Part 2 (1/2)

Edison cast away on an island in the South Pacific would be useless to his fellows. Abraham Lincoln, living among the Apache Indians, would have left small impress on the world. A sculptor, to be really great, must go to Rome, because it is in Rome that the great works of sculptured art are to be found. It is in Rome, furthermore, that the great sculptors work and teach. A lawyer can scarcely achieve distinction while practicing in a backwoods county court, nor can a surgeon remain proficient in his science unless he keep in constant touch with the world of surgery. ”I must go to the city,” cried a woman with an unusual voice. ”Here in the country I can sing, but I cannot study music.” She must, of necessity, go to the city because in the city alone exists the stimulus and the example which are necessary for the perfection of her art.

A congenial environment is necessary for the perfection of any hereditary talent. Lester F. Ward concludes, after an exhaustive a.n.a.lysis of self-made men, that such men are the exception. That they exist he must admit, but that their abilities would have come to a much more complete development in a congenial environment he clearly demonstrates.

The rigorous persecution of the Middle Ages eliminated any save the most daring thinkers. Men of science, who presumed to a.s.sert facts in contradiction of the accepted dogmas of the Church, were ruthlessly silenced, hence the ages were very dark. The nineteenth century, on the contrary, through its cultivation of science and scientific attainments, has reaped a harvest of scientific achievement unparalleled in the history of the world. Men to-day enter scientific pursuits for the same reason that they formerly entered the military service--because every emphasis is laid on scientific endeavor. The nineteenth century scientist is the logical outcome of the nineteenth century desires for scientific progress.

The environment shapes the man. Yet, equally, does the man shape the environment. A high standard individual may be handicapped by social tradition, but, in like manner, progressive social inst.i.tutions are inconceivable in the absence of high standard men and women.

The inst.i.tutions of a society--its homes, schools, government, industry--are created by the past and shaped by the present. Inst.i.tutions are not subjected to sudden changes, yet one generation, animated by the effort to realize a high ideal, may reshape the social structure. Can one conceive of a paper strewn campus in a college where the spirit is strong?

Parisians believe in beauty, hence Paris is beautiful. Social inst.i.tutions combine the achievements of the past with the ethics of the present.

”Let me see where you live and I will tell you what you are,” is a true saying. The social environment, moldable in each generation, is an accurate index to the ideals and aspirations of the generation in which it exists.

CHAPTER IV

EDUCATION--THE SCIENCE OF INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT

Eugenics provides the hereditary qualities of the Super Man; Social Adjustment furnishes the environment in which these qualities are to develop; there still remains the development of the individual through Education, a word which means, for our purposes, all phases of character shaping from birth-day to death-day.

The individual has been rediscovered during the past three centuries. He was known in some of the earlier civilizations, but during the Middle Ages the place that had seen him knew him no more. He was submerged in the group and forced to subordinate his interests to the demands of group welfare. The distinctive work of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has been a reversal of this enforced individual oblivion and the formulation of a demand for individual initiative and activity. The individual, pushed forward in politics, in religion, and in commerce has freely a.s.serted and successfully maintained his right to consideration, until the opportunities of the twentieth century free citizen far exceed those of the convention-bound citizen of the middle ages. The twentieth century citizen is free because he makes efficient choices. The continuance of his freedom depends upon the continued wisdom of his choice.

The chief objective point of modern endeavor has been individual freedom of choice. The _laissez-faire_ doctrine in commercial relations, democracy in politics, the natural philosophy and natural theology of the eighteenth century are all expressions of a belief in equality. When men are made free to choose, they are placed on a basis of equality, since they have a like opportunity to succeed or fail. The man who chooses rightly wins success--the man who chooses wrongly fails.

Thus the freedom to choose is for the average man a right of inestimable value, because it places in his hands the opportunity to achieve. Rights do not, however, come alone. The freeman is bound in his choices to recognize the law that rights are always accompanied by duties.

Each right is accompanied by a proportionate responsibility--there is no dinner without its dishwas.h.i.+ng. To be sure, you may s.h.i.+ft the burden of dishwas.h.i.+ng to the maid, and the burden of voting to the ”other fellow,”

but the responsibility is none the less present. Garbage is still garbage, even when thrown into the well, and your responsibilities, s.h.i.+fted to the maid and the other voter, return to plague you in the form of a servant problem and of vicious politics. Men who have a right to choose have also a duty to fulfill, and this right and this duty are inseparable.

The eighteenth century began the discovery of the individual man; the nineteenth century--at least the latter half of it--was responsible for the discovery of the individual woman. Even to-day in many civilized lands, the woman is merely an appendage. Men innumerable write in the hotel register ”John Edwards and Wife,” yet if the truth were told they should often write ”Jane Edwards and John Edwards,” and perhaps sometimes ”Jane Edwards and husband.”

Western civilization, a good unthinking creature, has insisted bravely on the development of the individual man, while largely overlooking the existence of the individual woman; yet the studies of heredity show very clearly that at least as many qualities are inherited from the female as from the male. Nay, further, since the female is less specialized, the distinctive race qualities are inherited from her, rather than from the more specialized male. In short, the Super Man will have a mother as well as a father.

The fact that the average man has as many female as he had male ancestors is very frequently overlooked. Yet it is a fact that inevitably carries with it the imputation, that if his ancestors were thus equally apportioned, he must have inherited his qualities from both s.e.xes.

Therefore, in the production of the Super Man, the qualities of the woman are of equal importance with the qualities of the man.

The individual is the goal and Education the means, since Education is the science of individual development. Through Education, we shall enable the individual to live completely. But what is complete life? How shall we compa.s.s or define it?

Two laws are laid down as fundamental in nature--the laws of self preservation and of self perpetuation. With the development of society, and social relations, the individual must recognize himself, not as an individual only, but likewise as a unit in a social group. Hence, for him, self preservation and self perpetuation necessarily involve group preservation and group perpetuation. His code of life must therefore formulate itself in this wise--

THE OBJECTS OF ENDEAVOR

_Immediate_ _Ultimate_ ---- ---- INDIVIDUAL Self Expression Super Man

{ Eugenics SOCIAL { Social Adjustment Super Race { Education

The individual, for self preservation, demands self expression; for self perpetuation he demands that the standard of his children be higher than his own. As a member of the social group, he looks to Eugenics, Social Adjustment, and Education as the immediate means of raising social standards, and the ultimate means of providing a Super Race.

Such are the abstract ideals--how may they be practically applied? How shall the individual express, through Eugenics, Social Adjustment, and Education his desire for the development of a Super Race?

Do you, sir, enjoy living in the neighborhood of vandals and thieves?