The family and its members

by Anna Garlin Spencer

"He presses on before the race,
And sings out of a silent place.
Like faint notes of a forest bird
On heights afar that voice is heard;
And the dim path he breaks to-day
Will some time be a trodden way.
But when the race comes toiling on
That voice of wonder will be gone—
Be heard on higher peaks afar,
Moved upward with the morning star.
O men of earth, that wandering voice
Still goes the upward way: rejoice!"
—Edwin Markham.

The Proportions of Genius to the Mediocre.—In Dr. T.S. Clouston's suggestive book, The Hygiene of Mind, he estimates that at least four-fifths of the human race are legally "sound" and of average capacity. Of the remaining one-fifth who are "unusual" he and other investigators name only one-tenth of one per cent, as entitled to the distinction of "Genius." Clouston adds to this a class of "lesser genius," often extremely useful to the race but often personally unhappy from ungratified ambition or lack of temperamental balance. He lists "reformers" for the most part in this class and "inventors who do not succeed." He also specifically indicates a class of "all-round talent" from which successful social and political leaders are drawn and heads of big business and administrators of large enterprises in educational fields. Dr. Lester F. Ward, on the contrary, believed that we estimate the rate of genius and potential genius far too low and that special talent is vastly more common than the usual observer thinks. He says, "What the human race needs is not more brains but more knowledge." In his clarion call for the better education of all people of every race and condition, he affirms his faith in environmental opportunity and a finer personal development as the chief things needed to send the race onward. Professor Woods, of Dartmouth College, writing on "The Social Cost of Unguided Ability," confirms this conviction of Doctor Ward.[11] He declares that "for ten men who succeed there are probably fifty more who might succeed with adequate development and specialization of effort." He shows how "education as an agency in the selection of personal ability fails because of undue abbreviation of the period of training for most individuals and the omission of elements of training of real significance for the purpose of adjusting individuals to the specific task." When we note that before the fifth elementary grade is reached there is a drop in attendance showing only 80 per cent. of those found in the second grade, and in the sixth grade only 66 per cent., and in the seventh grade only 50 per cent., and in the eighth grade less than 40 per cent. remain of those entering the first and second grades, we see good reason for his statement. When the high school statistics are added, with the drop year by year in attendance until at graduation only one in fourteen pupils remains to the end, we feel that this author is right when he says that "Society suffers less from the race suicide of the capable than from the non-utilization of the well-endowed."

Eugenics.—When Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin and one of the first to apply to human beings the ideas of "selection for better breeds," published in 1873 his article on "Hereditary Improvement," he used the word "Stirpiculture" as indicating the application of evolution to the method of improving mankind by the selection of the superior in the process of reproduction. He later changed the designation to "Eugenics," which is now held as the term best applying in this connection. In 1891 Dr. Lester Ward himself said, "Artificial selection has given to man the most that he enjoys in the organic products of earth. May not men and women be selected as well as sheep and horses? From the great stirp of humanity with all its multiplied ancestral plasms—some very poor, some mediocre, some merely indifferent, a goodly number ranging from middling to fair, only a comparatively few very good, with an occasional crystal of the first water—why may we not learn to select on some broad and comprehensive plan with a view to a general building up and rounding out of the race of human beings?" So keen an observer and philosophic thinker as Doctor Ward, however, could not long accept the first allurement of this idea. He soon began to show with his convincing power that "the control of heredity is possible only to a master creature. Man is the master creature of the animal world. Society is the master of its defectives. But normal people are their own masters. Any attempt on the part of society to control the choice of partners in the marital relation would be tyranny." Recognizing the need for "negative eugenics" fully, and declaring in its name that "mental and physical defectives of society should be kept from perpetuating their defects through propagation," he insisted that "eugenists must recognize and admit the enormous force of personal preference" in marriage.

Doctor Ward gives a figure—as above—which might be used to indicate the conclusions of Galton, in his Hereditary Genius, and of Ribot and others. Doctor Galton himself gave in his volume on the Social Order a chart somewhat more discriminating. In any case, however, the eugenists must depend upon the mass of the mediocre for a supply of geniuses and those of exceptional talent and depend upon the process of reproduction for securing that supply. Doctor Ward, on the contrary, looks to education, controlled and improved environment, and the stimulus for all people to be gained from more scientific knowledge more widely distributed. In his famous article, entitled "Eugenics, Euthenics, and Eudemics,"[12] Doctor Ward says that "eugenists tend to emphasize unduly the intellectual qualities" and "manifest more or less contempt for the affective faculties." "Nature," he thinks, "is far wiser and seeks to prevent all extremes." He also reminds us that "much that is called genius is pathologic and linked to the abnormal and the insane." Perhaps few would agree with Doctor Ward that "genius is scattered somewhat uniformly through the whole mass of the population and needs only favoring circumstances to bring it to conscious expression." But that thought challenges attention. He would improve mankind, first, by getting rid of error through the full use of demonstrated scientific knowledge and, second, by a "nurture" in accord with the laws of progress.

Euthenics and Eudemics.—The pioneer treatment of "Euthenics," or "The Science of Controllable Environment," with its "Plea for Better Living Conditions as a First Step Toward Higher Human Efficiency," was given by Ellen H. Richards in 1910. Doctor Ward, in alluding to this, reminds us that "there is a tendency for the avenues of progress to become choked and normal upward movements checked" and that "we must at all times take vigorous action and in the direction of the betterment of the human race." In respect to "Eudemics," or the doctrine of the welfare of the masses of the people-at-large, Doctor Ward uses the term first suggested to Doctor Dealey, of Brown University, by Doctor Koopman, Librarian of that University, with approval, and gives it a meaning of the greatest social helpfulness. In his view it is not a misfortune that society is being to so great an extent recruited from the so-called "lower classes." If there are signs of decadence anywhere, he thinks, they are not in the "proletariat;" they are among the "pampered rich," not the "hampered poor."

New Types of Genius.—Again, his plea is for universal education in real knowledge and true inference from facts of life and a universal sharing of the really best things to secure a just quota of genius and talent from all classes. It seems clear that we are not obliged to limit our hopes for "flowers of the family" to the few at the top of the social pyramid. For the testimony of history agrees rather with Doctor Ward than with the extreme eugenists, and we have often had arising from the common life splendid examples of human capacity and achievement. When the eugenists list their double columns of those whom humanity takes pride in and those of whom humanity is ashamed it is most often from the degenerative or defective members of society that the second list is taken. From the great common life of average condition, neither too rich nor too poor, too cultured nor too ignorant, for "human nature's daily food," one rises now and then to leave a mark high up on the list of great ones of the earth. Hence, humble fathers and mothers can build magnificent hopes on the newborn baby of their love. It is to be considered also that there is difference of opinion as to what constitutes genius and what may be called exceptional talent. One sociologist thinks that there are but three really important classes of men, namely, "Mechanical Inventors, Scientific Discoverers, and Philosophic Thinkers." Another type of judgment may consider that genius shows itself almost exclusively in those creative minds that give us great music, great pictures, great sculptures, great temples, and great books of poetry, drama, and the novel. Another type of mind, now growing fast among us in this machine-dominated industrial era, may find genius the most appropriate name for the master engineer or business-builder who rules a wide realm of successfully administered economic order. There is, also, although it is not often bold enough to claim loud voice, a small section of those who look for supreme excellence in religious or ethical attainment, a line of genius in mastery of the Way of Life. Certainly serviceable goodness, that which does big things for others' safety or help, may be given some place among the specially talented. For example, the little French girl of nine years of age who, bereft of her mother by the accidents of war, has brought up almost unaided five little brothers and sisters, the youngest only seven months old when her task began, and for two years, it is said, washed, cooked, and dressed her charges, and "saw to it that those old enough went to school where she went herself and took prizes for her scholarship," might well be called one of the "unusual." The prize of 500 francs awarded this "little mother" after two years of such able family engineering and personal care of those dependent upon her shows that some people at least rank those with ability to do social services and the high purpose to achieve the best possible for others' welfare as having a place In the company of the specially talented.

In an inconspicuous book called The New Party, edited by Andrew Reid and containing selections from many "labor" leaders, these words occur: "We have had politics for politics' sake, religion for religion's sake, science for science's sake, literature for literature's sake, art for art's sake: we want politics for justice, religion for right, science for happiness, literature for love of humanity, and art for the social pleasure of all." Those who can thus translate the separate achievements of mankind which taken at the top have won the title of works of genius are beginning to be seen above the human horizon as among the great of earth.

It is still, however, as of old, the man or woman who has a special gift of voice or pen or brush or sculptor's tool or command of instrument or ability to compose music or to write literature fit to live forever, or build temples that command wonder and admiration, or who in some form of creative activity makes his mark upon history, who is most often spoken of as a genius. It is now only a little while since we began to add to this list the scientific, the commercial and the political genius. The military genius has held a place for ages, but his specialty is losing standing as a social asset, and we can foresee a time when he must learn constructive rather than destructive methods of action in order to qualify for the "Hall of Fame."[13]

Only Men in Lists of Geniuses.—Genius along any line has for its topmost reaches the names of men only. Few women have even attained the secondary place of the talented. When we remember that higher education for women is a child of less than a hundred years' growth, and that all the higher walks of achievement in the intellectual, the political, the scientific, and the industrial field have been masculine monopolies in custom and even in law for ages after men had opportunity of specialized development and work, this is not a sure proof of the intellectual and vocational inferiority of women. Until women have had several centuries of equal education and freedom of activity with men no one can tell what they can do in any special line. It is therefore idle at this date for any one to argue either for or against the possibilities of a more balanced list of the sexes in those at the top of human achievement.