposition to the evolutionary process as seen in the brute 
creation, but within that process. And our immediate educa- 
tional problem is the elaboration of a practicable system of public 
instruction which can use to the full the enormous dynamic 
energy in the hereditary impulsive and instinctive endowment of 
the child and build upon this, in the form best suited to the respec- 
tive capacities of all the separate individuals, a properly ordered 
sequence of studies which will develop the latent capacities of 
each pupil and ensure a vital balance between the strong, blind 
impulse of the innate nature and the acquired intellectual, aes- 
thetic and moral control. 
No single curriculum can be devised which will solve this 
problem. The pupils enter our schools with a wide range of 
hereditary endowments on the instinctive plane, with great 
diversity in their potential capacity for learning, and from very 
diverse home environments, whence by far the larger part of 
their social heredity” must be derived, that influence of example 
