The Super Race: An American Problem Part 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?

Well, hardly. One could not be expected to take so frivolous a view of life, therefore you will in self defense take every possible precaution to suppress vandalism and thievery? Never, my dear sir, never! You must take every possible precaution to reduce the spirit of vandalism and of thievery. The acts are in themselves unconsequential--they are but the product of a diseased mind or an indifferent training. The spirit, here as elsewhere, is all important.

Are you a scientist? Do you admire Pasteur and Herbert Spencer? You are a "practical" man--see what Edison has done for you. As a statesman, you revere Lincoln and Daniel Webster. You cannot, as an artist, overlook the portraits of Rembrandt or the water scenes of Ruysdael. You must agree with me that these and a thousand others that I might mention--men called geniuses by their contemporaries or their descendants--have contributed untold worth to the society of which they were a part. They chose rightly.

They are looked upon, and justly, as the salt of the earth. You admit the value of geniuses, in civilization, and you would, of course, do anything to increase their number? Then, let me say to you that the first thing for you to decide is that your own children shall be neither vandals nor thieves. The second thing for you to decide is that they shall, in so far as you are able to determine the matter, possess all of your good qualities, coupled with the good qualities which you lack, supplied by an able mate. In short, you must choose your life partner with a view to the elimination of anti-social tendencies, on the one hand, and on the other to the development of the qualities which distinguish the Super Man.

How obvious is this statement, yet how haphazard has been the production of greatness. Only once in a generation does a man, in his choice of a wife, follow the example of John Newcomb. In a truly scientific spirit he enumerated on paper the qualities which he possessed; placed opposite them the qualities in which he was lacking; and then set out to find the woman who should supply his deficiencies. When he had located his future helpmeet, playing hymn tunes on an organ in a little red school house, and upon further acquaintance, had a.s.sured himself that she really possessed the needed qualities, he married her, with the determination that their first child should be a great mathematician. Their first child was Simon Newcomb, one of the leading astronomers of the nineteenth century.

John Newcomb was a village school master, and his wife a village maiden, but in their choice they combined two sets of qualities which would inevitably produce a Super Man. John Newcomb was a pioneer eugenist. He chose a mate with the thought of the future foremost in his mind.

Too often, however, the men of parts follow the example of the brilliant professor who married a "social b.u.t.terfly." "Why in the world did you do it?" asked an old friend. "Oh, well," answered the professor, "I felt that I had brains enough for both."

True, professor, but according to the Mendelian law of heredity, those brains of yours will be halved in each of your children, and quartered in each of your grandchildren. Why should not the future be at least as brilliant as your own generation?

Human marriage is ordinarily a hit or miss affair. Men and women, inspired by the loftiest motives, and animated in most matters by supreme good sense, not infrequently grope blindly toward matrimony; often marry uncongenially; and finally bring disgrace upon their own heads, and misery upon their families. Stevenson, with such marriages in mind, writes to the average prospective bridegroom--

"What! you have had one life to manage, and have failed so strangely, and now can see nothing wiser than to conjoin with it the management of some one else's? Because you have been unfaithful in a very little, you propose yourself to be a ruler over ten cities. You are no longer content to be your own enemy; you must be your wife's also. G.o.d made you, but you marry yourself; no one is responsible but you. You have eternally missed your way in life, with consequences that you still deplore, and yet you masterfully seize your wife's hand, and blindfold, drag her after you to ruin. And it is your wife, you observe, whom you select. She, whose happiness you most desire, you choose to be your victim. You would earnestly warn her from a tottering bridge or bad investment. If she were to marry some one else, how you would tremble for her fate! If she were only your sister and you thought half as much of her, how doubtfully would you entrust her future to a man no better than yourself!"[18]

Here, then, lies the path of eugenic activity for the individual--clear, straight, unmistakable. In the first place, he must never transmit to the future any defect. If he has a transmissible defect, he must have no offspring. This seems but reasonable--an obligation to bring no unnecessary misery into a world where so much already exists. But the individual--free to choose--must go one step further, and in his selection, must seek a mate with the qualities which are complementary to his own.

Looked at from the standpoint of society, there is no single choice which compares in importance to the choice of a mate; for on that choice depend the qualities which this generation will transmit to the next, and from which the next generation must create its follower. Furthermore, there is no choice which, in modern society, is more completely individual--more freed from social interference, than the choice of a life mate. The man in choosing his life partner, chooses the future. Civilization hangs expectant on his decision. The Super Race, dim and indistinct, may be made a living reality by a eugenic choice in the present--a choice for which each man and woman who marries is in part responsible. With the advance of woman's emanc.i.p.ation, with the increasing range of her activity, comes an ever increasing opportunity to exercise such a choice.

She, as well as the man, may now a.s.sist in the determination of the future. She as well as the man may now be held accountable for the non-appearance of the Super Race.

Does the burden of Eugenic Choice rest heavily upon the shoulders of the individual? Does he hesitate to a.s.sume the responsibility of the future race? The burden of shaping Social Adjustments is no less onerous.

Briefly, then, what changes may the individual make in inst.i.tutions to develop the qualities of the Super Man? The social inst.i.tutions with which the average man comes into the most intimate contact are:

1. The Home.

2. The School.

3. The Government.

The home as an inst.i.tution must provide for the Super Man enough food, clothing and shelter to guarantee him a good physique; enough training in coperation and mutual helpfulness to give him the vision of a Super Race; and a supply of enthusiasm sufficient to enable him to work with increasing energy for the fulfillment of those things in which he believes. In order that the home may supply these things, it must have an income sufficient to provide all of the necessaries and some of the comforts of life. It must further be dominated by a spirit of sympathetic democracy.

While the present system of wealth distribution is so grotesquely unscientific that men are forced to rear families on incomes that will not provide the necessaries, to say nothing of the comforts, of life, no true home can be established nor can a Super Race be produced. If the child is an a.s.set to the state, the state should support the child, guaranteeing to it an income sufficient to provide for its material welfare.

Why prate of home virtue? Why discourse learnedly on the possibilities of a developed manhood to a father earning nine dollars a week? If you can guarantee such a man an income of three dollars a week for each child, in addition to the nine dollars for his wife and himself, you may well air your views regarding a Super Race; but until your lowest income is high enough to guarantee the necessaries of life to a family of five; or until the state guarantees an income to each child in its early life, "You may as well go stand upon the beach and bid the main flood bate his usual height," as to demand that a man, working for starvation wages, provide a home in which Super Men can be reared.

When income has been provided; when there is food for every mouth, warm clothing for every back, enough fuel for winter, and a few pennies each week for recreation, then indeed you may begin to speak in terms of social improvement. Then, and then only, you may tell the father and the mother that upon their efforts during the first seven years of their children's lives depends the att.i.tude which those children will a.s.sume when they go out into the world; that the home in which tyranny is unknown, in which the family rules the family, will produce the n.o.blest citizens for the n.o.blest state; that the home is still the most fundamental inst.i.tution in civilization, the conservator of our ideals, and visions of the better things that are to come in the future--these things you may say, emphasizing the fact, that without a well rounded home-training in youth, even the n.o.blest talents cannot come to their full fruition.

The school is a specialized form of home. In early days, when life was simple, and specialization was unknown, education was given almost wholly in the home; but with the growth of specialized tasks, the home could no longer fulfill its function as educator and the school was introduced.

Education, whether given in the home or in the school, has as its object a complete life. The purpose of education is to enable the pupil to live completely--to be a rounded being, in whatever station he may be called upon to fill.

Would you mold the school to fit the needs of the children? Then, the system of education must be so shaped that children are prepared to live their lives completely. They must understand themselves. "Know thyself" is a command worthy of their attention. The child's body, in the period of change from childhood to adulthood, is an organism of the most delicate nature, barely reaching adjustment under the most auspicious conditions, and more than frequently failing signally from a lack of knowledge, or from the absence of sympathetic understanding. The child--the father of the man--must be taught to appreciate the human machine of which he is given charge. It is in the school, with its corps of specialists, that this work can be most effectively done.

Then, one by one, the school may take up and foster the qualities of the Super Man. Physique must come first. It is blatant mockery to speak of educating minds that dwell in anmic bodies. Every boy and girl has a right to a strong, well knit frame, and the school must teach the best methods of securing it. Mental grasp--the power to see and judge a situation or combination of facts, may also come through the school. In fact, the school course, as at present organized, aims to secure that and little else. As the science of education advances, the same material which now comprises the entire course will be taught in less time and in wiser ways, so that the child shall be free to learn some of those other things so important to his soul's welfare. Aggressiveness and concentration are methods rather than ends, and can be made a part of every game, every compet.i.tion, and every study, so that the child absorbs them as he absorbs the atmosphere, without knowing that they become a part of his being.

Whether the school can instill sympathy and inspire vision is a question that the future alone must decide. Both may be given by individual teachers, and both may be possible to the school, though, if the home is doing its work, these things will come more effectively there than through the school. Most or all of the essential qualities of the Super Man can and will come through a well organized and properly directed educational system.