55 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
ible to consumption that the mortality will always tend to keep pace with the improvements. In the Pacific islands a very sus- ceptible race dwelling under ideal hygienic conditions undergoes extinction when consumption is introduced. Probably, therefore, our only hope of permanently reducing the mortality and misery caused by intemperance and consumption lies in selective breeding. As regards mind also, we have our choice between selective breeding and an improved environment ; that it to say, improved mental training, improved education. No one who contrasts the ancient Greek type of mind with the modern Thibetan type, and realizes that the difference resulted mainly from mere education ; who knows that the cannibal Maoris in a single generation have acquired all the characteristics of a civilized race except the power to resist disease; who is aware that during one year a school of aborigines produced better results than any school of white chil- dren in Australia; who thinks of what Japan has done within thirty years ; and who perceives how vile is the present system of education in this country, especially the education of the upper classes, will doubt that it is in our power to affect an immense and immediate improvement in mind. There is no reason why we should not rival, and even surpass, the Greeks. We have their example, a knowledge of their methods. We could stand on their shoulders, and possess a vastly larger fund of positive knowledge. The subject of education is far too large to enter on here, but we may note that, when we compare Greek and modern methods of instruction, one fundamental difference becomes manifest. The Greeks taught their youths how to think; we teach them what to think. The Greeks devoted their main attention to developing the understanding; we devote ours to loading the memory. Whatever the Greek boy learned linked up with the interests of adult life, and <was therefore remembered. Much that the English boy learns has no bearing on the interests of adult life, and therefore is forgotten. In brief, the Greek youths were educated in a real sense; the English youths, in a sense, are merely crammed. Dogmatic education is, of course, the merest cram, with the added element that care is designedly taken to stiffle independent thought. Classical education in which
