(i5piglit)i^_J 
 
 CDEmiGHT de; 
 
 p6sm 
 
 ;t 
 
'.,' ( <t 
 
 THE 
 
 TRAINING OF THE 
 HUMAN PLANT 
 
 BY 
 
 LUTHER BURBANK 
 
 
 vmf^ 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1907 
 
Afh II 190/ 
 
 6> <. . i. .»- B : .i f r I ' .ii. II , .., 
 
 
 Copyright, 1906, 1907, by 
 The Century Co. 
 
 Published April, 1907 
 
 THE DE VINNE P'tEFS 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO T!IE / 
 
 SIXTEEN MILLION ;'' 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN OF AMERICA 
 AND TO THE 
 
 UNTOLD MILLIONS 
 UNDER OTHER SKIES 
 
THE TRAINING OF THE 
 HUMAN PLANT 
 
THE TRAINING OF THE 
 HUMAN PLANT 
 
 THE MINGLING OF RACES 
 
 DURING the course of many years of 
 investigation into the plant life 
 of the world, creating new forms, modi- 
 fying old ones, adapting others to new 
 conditions, and blending still others, I 
 have constantly been impressed with 
 the similarity between the organization 
 and development of plant and human 
 life. While I have never lost sight of 
 the principle of the survival of the fit- 
 test and all that it implies as an expla- 
 
TRAINING OF' THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 nation of the development and progress 
 of plant life, I have come to find in the 
 crossing of species and in selection, 
 wisely directed, a great and powerful 
 instrmnent for the transformation of 
 the vegetable kingdom along lines that 
 lead constantly upward. The crossing 
 of species is to me paramount. Upon 
 it, wisely directed and accompanied by 
 a rigid selection of the best and as rigid 
 an exclusion of the poorest, rests the 
 hope of all progress. The mere cross- 
 ing of species, unaccompanied by selec- 
 tion, wise supervision, intelligent care, 
 and the utmost patience, is not likely to 
 result in marked good, and may result 
 in vast harm. Unorganized effort is 
 often most vicious in its tendencies. 
 
 Before passing to the consideration 
 of the adaptation of the principles of 
 4 
 
THE MINGLING OF RACES 
 
 plant culture and improvement in a 
 more or less modified form to the hu- 
 man being, let me lay emphasis on the 
 opportunity now presented in the 
 United States for observing and, if we 
 are wise, aiding in what I think it fair 
 to say is the grandest opportunity ever 
 presented of developing the finest race 
 the world has ever known out of the 
 vast mingling of races brought here by 
 immigration. 
 
 By statistical abstract on immigra- 
 tion, prepared by the Bureau of Statis- 
 tics of the Department of Commerce 
 and Labor in Washington, I find, that, 
 in the year 1904, 752,864 immigrants 
 came into the United States, assigned 
 to more than fifty distinct nationalities. 
 It will be worth while to look carefully 
 at this list. It shows how widely sepa- 
 5 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 rated geographically, as well as ethno- 
 logically, is the material from which we 
 are drawing in this colossal example of 
 the crossing of species: 
 
 Austria-Hungary, includ- 
 ing Bohemia, Hungary, 
 and other Austria save 
 
 Poland 117,156 
 
 Belgium 3,976 
 
 Denmark 8,525 
 
 France 9,406 
 
 Germany 46,380 
 
 Greece 11,343 
 
 Italy 193,296 
 
 Netherlands 4,916 
 
 Norway 23,808 
 
 Poland 6,715 
 
 Rumania 7,087 
 
 Russia 145,141 
 
 Spain 3,996 
 
 Sweden 27,763 
 
 Switzerland 5,023 
 
 Carried forward , . 614,531 
 6 
 
THE MINGLING OF RACES 
 
 Brought forward . . 614,531 
 
 * Turkey in Europe . . 5,669 
 
 England 38,620 
 
 Ireland 36,142 
 
 Scotland 11,092 
 
 Wales 1,730 
 
 Europe not specified . . 143 
 
 Total Europe . . 707,927 
 
 British North America . 2,837 
 
 Mexico 1,009 
 
 Central America ... 714 
 
 West Indies and MIguelon 10,193 
 
 South America . . . • 1,667 
 
 Total America . . . 16,420 
 
 China 4,309 
 
 Japan 14,264 
 
 Other Asia 7,613 
 
 Total Asia . . . 26,186 
 
 Total Oceania . . 1,555 
 
 Total Africa ... 686 
 
 All other countries . 90 
 
 Totallmmigrants . 752,864 
 * Includes Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro. 
 7 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 Study this list from any point of 
 view. Where has there been found a 
 broader opportunity for the working 
 out of these underlying principles? 
 Some of these immigrants will mate 
 with others of their own class, notably 
 the Jews, thus not markedly changing 
 the current ; many will unite with others 
 of allied speech; still others marry into 
 races wholly different from their own, 
 while a far smaller number will perhaps 
 find union with what we may call native 
 stock. 
 
 But wait until two decades have 
 passed, until there are children of age 
 to wed, and then see, under the changed 
 conditions, how widespread will be the 
 mingling. So from the first the for- 
 eign nations have been pouring into this 
 country and taking their part in this 
 vast blending. 
 
 8 
 
THE MINGLING OF RACES 
 
 Now, just as the plant breeder al- 
 ways notices sudden changes and 
 breaks, as well as many minor modifi- 
 cations, when he joins two or more 
 plants of diverse type from widely sep- 
 arated quarters of the globe, — some- 
 times merging an absolutely wild strain 
 with one that, long over-civilized, has 
 largely lost virilitj^ — and just as he 
 finds among the descendants a plant 
 which is likely to be stronger and better 
 than either ancestor, so may we notice 
 constant changes and breaks and modi- 
 fications going on about us in this vast 
 combination of races, and so may we 
 hope for a far stronger and better race 
 if right principles are followed, a mag- 
 nificent race, far superior to any pre- 
 ceding it. Look at the material on 
 which to draw! Here is the North, 
 powerful, virile, aggressive, blended 
 Q 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 with the luxurious, ease -loving, more 
 impetuous South. Again you have the 
 merging of a cold phlegmatic tempera- 
 ment with one mercurial and volatile. 
 Still again the union of great native 
 mental strength, developed or undevel- 
 oped, with bodily vigor, but with infer- 
 ior mind. See, too, what a vast num- 
 ber of environmental influences have 
 been at work in social relations, in cli- 
 mate, in physical surroundings. Along 
 with this we must observe the merging 
 of the vicious with the good, the good 
 with the good, the vicious with the 
 vicious. 
 
 10 
 
II 
 
 THE TEACHINGS OF NATURE 
 
 WE are more crossed than any 
 other nation in the history of 
 the world, and here we meet the same 
 results that are always seen in a much- 
 crossed race of plants: all the worst as 
 well as all the best qualities of each are 
 brought out in their fullest intensities. 
 Right here is where selective environ- 
 ment counts. When all the necessary 
 crossing has been done, then comes the 
 work of elimination, the work of refin- 
 ing, until we shall get an ultimate prod- 
 uct that should be the finest race ever 
 known. The best characteristics of the 
 11 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 many peoples that make up this nation 
 will show in the composite: the finished 
 product will be the race of the future. 
 
 In my work with plants and flowers I 
 mtroduce color here, shape there, size or 
 perfume, according to the product de- 
 sired. In such processes the teachings 
 of nature are followed. Its great forces 
 only are employed. All that has been 
 done for plants and flowers by crossing, 
 nature has already accomplished for the 
 American people. By the crossings of 
 types, strength has in one instance been 
 secured; in another, intellectuality; in 
 still another, moral force. Nature 
 alone has done this. The work of 
 man's head and hands has not yet been 
 summoned to prescribe for the develop- 
 ment of a race. So far a preconceived 
 and mapped-out crossing of bloods 
 12 
 
THE TEACHINGS OF NATURE 
 
 finds no place in the making of peoples 
 and nations. But when nature has al- 
 ready done its duty, and the crossing 
 leaves a product which in the rough dis- 
 plays the best human attributes, all that 
 is left to be done falls to selective en- 
 vironment. 
 
 But when two different plants have 
 been crossed, that is only the beginning. 
 It is only one step, however important ; 
 the great work lies beyond— the care, 
 the nurture, the influence of surround- 
 ings, selection, the separation of the best 
 from the poorest, all of which are em- 
 braced in the words I have used — selec- 
 tive environment. 
 
 How, then, shall the principles of 
 plant culture have any bearing upon the 
 development of the descendants of this 
 mighty mingling of races? 
 13 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 All animal life is sensitive to environ- 
 ment, but of all living things the child is 
 the most sensitive. Surroundings act 
 upon it as the outside world acts upon 
 the plate of the camera. Every possi- 
 ble influence will leave its impress upon 
 the child, and the traits which it in- 
 herited will be overcome to a certain 
 extent, in many cases being even more 
 apparent than heredity. The child is 
 like a cut diamond, its many facets re- 
 ceiving sharp, clear impressions not pos- 
 sible to a pebble, with this difference, 
 however, that the change wrought in the 
 child from the influences without be- 
 comes constitutional and ingrained. A 
 child absorbs environment. It is the 
 most susceptible thing in the world to 
 influence, and if that force be applied 
 rightly and constantly when the child is 
 14. 
 
THE TEACHINGS OF NATURE 
 
 in its most receptive condition, the effect 
 will be pronounced, immediate, and 
 permanent. 
 
 Where shall we begin? Just where 
 we begin with the plant, at the very be- 
 ginning. It has been said that the way 
 to reform a man is to begin with his 
 grandfather. But this is only a half- 
 truth; begin with his grandfather, but 
 begin with the grandfather when he is a 
 child. I find the following quoted 
 from the great kindergartner Froebel: 
 
 "The task of education is to assist natural 
 development toward its destined end. 
 
 "As the beginning gives a bias to the whole 
 after development, so the early beginnings of 
 education are of most importance." 
 
 While recognizing the good that has 
 been accomplished in the early kinder- 
 
 15 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 garten training of children, I must en- 
 ter a most earnest protest against 
 beginning education, as we commonly 
 use the word, at the kindergarten age. 
 No boy or girl should see the inside of a 
 school-house until at least ten years old. 
 I am speaking now of the boy or girl 
 who can be reared in the only place that 
 is truly fit to bring up a boy or a plant 
 — the country, the small town or the 
 country, the nearer to nature the better. 
 In the case of children born in the city 
 and compelled to live there, the tempta- 
 tions are so great, the life so artificial, 
 the atmosphere so like that of the hot- 
 house, that the child must be placed in 
 school earlier as a matter of safeguard- 
 ing. 
 
 But, some one asks. How can you ever 
 expect a boy to graduate from college 
 16 
 
THE TEACHINGS OF NATURE 
 
 or university if his education does not 
 begin until he is ten years of age ? He 
 will be far too old. 
 
 First I answer that the curse of mod- 
 ern child-life in America is over-educa- 
 tion. For the first ten years of this, the 
 most sensitive and delicate, the most pli- 
 able life in the world, I would prepare 
 it. The properly prepared child will 
 make such progress that the difference 
 in time of graduation is not likely to be 
 noticeable ; but, even if it should be a year 
 or two later, what real difference would 
 it make ? Do we expect a normal plant 
 to begin bearing fruit a few weeks after 
 it is born? It must have time, ample 
 time, to be prepared for the work before 
 it. Above all else, the child must be a 
 healthy animal. I do not work with 
 diseased plants. They do not cure 
 2 17 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 themselves of disease. They only spread 
 disease among their fellows and die be- 
 fore their time. 
 
 18 
 
Ill 
 
 DIFFERENTIATION IN TRAINING 
 
 I WISH to lay special stress upon the 
 absurdity, not to call it by a harsher 
 term, of running children through the 
 same mill in a lot, with absolutely no 
 real reference to their individuality. No 
 two children are alike. You cannot 
 expect them to develop alike. They 
 are different in temperament, in tastes, 
 in disposition, in capabilities, and yet 
 we take them in this precious early age, 
 when they ought to be living a life of 
 preparation near to the heart of nature, 
 and we stuff them, cram them, and 
 overwork them until their poor little 
 
 19 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 brains are crowded up to and beyond 
 the danger-line. The work of breaking 
 down the nervous systems of the chil- 
 dren of the United States is now well 
 under way. It is only when some one 
 breaks absolutely away from all prece- 
 dent and rule and carves out a new place 
 in the world that any substantial prog- 
 ress is ever made, and seldom is this 
 done by one whose individuality has 
 been stifled in the schools. So it is im- 
 perative that we consider individuality 
 in children in their training precisely as 
 we do in cultivating plants. Some chil- 
 dren, for example, are absolutely unfit 
 by nature and temperament for carry- 
 ing on certain studies. Take certain 
 young girls, for example, bright in 
 many ways, but unfitted by nature and 
 bent, at this early age at least, for the 
 20 
 
DIFFERENTIATION IN TRAINING 
 
 study of arithmetic. Very early,— be- 
 fore the age of ten, in fact, — they are 
 packed into a room along with from 
 thirty to fifty others and compelled to 
 study a branch which, at best, they should 
 not undertake until they have reached 
 maturer years. Can one by any possible 
 cultivation and selection and crossing 
 compel figs to grow on thistles or apples 
 on a banana-tree? I have made many 
 varied and strange plant combinations 
 in the hope of betterment and still am at 
 work upon others, but one cannot hope 
 to do the impossible. 
 
 THE FIRST TEN YEARS 
 
 Not only would I have the child reared 
 for the first ten years of its life in the 
 open, in close touch with nature, a bare- 
 
 21 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 foot boy with all that implies for physi- 
 cal stamina, but should have him reared 
 in love. But you say, How can you 
 expect all children to be reared in love? 
 By working with vast patience upon the 
 great body of the people, this great 
 mingling of races, to teach such of them 
 as do not love their children to love 
 them, to surround them with all the in- 
 fluences of love. This will not be uni- 
 versally accomplished to-day or to-mor- 
 row, and it may need centuries; but if 
 we are ever to advance and to have this 
 higher race, now is the time to begin the 
 work, this very day. It is the part of 
 every human being who comprehends 
 the importance of this to bend all his 
 energies toward the same end. Love 
 must be at the basis of all our work for 
 the race; not gush, not mere sentimen- 
 
 22 
 
DIFFERENTIATION IN TRAINING 
 
 tality, but abiding love, that which out- 
 lasts death. A man who hates plants, 
 or is neglectful of them, or who has 
 other interests beyond them, could no 
 more be a successful plant-cultivator 
 than he could turn back the tides of the 
 ocean with his finger-tips. The thing 
 is utterly impossible. You can never 
 bring up a child to its best estate with- 
 out love. 
 
 BE HONEST WITH THE CHILD 
 
 Then^ again, in the successful cultiva- 
 tion of plants there must be absolute 
 honesty. I mean this in no fanciful 
 way, but in the most practical and mat- 
 ter-of-fact fashion. You cannot at- 
 tempt to deceive nature or thwart her or 
 be dishonest with her in any particular 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 without her knowing it, without the 
 consequences coming back upon your 
 own head. Be honest with your child. 
 Do not give him a colt for his very own, 
 and then, when it is a three-year-old, sell 
 it and pocket the proceeds. It does not 
 provoke a tendency in children to fol- 
 low the Golden Rule, and seldom en- 
 hances their admiration and respect for 
 you. It is not sound business policy or 
 fair treatment; it is not honest. Bear 
 in mind that this child-life in these first 
 ten years is the most sensitive thing in 
 the world; never lose sight of that. 
 Children respond to ten thousand subtle 
 influences which would leave no more 
 impression upon a plant than they 
 would upon the sphinx. Vastly more 
 sensitive is it than the most sensitive 
 plant. Think of being dishonest with it ! 
 
 24 
 
DIFFERENTIATION IN TRAINING 
 
 Here let me say that the wave of 
 public dishonesty which seems to be 
 sweeping up over this country is chiefly 
 due to a lack of proper training— breed- 
 ing, if you will— in the formative years 
 of life. Be dishonest with a child, 
 whether it is your child or some other 
 person's child— dishonest in word or 
 look or deed, and you have started a 
 grafter. Grafting, or stealing,— for 
 that is the better word,— will never be 
 taken u]) by a man whose formative 
 years have been spent in an atmosphere 
 of absolute honesty. Nor can you be 
 dishonest with your child in thought. 
 The child reads your motives as no other 
 hiunan being reads them. He sees into 
 your own heart. The child is the 
 purest, truest thing in the world. It is 
 absolute truth : that 's why we love chil- 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 dren. They know instinctively whether 
 you are true or dishonest with them in 
 thought as well as in deed; you cannot 
 escape it. The child may not always 
 show its knowledge, but its judgment 
 of you is unerring. Its life is stainless, 
 open to receive all impressions, just as 
 is the life of the plant, only far more pli- 
 ant and responsive to influences, and 
 to influences to which no plant is capa- 
 ble of being responsive. Upon the child 
 before the age of ten we have an unpar- 
 alleled opportunity to work; for no- 
 where else is there material so plastic. 
 
 TRAITS IN PLANTS AND BOYS 
 
 Teach the child self-respect ; train it in 
 
 self-respect, just as you train a plant 
 
 into better ways. No self-respecting 
 
 26 
 
DIFFERENTIATION IN TRAINING 
 
 man was ever a grafter. Make the boy 
 understand what money means, too, 
 what its value and importance. Do not 
 deal it out to him lavishly, but teach 
 him to account for it. Instil better 
 things into him, just as a plant-breeder 
 puts better characteristics into a plant. 
 Above all, bear in mind repetition, repe- 
 tition, the use of an influence over and 
 over again. Keeping everlastingly at 
 it, this is what fixes traits in plants— the 
 constant repetition of an influence until 
 at last it is irrevocably fixed and will not 
 change. You cannot afford to get dis- 
 couraged. You are dealing with some- 
 thing far more precious than any plant 
 —the priceless soul of a child. 
 
 27 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 KEEP OUT FEAR 
 
 And, again, keep fear out that the child 
 may grow up to the end of the first ten- 
 year period and not learn what physical 
 fear is. Let him alone for that, if he is 
 a healthy normal child; he will find it 
 and profit by it. But keep out all fear 
 of the brutal things men have taught 
 children about the future. I believe 
 emphatically in religion. God made 
 religion, and man made theology, just 
 as God made the country, and man 
 made the town. I have the largest 
 sympathy for religion, and the largest 
 contempt I am capable of for a mislead- 
 ing theology. Do not feed children on 
 maudlin sentimentalism or dogmatic 
 religion; give them nature. Let their 
 28 
 
DIFFERENTIATION IN TRAINING 
 
 souls drink in all that is pure and sweet. 
 Rear them, if possible, amid pleasant 
 surroundings. If they come into the 
 world with souls groping in darkness, 
 let them see and feel the light. Do not 
 terrify them in early life with the fear 
 of an after-world. Never was a child 
 made more noble and good by the fear 
 of a hell. Let nature teach them the 
 lessons of good and proper living, com- 
 bined with an abundance of well-bal- 
 anced nourishment. Those children 
 will grow to be the best men and 
 women. Put the best in them by con- 
 tact with the best outside. They will 
 absorb it as a plant absorbs the sunshine 
 and the dew. 
 
 29 
 
IV 
 
 SUNSHINE, GOOD AIR AND 
 NOURISHING FOOD 
 
 WE cannot carry a great plant- 
 breeding test to a successful 
 culmination at the end of a long period 
 of years without three things, among 
 many others, that are absolutely essen- 
 tial — sunshine, good air, and nourish- 
 ing food. 
 
 SUNSHINE 
 
 Take the first, both in its literal and 
 figurative sense— sunshine. Surround 
 the children with every possible cheer. 
 
 30 
 
SUNSHINE 
 
 I do not mean to pamper them, to make 
 them weak; they need the winds, just as 
 the plants do, to strengthen them and 
 to make them self-reHant. If you want 
 your child to grow up into a sane, nor- 
 mal man, a good citizen, a support of 
 the state you must keep him in the sun- 
 shine. Keep him happy. You can- 
 not do this if you have a sour face your- 
 self. Smiles and laughter cost nothing. 
 Costly clothing, too fine to stand the 
 wear and tear of a tramp in the woods 
 or sliding down a haystack or a cellar 
 door, are a dead weight upon your child. 
 I believe in good clothes, good strong 
 serviceable clothes for young chil- 
 dren—clothes that fit and look well; for 
 they tend to mental strength, to self- 
 respect. But there are thousands of 
 parents who, not having studied the tre- 
 31 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 mendous problems of environmental 
 surroundings, and having no concep- 
 tion of the influence of these surround- 
 ings, fail to recognize the fact that 
 either an over-dressed or a poorly 
 dressed child is handicapped. 
 
 Do not be cross with the child; you 
 cannot afford it. If you are cultivat- 
 ing a plant, developing it into some- 
 thing finer and nobler, you must love it, 
 not hate it; be gentle with it, not abu- 
 sive; be firm, never harsh. I give the 
 plants upon which I am at work in a 
 test, whether a single one or a hundred 
 thousand, the best possible environ- 
 ment. So should it be with a child, if 
 you want to develop it in right ways. 
 Let the children have music, let them 
 have pictures, let them have laughter, 
 let them have a good time; not an idle 
 
 32 
 
SUNSHINE 
 
 time, but one full of cheerful occupa- 
 tion. Surround them with all the beau- 
 tiful things you can. Plants should be 
 given sun and air and the blue sky ; give 
 them to your boys and girls. I do not 
 mean for a day or a month, but for all 
 the years. We cannot treat a plant 
 tenderly one day and harshly the next; 
 they cannot stand it. Remember that 
 you are training not only for to-day, 
 but for all the future, for all posterity. 
 
 FRESH AIR 
 
 To develop indoors, under glass, a race 
 of men and women of the type that I 
 believe is coming out of all this marvel- 
 ous mingling of races in the United 
 States is immeasurably absurd. There 
 must be sunlight, but even more is 
 
 23 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 needed, fresh, pure air. The injury 
 wrought to-day to the race by keeping 
 too young children indoors at school is 
 beyond the power of any one to esti- 
 mate. The air they breathe even under 
 the best sanitary regulations is far too 
 impure for their lungs. Often it is pos- 
 itively poisonous— a slow poison which 
 never makes itself fully manifest until 
 the child is a wreck. Keep the child 
 outdoors and away from books and 
 study. Much you can teach him, much 
 he will teach himself all gently, without 
 knowing it, of nature and nature's God, 
 just as the child is taught to walk or run 
 or play; but education in the academic 
 sense shun as you would the plague. 
 And the atmosphere must be pure 
 around it in the other sense. It must 
 be free from every kind of indelicacy 
 
 34 
 
FRESH AIR 
 
 or coarseness. The most dangerous 
 man in the commmiity is the one who 
 would pollute the stream of a child's 
 life. Whoever was responsible for the 
 saying that "boys will be boys" and a 
 young man "must sow his wild oats" 
 was perhaps guilty of a crime. 
 
 NOURISHING FOOD 
 
 It is impossible to apply successfully 
 the principles of cultivation and selec- 
 tion of plants to human life if the hu- 
 man life does not, like the plant life, 
 have proper nourishment. First of all, 
 the child's digestion must be made 
 sound by sufficient, simple, well-bal- 
 anced food. But, you say, any one 
 should know this. True, and most peo- 
 ple do realize it in a certain sense; but 
 35 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 how many realize that upon the food the 
 child is fed in these first ten years 
 largely depends its moral future? I 
 once lived near a class of people who, 
 from religious belief, excluded all meat, 
 eggs, and milk from the dietary of their 
 children. They fed them vegetables 
 and the product of cereals. What re- 
 sult followed? The children were ane- 
 mic, unable to withstand disease, 
 quickly succumbed to illness. There 
 were no signs of vigor; they were al- 
 ways low in vitality. But that was not 
 all. They were frightfully depraved. 
 They were not properly fed; their ra- 
 tion was unbalanced.^ Nature re- 
 
 ^ The request has often come to me to state what I 
 thought a "well-balanced" food especially for chil- 
 dren. We all need food which supplies the elements of 
 growth and repair and all, both old and young, must also 
 have foods which yield warmth and energy. Nearly all 
 foods contain both these elements though in greatly 
 36 
 
NOURISHING FOOD 
 
 belled ; for she had not sufficient mater- 
 ial to perfect her higher development. 
 
 What we want in developing a new 
 plant, making it better in all ways than 
 any of its kind that have preceded it, is 
 
 rarying proportions and usually far from the right ones 
 for growth and health unless a variety of foods are eaten 
 it each meal. Growing children need a greater propor- 
 tion of body-building foods, such as lean meats, fish, 
 noilk, some vegetables and fruits. They are often fed 
 ^00 great a proportioti of sweet and starchy foods. A 
 certain proportion of these are absolutely necessary but 
 we all know the "starch babies" by their pale, fat, 
 flabby, characterless faces, lusterless eyes and general 
 lack of vitality. Less starchy foods and more fresh 
 meats with eggs, milk, some vegetables and fruits will 
 ^ive more vitality, a better growth, greater intelligence, 
 better health and a better constitution, notwithstanding 
 the belief of some of my vegetarian friends to the con- 
 trary. 
 
 Children mostly fed on sweet and farinaceous foods 
 ire also starved for the various salts and mineral ele- 
 ments. These must all be supplied especially ,to children 
 jlse they will certainly become victims of an unbal- 
 inced, unnatural, premature development and a short- 
 ening of life simply from starvation. Life, the builder, 
 must have the necessary materials or the structure must 
 be imperfect and incomplete. 
 
 L. B. 
 
 37 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 a splendid norm, not anything abnor- 
 mal. So we feed it from the soil, and 
 it feeds from the air by the aid of sun- 
 light and thus we make it a powerful 
 aid to man. It is dependent upon good 
 food. Upon good food for the child, 
 well-balanced food, depends good di- 
 gestion ; upon good digestion, with pure 
 air to keep the blood pure, depends the 
 nervous system. If you have the first 
 ten years of a boy's or a girl's life in 
 which to make them strong and sturdy 
 with normal nerves, splendid digestion, 
 and unimpaired lungs, you have a 
 healthy animal, ready for the heavier 
 burdens of study. Preserve beyond all 
 else as the priceless portion of a child 
 the integrity of the nervous system. 
 Upon this depends their success in life. 
 With the nervous system shattered, 
 
 38 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 
 
 what is life worth? Suppose you begin 
 the education, so-called, of your child 
 at, say, three or four, if he be unusually 
 bright , in the kindergarten. Keep 
 adding slowly and systematically, with 
 what I think the devil must enjoy as a 
 refined means of torment, to the bur- 
 den day by day. Keep on ''educating" 
 him until he enters the primary school 
 at five, and push him to the uttermost 
 until he is ten. You have now laid 
 broad and deep the foundation; out- 
 raged nature may be left to take care 
 of the rest. 
 
 The integrity of your child's nervous 
 system, no matter what any so-called 
 educator may say, is thus impaired; he 
 can never again be what he would have 
 been had you taken him as the plant- 
 cultivator takes a plant, and for these 
 39 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 first ten precious years of his life had 
 fitted him for the future. Nothing else 
 is doing so much to break down the ner- 
 vous systems of Americans, not even 
 the insane rushing of maturer years, as 
 this over-crowding and cramming of 
 child-life before the age of ten. And 
 the mad haste of maturer years is the 
 legitimate result of the earlier strain. 
 
 NEITHER PLANT NOR CHILD TO BE 
 OVERFED 
 
 Nor should the child, any more than the 
 plant, be overfed, but more especially 
 should not be given an unbalanced ra- 
 tion. What happens when we overfeed 
 a plant, especially an unbalanced ration? 
 Its root system, its leaf system, its 
 trunk, its whole body, is impaired. It 
 
 40 
 
OVERFEEDING 
 
 becomes engorged. Following this, 
 comes devitalization. It is open to at- 
 tacks of disease. It will easily be as- 
 sailed by fmigous diseases and insect 
 pests. It rapidly and abnormally 
 grows onward to its death. So with a 
 child you can easily over-feed it on an 
 unbalanced ration, and the result will be 
 as disastrous as in the case of the plant. 
 The effect of such an unbalanced ration 
 as that fed to the children in the com- 
 munity I have referred to was to 
 shorten life; they developed prema- 
 turely, and died early. 
 
 Again some one says. But how can 
 the very poor feed their children plenty 
 of nutritious food? 
 
 I answer that the nation must pro- 
 tect itself. I mean by this that it is im- 
 perative, in order that the nation may 
 
 41 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 rise to its full powers and accomplish its 
 destiny, that the people who comprise 
 this nation must be normal physically. 
 It is imperative, in order that the nation 
 be normal, that the plants of the nation 
 from which it derives its life and with- 
 out which the nation dies must be sound. 
 All hmnan life is absolutely dependent 
 upon plant life. If the plant life be in 
 any measure lowered through lack of 
 nourishment, with the inevitable lack of 
 ability to produce the best results, the 
 nation suffers. To the extent that any 
 portion of the people are phj^sically 
 mentally or morally unfit, to that ex- 
 tent the nation is weakened. 
 
 Do not misunderstand me: I am not 
 advocating paternalism in any sense; 
 far from it. But is not the human race 
 worth as much care as the orchards, the 
 
 42 
 
PROPER NOURISHMENT 
 
 farms, the cattle-ranges? I would so 
 work upon this great blending of races, 
 upon each individual factor in it, that 
 each factor should be called upon to do 
 its very best, be compelled to do its very 
 best, if it was shirking responsibility. 
 But in any great nation there must be a 
 large number who cannot do their best, 
 if I may use a contradictory term, who 
 do not seem able to rise to their oppor- 
 tunities and their possibilities. Already 
 you may see in our larger cities efforts 
 in a small way to help feed the very 
 poor. It can be done nationally as well 
 as municipally, and it can be done so 
 that no loss of self-respect will follow, 
 no encouragement and fostering of pov- 
 erty or laziness. 
 
 Then, too, there are the orphans and 
 the waifs; these must be taken into ac- 
 
 43 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 count. They must have wise, sane, 
 consistent state aid. I am opposed to 
 all sectarian aid. I would do away with 
 all asylums of all types for the indigent 
 under sectarian or private control. The 
 nation, or the commonwealth, should 
 take care of the unfortunlite. It must 
 do this in a broad and liberal and sane 
 manner, if we are ever to accomplish the 
 end sought, to make this nation rise to 
 its possibilities. Only through the na- 
 tion, or State, can this work be done. 
 It must be done for self -protection. 
 
DANGERS 
 
 IN the immediate future, possibly 
 within your Ufe and mine, unques- 
 tionably within the life of this genera- 
 tion, what have we most to fear in 
 America from this vast crossing of 
 races? Not in the vicious adults who 
 are now with us, for they can be con- 
 trolled by law and force, but in the chil- 
 dren of these adults, when they have 
 grown and been trained to responsible 
 age in vice and crime, lies the danger. 
 We must begin now, to-day, the work 
 of training these children as they come. 
 Grant that it were possible that every 
 
 45 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 boy and girl born in the United States 
 during the next thirty years should be 
 kept in an atmosphere of crime to the 
 age of ten. The result would be too 
 appalling to contemplate. As they 
 came to adult years, vice would be ram- 
 pant, crime would go unpunished, all 
 evil would thrive, the nation would be 
 destroyed. Now, to the extent that we 
 leave the children of the poor and these 
 other unfortunates,— waifs and found- 
 lings,— to themselves and their evil sur- 
 roundings, to that extent we breed peril 
 for ourselves. 
 
 The only way to obviate this is abso- 
 lutely to cut loose from all precedent 
 and begin systematic State and Na- 
 tional aid, not next year, or a decade 
 from now, but to-day. Begin training 
 these outcasts, begin the cultivation of 
 46 
 
DANGERS 
 
 them, if you will, much as we cultivate 
 the plants, in order that their lives may 
 be turned into right ways, in order that 
 the integrity of the state may be main- 
 tained. Rightly cultivated, these chil- 
 dren may be made a blessing to the 
 race ; trained in the wrong way, or neg- 
 lected entirely, they will become a curse 
 to the state. 
 
 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 Let us bring the application still nearer 
 home. 
 
 There is not a single desirable attri- 
 bute which, lacking in a plant, may not 
 be bred into it. Choose what improve- 
 ment you wish in a flower, a fruit, or a 
 tree, and by crossing, selection, cultiva- 
 tion, and persistence you can fix this de- 
 47 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 sirable trait irrevocably. Pick out any 
 trait you want in your child, granted 
 that he is a normal child, — I shall speak 
 of the abnormal later, — be it honesty, 
 fairness, purity, lovableness, industry, 
 thrift, what not. By surrounding this 
 child with sunshine from the sky and 
 your own heart, by giving the closest 
 communion with nature, by feeding 
 this child well-balanced, nutritious 
 food, by giving it all that is implied in 
 healthful environmental influences, and 
 by doing all in love, you can thus culti- 
 vate in the child and fix there for all its 
 life all of these traits. Naturally not al- 
 ways to the full in all cases at the begin- 
 ning of the work, for heredity will make 
 itself felt first, and, as in the plant un- 
 der improvement, there will be certain 
 strong tendencies to reversion to former 
 48 
 
DANGERS 
 
 ancestral traits; but, in the main, with 
 the normal child, you can give him all 
 these traits by patiently, persistently, 
 guiding him in these early formative 
 
 years. 
 
 And, on the other side, give him foul 
 air to breathe, keep him in a dusty fac- 
 tory or an unwholesome school-room or 
 a crowded tenement up under the hot 
 roof; keep him away from the sunshine, 
 take away from him music and laughter 
 and happy faces; cram his little brains 
 with so-called knowledge, all the more 
 deceptive and dangerous because made 
 so apparently adaptable to his young 
 mind; let him have vicious associates in 
 his hours out of school, and at the age 
 of ten you have fixed in him the oppo- 
 site traits. He is on his way to the gal- 
 lows. You have perhaps seen a prairie 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 fire sweep through the tall grass across 
 a plain. Nothing can stand before it, 
 it must burn itself out. That is what 
 happens when you let the weeds grow 
 up in a child's life, and then set fire to 
 them by wrong environment. 
 
 THE ABNORMAL 
 
 But, some one asks, What will you do 
 with those who are abnormal? First, I 
 must repeat that the end will not be 
 reached at a bound. It will take years, 
 centuries, perhaps, to erect on this great 
 foundation we now have in America the 
 structure which I believe is to be built. 
 So we must begin to-day in our own 
 commonwealth, in our own city or town, 
 in our own family, with ourselves. 
 Here appears a child plainly not nor- 
 
 50 
 
DANGERS 
 
 mal, what shall we do with him? Shall 
 we, as some have advocated, even from 
 Spartan days, hold that the weaklings 
 should be destroyed? No. In culti- 
 vating plant life, while we destroy much 
 that is unfit, we are constantly on the 
 lookout for what has been called the ab- 
 normal, that which springs apart in new 
 lines. How many plants are there in 
 the world to-day that were not in one 
 sense once abnormalities? N^o; it is the 
 influence of cultivation, of selection, of 
 surroundings, of environment, that 
 makes the change from the abnormal 
 to the normal. From the children we 
 are led to call abnormal may come, un- 
 der wise cultivation and training, splen- 
 did normal natures. A great force is 
 sometimes needed to change the aspect 
 of minerals and metals. Powerful 
 51 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 acids, great heat, electricity, mechani- 
 cal force, or some such influence, must 
 be brought to bear upon them. Less 
 potent influences will work a complete 
 change in plant-life. Mild heat, sun- 
 shine, the atmosphere, and greatly di- 
 luted chemicals, will all directly affect 
 the growth of the plant and the produc- 
 tion of fruits and flowers. And when 
 we come to animal life, especially in 
 man, we find that the force or influence 
 necessary to affect a transformation is 
 extremely slight. This is why environ- 
 ment plays such an important part in 
 the development of man. 
 
 In child-rearing, environment is 
 equally essential with heredity. Mind 
 you, I do not say that heredity is of no 
 consequence. It is the great factor, 
 and often makes environment almost 
 
 52 
 
DANGERS 
 
 powerless. When certain hereditary ten- 
 dencies are almost indelibly ingrained, 
 environment will have a hard battle to 
 effect a change in the child; but that a 
 change can be wrought by the sur- 
 roundings we all know. The particu- 
 lar subject may at first be stubborn 
 against these influences, but repeated 
 application of the same modifying 
 forces in succeeding generations will at 
 last accomplish the desired object in the 
 child as it does in the plant. 
 
 No one shall say what great results 
 for the good of the race may not be at- 
 tained in the cultivation of abnormal 
 children, transforming them into nor- 
 mal ones. 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 THE PHYSICALLY WEAK 
 
 So also of the physically weak. I have 
 a plant in which I see wonderful possi- 
 bilities, but it is weak. Simply because 
 it is weak do I become discouraged and 
 say it can never be made strong, that it 
 would better be destroyed ? Not at all ; 
 it may possess other qualities of superla- 
 tive value. Even if it never becomes 
 as robust as its fellows, it may have a 
 tremendous influence. Because a child 
 is a weakling, should it be put out of the 
 way? Such a principle is monstrous. 
 Look over the long line of the great 
 men of the world, those who have 
 changed history and made history, 
 those who have helped the race 
 upward, — poets, painters, statesmen, 
 
 54 
 
DANGERS 
 
 scientists, leaders of thought in every 
 department, — and you will find that 
 many of them have been phys- 
 ically weak. No, the theory of the an- 
 cients that the good of the state de- 
 manded the elimination of the physi- 
 cally weak was, perhaps, unwise. What 
 we should do is to strengthen the weak, 
 cultivate them as we cultivate plants, 
 build them up, make them the very best 
 they are capable of becoming. 
 
 THE MENTALLY DEFECTIVE 
 
 But with those who are mentally defec- 
 tive—ah, here is the hardest question of 
 all! — what shall be done with them? 
 Apparently fatally deficient, can they 
 ever be other than a burden? In the 
 case of plants in which all tendencies are 
 
 55 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 absolutely vicious there is only one 
 course — they must be destroyed. In 
 the case of human beings in whom the 
 light of reason does not burn, those 
 who, apparently, can never be other 
 than a burden, shall they be eliminated 
 from the race? Go to the mother of an 
 imbecile child and get your answer. 
 No; here the analogy must cease. I 
 shall not say that in the ideal state gen- 
 eral citizenship would not gain by the 
 absence of such classes, but where is the 
 man who would deal with such Spartan 
 rigor with the race? Besides all this, 
 in the light of the great progress now 
 being made in medical and surgical 
 skill, who shall say what now appar- 
 ently impossible cures may not be ef- 
 fected ? 
 
 But it is as clear as sunlight that here, 
 56 
 
DANGERS 
 
 as in the case of plants, constant culti- 
 vation and selection will do away with 
 all this, so that in the grander race of 
 the future these defectives will have be- 
 come permanently eliminated from the 
 race heredity. For these helpless un- 
 fortunates, as with those who are merely 
 unfortunate from environment, I 
 should enlist the best and broadest state 
 aid. 
 
 57 
 
VI 
 
 MARRIAGE OF THE PHYSICALLY UNFIT 
 
 IT would, if possible, be best abso- 
 lutely to prohibit in every State in 
 the Union the marriage of the physi- 
 cally, mentally and morally unfit. If we 
 take a plant which we recognize as poi- 
 sonous and cross it with another which is 
 not poisonous and thus make the whole- 
 some plant evil, so that it menaces all 
 who come in contact with it, this is crim- 
 inal enough. But suppose we blend to- 
 gether two poisonous plants and make 
 a third even more virulent, a vegetable 
 degenerate, and set their evil descend- 
 ants adrift to multiply over the earth, 
 
 58 
 
TEN GENERATIONS 
 
 as the application of the principles I 
 have been speaking of are concerned, 
 though not by any means removed from 
 the general influence? of the state. Let 
 them have, if you will, ideal conditions 
 for working out these principles, and 
 let them be solemnly bound to the de- 
 velopment of these principles — what 
 can be done? 
 
 In plant cultivation, under normal 
 conditions, from six to ten generations 
 are generally sufficient to fix the de- 
 scendants of the parent plants in their 
 new ways. Sufficient time in all cases 
 must elapse so that the descendants will 
 not revert to some former condition of 
 inefficiency. When once stability is se- 
 cured, usually, as indicated, in from six 
 to ten generations, the plant may then 
 be counted upon to go forward in its 
 61 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 new life as though the old lives of its 
 ancestors had never been. This, among 
 plants, will be by the end of from five 
 to ten generations, varying according 
 to the plant's character — its pliability 
 or stubbornness. I do not say that lack 
 of care and nourishment thereafter will 
 not have a demoralizing influence, for 
 no power can prevent a plant from be- 
 coming again part wild if left to itself 
 through many generations, but even 
 here it will probably become wild along 
 the lines of its new life, not by any 
 means necessarily along ancestral lines. 
 If, then, we could have these twelve 
 families under ideal conditions where 
 these principles could be carried out un- 
 swervingly, we could accomplish more 
 for the race in ten generations than can 
 now be accomplished in a hundred thou- 
 62 
 
TEN GENERATIONS 
 
 sand years. Ten generations of human 
 life should be ample to fix any desired 
 attribute. This is absolutely clear. 
 There is neither theory nor speculation. 
 Given the fact that the most sensitive 
 material in all the world upon which to 
 work is the nature of a little child, given 
 ideal conditions under which to work 
 upon this nature, and the end desired 
 will as certainly come as it comes in the 
 cultivation of the plant. There will be 
 this difference, however, that it will be 
 immeasurably easier to produce and fix 
 any desired traits in the child than in 
 the plant, though, of course, a plant 
 may be said to be a harp with a few 
 strings as compared with a child. 
 
 63 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 THE PERSONAL ELEMENT 
 
 But some one says, You fail to take 
 into account the personal element, the 
 sovereign will of the human being, its 
 power of determining for itself. 
 
 By no means; I give full weight to 
 this. But the most stubborn and wilful 
 nature in the world is not that of a 
 child. I have dealt with millions of 
 plants, have worked with them for 
 many years, have studied them with the 
 deepest interest from all sides of their 
 lives. The most stubborn living thing 
 in this world, the most difficult to 
 swerve, is a plant once fixed in certain 
 habits — habits which have been intensi- 
 fied and have been growing stronger 
 and stronger upon it by repetition 
 
 64 
 
PERSONAL ELEMENT 
 
 through thousands and thousands of 
 years. Remember that this plant has 
 preserved its individuahty all through 
 the ages ; perhaps it is one which can be 
 traced backward through eons of time 
 in the very rocks themselves, never hav- 
 ing varied to any great extent in all 
 these vast periods. Do you suppose, 
 after all these ages of repetition, the 
 plant does not become possessed of a 
 will, if you so choose to call it, of unpar- 
 alleled tenacity? Indeed, there are 
 plants, like certain of the palms, so per- 
 sistent that no human power has yet 
 been able to change them. The human 
 will is a weak thing beside the will of a 
 plant. But see how this whole plant's 
 lifelong stubbornness is broken simply 
 by blending a new life with it, making, 
 by crossing, a complete and powerful 
 5 65 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 change in its life. Then when the break 
 comes, fix it by these generations of pa- 
 tient supervision and selection, and the 
 new plant sets out upon its new way 
 never again to return to the old, its 
 tenacious will broken and changed at 
 last. 
 
 When it comes to so sensitive and pli- 
 able a thing as the nature of a child, the 
 problem becomes vastly easier. 
 
 66 
 
VII 
 
 HEREDITY— PREDESTINATION- 
 TRAINING 
 
 THERE is no such thing in the world, 
 there never has been such a thing, 
 as a predestined child— predestined for 
 heaven or hell. Men have taught such 
 things in the past, there may be now 
 those who account for certain manifes- 
 tations on this belief, just as there may- 
 be those who in the presence of some 
 hopelessly vicious man hold to the view, 
 whether they express it or not, of total 
 depravity. But even total depravity 
 never existed in a human being, never 
 can exist in one any more than it can ex- 
 67 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 ist in a plant. Heredity means much, 
 but what is heredity? Not some hide- 
 ous ancestral specter forever crossing 
 the path of a human being. Heredity 
 is simply the sum of all the effects of all 
 the environments of all past genera- 
 tions on the responsive, ever-moving 
 life forces. There is no doubt that if a 
 child with a vicious temper be placed in 
 an environment of peace and quiet the 
 temper will change. Put a boy born of 
 gentle white parents among Indians 
 and he will grow up like an Indian. Let 
 the child born of criminal parents have 
 a setting of morality, integrity, and 
 love, and the chances are that he will 
 not grow into a criminal, but into an 
 upright man. I do not say, of course, 
 that heredity will not sometimes assert 
 itself. When the criminal instinct 
 68 
 
HEREDITY 
 
 crops out in a person, it might appear 
 as if environment were leveled to the 
 ground; but in succeeding generations 
 the effect of constant higher environ- 
 ment will not fail to become fixed. 
 
 Apply to the descendants of these 
 twelve families throughout three hun- 
 dred years the principles I have set 
 forth, and the reformation and regener- 
 ation of the world, their particular 
 world, will have been effected. Apply 
 these principles now, to-day, not wait- 
 ing for the end of these three hundred 
 years, not waiting, indeed, for any mil- 
 lennium to come, but 7nahe the millen- 
 nium, and see what splendid results will 
 follow. Not the ample results of the 
 larger period, to be sure, for with the 
 human life, as with the plant life, it re- 
 quires these several generations to fix 
 69 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 new characteristics or to intensify old 
 ones. But narrow it still more, apply 
 these principles to a single family, — in- 
 deed, still closer, to a single child, your 
 child it may be,— and see what the re- 
 sults will be. 
 
 But remember that just as there 
 must be in plant cultivation great pa- 
 tience, unswerving devotion to the 
 truth, the highest motive, absolute hon- 
 esty, unchanging love, so must it be in 
 the cultivation of a child. If it be 
 worth while to spend ten years upon the 
 ennoblement of a plant, be it fruit, tree, 
 or flower, is it not worth while to spend 
 ten years upon a child in this precious 
 formative period, fitting it for the place 
 it is to occupy in the world? Is not a 
 child's life vastly more precious than the 
 life of a plant? Under the old order of 
 70 
 
TRAINING 
 
 things plants kept on in their course 
 largely uninfluenced in any new direc- 
 tion. The plant-breeder changes their 
 lives to make them better than they ever 
 were before. Here in America, in the 
 midst of this vast crossing of species, we 
 have an unparalleled opportunity to 
 work upon these sensitive human na- 
 tures. We may surround them with 
 right influences. We may steady them 
 in right ways of living. We may bring 
 to bear upon them, just as we do upon 
 plants, the influence of light and air, of 
 sunshine and abundant, well-balanced 
 food. We may give them music and 
 laughter. We may teach them as we 
 teach the plants to be sturdy and self- 
 reliant. We may be honest with them, 
 as we are obliged to be honest with 
 plants. We may break up this cruel 
 71 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 educational articulation which connects 
 the child in the kindergarten with the 
 graduate of the university while there 
 goes on from year to year an unin- 
 terrupted system of cramming, an 
 uninterrupted mental strain upon the 
 child, until the integrity of its nervous 
 system may be destroyed and its life 
 impaired. 
 
 I may only refer to that mysterious 
 prenatal period, and say that even here 
 we should begin our work, throwing 
 around the mothers of the race every 
 possible loving, helpful, and ennobling 
 influence ; for in the doubly sacred time 
 before the birth of a child lies, far more 
 than we can possibly know, the hope of 
 the future of this ideal race which is 
 coming upon this earth if we and our 
 descendants will it so to be. 
 72 
 
TRAINING 
 
 Man has by no means reached the ul- 
 timate. The fittest has not yet arrived. 
 In the process of elimination the weaker 
 must fail, but the battle has changed its 
 base from brute force to mental integ- 
 rity. We now have what are popularly 
 known as five senses, but there are men 
 of strong minds whose reasoning has 
 rarely been at fault and who are coldly 
 scientific in their methods, who attest to 
 the possibility of yet developing a sixth 
 sense. Who is he who can say man will 
 not develop new senses as evolution ad- 
 vances? Psj^chology is now studied in 
 most of the higher institutions of learn- 
 ing throughout the country, and that 
 study will lead to a greater knowledge 
 of these subjects. The man of the fu- 
 ture ages will prove a somewhat differ- 
 ent order of being from that of the pres- 
 73 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 ent. He may look upon us as we to- 
 day look upon our ancestors. 
 
 Statistics show many things to make 
 us pause, but, after all, the only right 
 and proper point of view is that of the 
 optimist. The time will come when in- 
 sanity will be reduced, suicides and 
 murders will be greatly diminished, and 
 man will become a being of fewer men- 
 tal troubles and bodily ills. Whenever 
 you have a nation in which there is no 
 variation, there is comparatively little 
 insanity or crime, or exalted morality 
 or genius. Here in America, where the 
 variation is greatest, statistics show a 
 greater percentage of all these varia- 
 tions. 
 
 As time goes on in its endless and 
 ceaseless course, environment must 
 crystallize the American nation; its 
 74 
 
TRAINING 
 
 varying elements will become unified, 
 and the weeding-out process will, by the 
 means indicated in this paper, by selec- 
 tion and environmental influences, leave 
 the finest human product ever known. 
 The transcendent qualities which are 
 placed in plants will have their analo- 
 gies in the noble composite, the Ameri- 
 can of the future. 
 
 75 
 
VIII 
 
 GROWTH 
 
 GROWTH is a vital process — an evo- 
 lution — a marshaling of vagrant 
 unorganized forces into definite forms 
 of beauty, harmony and utility. Growth 
 in some form is about all that we ever 
 take any interest in; it expresses about 
 everything of value to us. Growth in 
 its more simple or most marvelously 
 complicated forms is the architect of 
 beauty, the inspiration of poetry, the 
 builder and sustainer of life, for life it- 
 self is only growth, an ever-changing 
 movement toward some object or ideal. 
 
 Wherever life is found, there, also, is 
 76 
 
GROWTH 
 
 growth in some direction. The end of 
 growth is the beginning of decay. 
 
 Growth within, is health, content and 
 happiness, and growing things without 
 stimulate and enhance growth within. 
 Whose pulses are not hastened, and who 
 is not filled with joy when in Efarth's 
 long circling swing around our great 
 dynamo the Sun, the point is reached 
 where chilling, blistering frosts are ex- 
 changed for warmth and growth ! When 
 the flowers and grasses on the warm 
 hillsides gleefully hasten up through 
 the soft wet soil, or later when ferns, 
 meadow rues and trilliums thrilled with 
 awakened life, crack through and push up 
 the loose mellow earth in small mounds 
 — little volcanoes of growth; all these 
 variously organized life forces are ex- 
 pressing themselves each in its own 
 77 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 specific way. Each so-called species, 
 each individual has something within 
 itself which we call heredity — a general 
 tendency to reproduce itself in form 
 and habits somewhat definitely after its 
 own kind. 
 
 NEW SPECIES 
 
 Most of the ancient and even a large 
 part of modern students of plant and 
 animal life have held that their so-called 
 true species never varied to any great 
 extent, at least never varied from the 
 standard type sufficiently to form what 
 could scientifically be called a new spe- 
 cies. Under this view the word hered- 
 ity has had a very indefinite meaning 
 when used in conjunction with environ- 
 ment; and a never-ending uncertainty 
 78 
 
GROWTH 
 
 has always been apparent as to their rel- 
 ative power in molding individual life. 
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 
 
 When the great rivers of life, which we 
 now see, commenced on this planet they 
 did not at once leap into existence with 
 all their present complicated combina- 
 tions of forces and motions; all were 
 very insignificant; their slender courses, 
 though simple, were devious and uncer- 
 tain, at first lacking all the wonderfully 
 varied but slowly acquired adaptations 
 to environment that have come with the 
 ages; all had many obstacles to over- 
 come, many things to learn;— and for 
 long ages were able to respond only to 
 the more powerful or long-continued 
 action of external forces. Many of 
 79 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 these frail life streams in the long 
 race down the ages were snuffed out by 
 unfavorable surroundings, unfavorable 
 heredity, or the combination and inter- 
 action of both; others more successful 
 have lived to be our contemporaries and 
 to-day the process is still unchanged. 
 
 If a race has not acquired and stored 
 among its hereditary tendencies suffi- 
 cient perseverance and adaptability to 
 meet all the changes to which it must 
 always be subjected by its ever-chang- 
 ing environment, it will be left behind 
 and finally destroyed, outstripped by 
 races better equipped for the fray. 
 
 80 
 
IX 
 
 ENVIRONMENT THE ARCHITECT OF 
 HEREDITY 
 
 HEBEDiTY is not the dark specter 
 which some people have thought 
 — merciless and unchangeable, the em- 
 bodiment of Fate itself. This dark, 
 pessimistic belief which tinges even the 
 literature of to-day comes, no doubt, 
 from the general lack of knowledge of 
 the laws governing the interaction of 
 these two ever-present forces of hered- 
 ity and environment wherever there is 
 life. 
 
 My own studies have led me to be as- 
 sured that heredity is only the sum of 
 
 6 81 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 all past environment, in other words en- 
 vironment is the architect of heredity; 
 and I am assm'ed of another fact: ac- 
 quired characters are transmitted and — 
 even further — that all characters which 
 are transmitted have been acquired, 
 not necessarily at once in a dy- 
 namic or visible form, but as an increas- 
 ing latent force ready to appear as a 
 tangible character when by long-contin- 
 ued natural or artificial repetition any 
 specific tendency has become inherent, 
 inbred, or "fixed," as we call it. 
 
 We may compare this sum of the life 
 forces, which we call heredity, to the 
 character of a sensitive plate in the cam- 
 era. Outside pictures impress them- 
 selves more or less distinctly on the sen- 
 sitive plate according to their position, 
 intensity, and the number of times the 
 82 
 
ENVIRONMENT 
 
 plate has been exposed to the objects 
 (environments) in the same relative po- 
 sition; all impressions are recorded. 
 Old ones fade from immediate con- 
 sciousness, but each has written a per- 
 manent record. Stored within heredity- 
 are all joys, sorrows, loves, hates, music, 
 art, temples, palaces, pyramids, hovels, 
 kings, queens, paupers, bards, proph- 
 ets and philosophers, oceans, caves, 
 volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, wars, tri- 
 umphs, defeats, reverence, courage, wis- 
 dom, virtue, love and beauty, time, 
 space, and all the mysteries of the uni- 
 verse. The appropriate environments 
 will bring out and intensify all these 
 general human hereditary experiences 
 and quicken them again into life and 
 action, thus modifying for good or evil 
 character — heredity — destiny. 
 83 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 REPETITION 
 
 Repetition is the best means of im- 
 pressing any one point on the human 
 understanding; it is also the means 
 which we employ to train animals to do 
 as we wish, and by just the same pro- 
 cess we impress plant life. By repeti- 
 tion we fix any tendency, and the more 
 times any unusual environment is re- 
 peated the more indelibly will the re- 
 sultant tendencies be fixed in plant, ani- 
 mal, or man, until, if repeated often 
 enough in any certain direction, the 
 habits become so fixed and inlierent in 
 heredity that it will require many repe- 
 titions of an opposite nature to efface 
 them. 
 
 84! 
 
ENVIRONMENT 
 APPLICATION TO CHILD LIFE 
 
 What possibilities this view opens up 
 in the culture and development of the 
 most sensitive and most precious of all 
 lives which ever come under our care 
 and culture— child life! 
 
 Can we hope for normal, healthy, 
 happy children if they are constantly in 
 ugly environment? Are we not rea- 
 sonably sure that these conditions will 
 almost swamp a well-balanced normal 
 heredity and utterly overthrow and de- 
 stroy a weak though otherwise good 
 one? 
 
 We are learning that child life is far 
 more sensitive to impressions of any 
 kind than we had ever before realized, 
 and it is certain that this wonderful sen- 
 sitiveness and ready adaptability has 
 
 85 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 not as yet by any means been put to its 
 best possible use in child culture — either 
 in the home or the school— and though 
 all must admire our great educational 
 system, yet no well-informed person 
 need be told that it is not perfect. 
 
 86 
 
X 
 
 CHARACTER 
 
 WE are a garrulous people and too 
 often forget, or do not know, 
 that the heart as well as the head should 
 receive its full share of culture. Much 
 of our education has been that of the 
 parrot; children's minds are too often 
 crowded with rules and words. Edu- 
 cation of the intellect has its place, but 
 is injurious, unnatural, and unbalanced 
 unless in addition to cultivating the 
 memory and reason we educate the 
 heart also in the truest sense. A well- 
 balanced character should always be 
 the object and aim of all education. 
 87 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 A perfect system of education can 
 never be attained because education 
 is preparing one for the environment 
 expected, and conditions change with 
 time and place. There is too much 
 striving to be consistent rather than 
 trying to be right. We must learn 
 that what we call character is heredity 
 and environment in combination, and 
 heredity being only stored environment 
 our duty and our privilege is to make 
 the stored environment of the best 
 quality ; in this way character is not only 
 improved in the individual but the de- 
 sired qualities are added to heredity to 
 have their influence in guiding the 
 slightly but surely changed heredities of 
 succeeding generations. 
 
 88 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 SUCCESS 
 
 Cold mathematical intellect unaccom- 
 panied by a heart for the philosophic, 
 idealistic, and poetic side of nature 
 is like a locomotive well made but of 
 no practical value without fire and 
 steam; a good knowledge of language, 
 history, geography, mathematics, chem- 
 istry, botany, astronomy, geology, etc., 
 is of some importance, but far more so 
 is the knowledge that all true success in 
 life depends on integrity; that health, 
 peace, happiness, and content, all come 
 with heartily accepting and daily living 
 by the "Golden Rule"; that dollars, 
 though of great importance and value, 
 do not necessarily make one wealthy; 
 that a loving devotion to truth is a nor- 
 89 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 mal indication of physical and mental 
 health; that hypocrisy and deceit are 
 only forms of debility, mental imbecil- 
 ity and bodily disease, and that the 
 knowledge and ability to perform use- 
 ful, honest labor of any kind is of infin- 
 itely more importance and value than 
 all the so-called "culture" of the schools, 
 which too often turn out nervous pedan- 
 tic victims of unbalanced education with 
 plenty of words but with no intuitive 
 ability to grasp, digest, assimilate and 
 make use of the environment which they 
 are compelled each day to meet and to 
 conquer or be conquered. 
 
 Any form of education which leaves 
 one less able to meet every-day emer- 
 gencies and occurrences is unbalanced 
 and vicious, and will lead any people 
 to destruction. 
 
 90 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 Every child should have mud pies, 
 grasshoppers, water-bugs, tadpoles, 
 frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild 
 strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to 
 climb, brooks to wade in, water-lilies, 
 woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, var- 
 ious animals to pet, hay-fields, pine- 
 cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, 
 huckleberries and hornets; and any 
 child who has been deprived of these has 
 been deprived of the best part of his ed- 
 ucation. 
 
 By being well acquainted with all 
 these they come into most intimate har- 
 mony with nature, whose lessons are, of 
 course, natural and wholesome. 
 
 A fragrant beehive or a plump, 
 
 healthy hornet's nest in good running 
 
 order often become object lessons of 
 
 some importance. The inliabitants can 
 
 91 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 give the child pointed lessons in punc- 
 tuation as well as caution and some of 
 the limitations as well as the grand pos- 
 sibilities of life ; and by even a brief ex- 
 perience with a good patch of health)'' 
 nettles, the same lesson will be still fur- 
 ther impressed upon them. And thus 
 by each new experience with homely 
 natural objects the child learns self-re- 
 spect and also to respect the objects and 
 forces which must be met. 
 
 92 
 
XI 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 
 
 'TT'NOWLEDGE is Power," but it re- 
 XjL quires to be combined with wis- 
 dom to become useful. The funda- 
 mental principles of education should 
 be the subject of earnest scientific inves- 
 tigation, but this investigation should 
 be broad, including not only the theat- 
 rical, wordy, memorizing, compiling 
 methods, but should also include all the 
 causes which tend to produce men and 
 women with sane well-balanced char- 
 acters. 
 
 We must learn that any person who 
 will not accept what he knows to be 
 
 93 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 truth, for the very love of truth alone, 
 is very definitely undermining his men- 
 tal integrity. It will be observed that 
 the mind of such a person gradually 
 stops growing, for, being constantly 
 hedged in and cropped here and there, 
 it soon learns to respect artificial fences 
 more than freedom for growth. You 
 have not been a very close observer of 
 such men if you have not seen them 
 shrivel, become commonplace, mean, 
 without influence, without friends and 
 the enthusiasm of youth and growth, 
 like a tree covered with fungus, the fo- 
 liage diseased, and the life gone out of 
 the heart with dry rot and indelibly 
 marked for destruction — dead, but not 
 yet handed over to the undertaker. 
 
 The man or the woman who moves the 
 earth, who is master rather than the 
 
 94 
 
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 
 
 victim of fate, has strong feelings well 
 in hand— a vigilant engineer at the 
 throttle. 
 
 Education which makes us lazier and 
 more helpless is of no use. Leaders use 
 the power within ; it should give the best 
 organized thought and experience of 
 men through all the ages of the past. 
 By it we should learn that it is not nec- 
 essary to be selfish in order to succeed. 
 If you happen to get a new idea don't 
 build a barbed wire fence around it and 
 label it yours. By giving your best 
 thoughts freely others will come to you 
 so freely that you will soon never think 
 of fencing them in. Thoughts refuse to 
 climb barbed wire fences to reach any- 
 body. 
 
 By placing ourselves in harmony and 
 cooperation with the main high poten- 
 95 
 
TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 tial line of human progress and welfare 
 we receive the benefit of strong mag- 
 netic induction currents. But by plac- 
 ing our life energies at right angles to 
 it we soon find ourselves on a low-feed 
 induction current, thus losing the help 
 and support which should be ours. 
 
 Straightforward honesty always pays 
 better dividends than zigzag policy. 
 It gives one individuality, self-respect, 
 and power to take the initiative, sav- 
 ing all the trouble of constant tacking 
 to catch the popular breeze. Each hu- 
 man being is like a steamship, endowed 
 with a tremendous power. The fires of 
 life develop a pressure of steam which, 
 well disciplined, leads to happiness for 
 ourselves and others; or it may lead 
 only to pain and destruction. 
 
 To guide these energies is the work 
 96 
 
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 
 
 of true education. Education of rules 
 and words only for polish and public 
 opinion is of the past. The education 
 of the present and future is to guide 
 these energies through wind and wave 
 straight to the port desired. Educa- 
 tion gives no one any new force. It 
 can only discipline nature's energies to 
 develop in natural and useful directions 
 so that the voyage of life may be a use- 
 ful and happy one — so that life may not 
 be blasted or completely cut off before 
 thought and experience have ripened 
 into useful fruit. 
 
 When the love of truth for truth's 
 sake — this poetic idealism, this intui- 
 tive perception, this growth from 
 within — has been awakened and culti- 
 vated, thoughts live and are transmitted 
 into endless forms of beauty and utility ; 
 97 
 
TRAINING PF THE HUMAN PLANT 
 
 but to receive this new growth we must 
 cultivate a sturdy self-respect, we must 
 break away from the mere petrified 
 word-pictures of others and cultivate 
 the "still small voice" within by which 
 we become strong in individual thought 
 and quick in action, not cropped, 
 hedged and distorted by outward, triv- 
 ial forms, fads and fancies. Every 
 great man or woman is at heart a poet, 
 and all must listen long to the harmonies 
 of Nature before they can make transla- 
 tions from her infinite resources through 
 their own ideals into creations of beauty 
 in words, forms, colors, or sounds. 
 Mathematical details are invaluable, the 
 compilation method is beyond re- 
 proach; intellectually we may know 
 many things, but they will never be of 
 any great value toward a normal 
 98 
 
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 
 
 growth unless there is an inward awak- 
 ening, an intuitive grasp, an impelhng 
 personal force which digests, assimilates 
 and individualizes. This intuitive con- 
 sciousness, combined with extensive 
 practical knowledge and "horse sense," 
 has always been the motive power of all 
 those who have for all time left the hu- 
 man race rich with legacies of useful 
 thought, with ripening harvests of free- 
 dom and with ever-increasing stores of 
 wisdom and happiness. We are now 
 standing upon the threshold of new 
 methods and new discoveries which shall 
 give us imperial dominion. 
 
 99