The same farmer will show you his stock—sheep, swine, fowls, cattle; point out their superiority and talk learnedly of the best methods of improvement. The same housewife will show you her fine needlework, her fine cooking, and discuss patterns and recipes with gusto. Both the farmer and his wife took prizes at the county fair—he for pigs and poultry, she for pies.
Now look at their children.
She gathers little Johnny into her motherly arms. "Johnny was always delicate!" she says tenderly. "He's a little backward because he's delicate. Mother's boy!" And she kisses his smooth head as he nestles up to her. "Adelaide had better go and lie down. Adelaide's not strong. They work her too hard in school."
Jim looks sturdy enough, and makes noise enough, but the expert perceives that Jimmy has adenoids, breathes through his mouth, is really undersized.
Here is the oldest boy, a tall, heavy fellow; but what a complexion!
"Quite natural for boys of that age; yes, he's real sensitive about it."
*
Well? They are "good children." When properly dressed, they compare favorably with other people's children.
None of them would take any prizes in an exhibition of Human Stock. There are no such prizes. As to the exhibition—that is continuous. We are so used to the exhibition, and to its pitiful average, that we have no ideals left.
Neither the farmer nor his wife ever thought of a Human Standard; whether they came up to it, or if their children did, or of how they might improve the breed.
We take humanity as we find it. We admire "beauty," or what we call beauty; but we don't care enough for it to try to increase it. We are concerned about our health after we lose it, but give small thought to lifting the average. Young men vie with one another in athletic sports, and have certain ideals, perhaps, of "military bearing," and the kind of chest and chin a man should have; but all their ideals put together do not make us as beautiful and strong as we have a right to be.