JOURNAL
OJ'
EDUOATION
May 13, 1929
cent. of the children were good tempered, forty-
four per cent. indifferent, and fifty-two per cent.
'bad tempered. He draws the conclusion that this
is an unmistakable sign of the heredity of temper.
but he is making no allowance for environment
and' training or the lack of it. Dugdale says:
.. Where the conduct depends on the knowledge
of moral obligation, the environment has more in-
fluence than the heredity, because the development
of the moral attributes is mainly a post-natal and
not an, ante-natal formation of cerebral cells.""
The foregoing statement is well borne out by work
of Freeman, Holzinger, Bobo, Mitchell, and Loren-
zen on the conduct of foster children. This re-
port is published in the Twenty-seventh Yearbook
of the National Society for Study of Education. A
large group of the children who were studied had
morally defective parents. In spite of tlieir par-
entage a minimum of cases of serious misbe-
havior was found among the foster children.
It
was also found that the earlier a child was taken
into its foster home, the less its danger of being
like its true parents.
Another strong argument against the all-power-
ful heredity myth is the famous story of Pitcairn
Island. In a single generation the descendants of
the nine mutineers of the ..
Bounty"
were con-
verted to lives of piety by the influence of one
man. The community started out in absolute
-.:The
Jukes:"
Dugdale:
Putnam,
1910.
lawlessness and vice. The original members were
extremely low types. One by one they killed each
other off until only one man remained. He re-
pented of his former life, determined to atone for
his wrongdoing by making Pitcairn a model com-
munity. He brought up the second generation
according to an extremely strict moral code. He
succeeded in attaining his aim, and the descendants
of his subjects are still living in a morally ideal
state,
'Ve are, then, justified in saying that moral
character is not inherited, but is the result of
training and environment. Each individual must
be separately trained in the way he should
go.
The child of the most highly cultured ancestors is
1.0 better equipped than the child of criminals as
far as the actual biological inheritance of ethical
training is concerned. The consoling fact is that
the real difference begins with the social inheri-
tance. In other words, as
East
says so ably:
.. Heredity is the exposed film, environment is the
developer; heredity is the raw material, environ-
ment is the craftsman; heredity is the score, en-
vironment is the performer. Better still, heredity
is the credit at Nature's bank, deposited for the
individual at conception. One has ten talents; a
second five talents; and a third one talent. What
they do with their endowment depends upon cir-
cumstances." '"
~eredity
and
Human
Atralrs."
East:
SCribners.
Whence
Cometh
Knowledge?
By W. K. MAIN
Superintendent, Elizabethton, Tenn.
K
NOWLE DGE is all about us, but many know
it not, for few take the time for an introduc-
tion. The smallest blade of grass; the twisted and
withered
leaf;
the most lowly and despised of
weeds hold within their unyielding clasp more
secrets than a master mind can grasp in a lifetime
of intensive study. Yet the average person passes
through life knowing but little more how to enjoy
its beauties or understand its secrets in the end
than at the beginning. The dormant mind has
failed to be awakened: the eye has seen but
understandeth not. To me the greatest mission,
yet the most 'difficult, of any institution of learning
is to disturb the inert mind, open the unseeing eye
of all who endeavor to pass its
portals-ereate
interest, give inspiration and its purpose has been
accomplished one hundred per cent.
Our
schools are slowly but surely realizing that
the surest and easiest way of awakening minds and
opening eyes is bringing students in closer
contact with that which they study to give more
concreteness and a little less abstractness. Many
of our superintendents, principals, and teachers
of grammar and high schools now know that a
class will learn more about coal in one day at the
mine than they will in a year of study on it in a
schoolroom; that a day spent in a historical
museum with a competent guide would be of more
lasting benefit to a history class than a year's
study within the walls of a schoolroom. They also
know that a boy will learn more about practical
arithmetic selling newspapers on the streets for an
hour than he will in double
that
time in the
average arithmetic class.
Why?
It
is to his own
advantage to learn. Here a mistake means
some-
thing and he knows it too. He is dealing with
things now as they really are. Colleges and uni-
versities are beginning to send classes all over the
country to study
things-things
as they
exist-
things as they are, and for the past two years
.. Floating Universities" have cruised the world.
Many of
our
universities, I am told, are now
giving credit for directed travel. This is a
move-
ment in the right direction.
The educational systems of Europe are far
superior to ours in placing the student in direct
contact with that which he is studying. The chief
difference between our system of education and
theirs is the one mentioned above, and that of
specialization. All over Germany, Switzerland,
资源评论
