Euthenics, the science of controllable environment / A plea for better living conditions as a first step toward higher human efficiency

by Ellen H. Richards

Exhibits may often suggest for existing evils simple remedies never thought of before. They should never suggest the one idea without the other. Even though the remedy is not worked out, it should be called for. America’s inventive power may well be turned on its own social affairs as well as on adaptation of European machinery.

The man considered in these pages is the man in community environment, and the discussion is as to what controls this community life. It will be acknowledged by all thoughtful persons that the prime control lies in the purpose for which the community exists. If for selfish gain, then all is sacrificed to that end. Men and women become mere machines and children are only in the way until they, too, may be put into the service.

If it exists for mutual help and general advance in civilization, then the leaders in the community take into account the elements that contribute to the future as well as those for the immediate present.

In the confusion of ideas resulting from the rapid, almost cancerous growth of the modern community, made possible by mechanical invention, the people have lost the power of visualizing their conception of right and wrong, a power which made the Puritan such a force in early colonial times. Heaven and hell were very real to him and were powerful factors in influencing his daily life. The average man today has no such spur to good behavior. Perhaps the sword of Damocles must be visualized by such exhibits as the going out of an electric light every time a man dies, by the ghastly microbe in the moving picture, by the highly colored print or by a vivid reproduction of crowded quarters. The social worker has been doubtful of the real value of such exhibits, but such reminders have their place in a community accustomed to the advertising of less worthy subjects.

A decided recognition of the value of exhibits is found in the advertisement of a company: “We design and equip Exhibits on Tuberculosis, Milk, Civic Betterment, Dental Hygiene, Saner Fourth of July. Have you our catalogue?” Much of our educational work for the dissemination of useful knowledge would gain in power and directness from an adaptation of the methods of the man skilled in promoting commercial interests. He knows how to apply the right stimulus at the right time in order to arouse the desired interest.

In many ways the adult is but the child of a larger growth, who needs something concrete to make him understand. And so have grown up the great industrial fairs and exhibitions. One comes away from these wondering that so much, both good and bad, is being prepared for him, and stimulated, usually, to work out certain suggestions and better many of the present conditions. Both the manufacturer and the consumer have been helped.

Wherever it is possible, a working model illustrating the chief features to be explained should be installed. The expense of this kind of exhibit has in the past been prohibitive, and moreover the use of such “claptrap” has been frowned upon; but scientific knowledge is no longer to be held within the aristocratic circle of the university. It is to be brought within the reach of the man in the street, and to make up for the wasted years of seclusion experts now vie with each other in putting cause and effect not merely into words but into pictures, and even into motion pictures. The fly as a carrier of disease is now shown in all its busy and disgusting activity. The lesson of awakened attention by such means is being learned, and soon lessons in botany, in gardening, in housewifery, will be given through the eye, to be the better followed by the hand.

Of all means, that product of man’s ingenuity, the moving picture, is destined to play the greatest part in quick education. It is the quintessence of democracy.

The extension movement in education is an evidence of a new social ideal. It is a true expression of democracy that the university and school can be utilized by the busy working people. Museums that at one time were only for the educated who by previous training could understand them now assume as a privilege the educating of all the people. Schools of art and science, also, through lectures, bulletins, guides, and special exhibits, extend a generous welcome to the public.

The citizens ought to be a gladder, sadder people, stirred and delighted and grateful for much that the city affords; sad and shocked by some of the forbidding, existing conditions. That is the power of an exhibit, so to visualize a condition that the mind really conceives it, never again to recover from the shock, to be unmindful of such possibilities of degraded existence for human beings.